(NewsInsights.org) – Stormy Daniels testified in the former President Donald Trump’s New York criminal business record tampering trial on May 7. Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger, one of the lawyers working for the New York District Attorney’s (NYDA) office, led the adult film actress’s questioning. As Trump’s defense team moved for a mistrial based on Daniels’ steamy testimony, some GOP operatives questioned Hoffinger’s ethics and motives as a prosecutor in the case after records of her past political donations came to light.
In 2020, before she worked for Alvin Bragg’s NYDA, Hoffinger donated $500 to then-candidate Joe Biden’s campaign for president. She also donated $815 to Act Blue, a political action committee (PAC) and fundraising platform that serves Democratic candidates. That same year, Hoffinger also donated $250 to former Democratic Maine Rep. Sara Gideon’s campaign, $500 to former Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY), and $300 to Dr. Al Gross’s campaign for the Senate seat to represent Alaska as a Democrat.
Hoffinger spent $750 supporting two Democratic Congressional candidates in 2018 and $625 toward donations for Democratic causes in 2019. Hoffinger joined the NYDA’s office in 2022. FEC records show she has not made any political donations since working for Bragg’s office.
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) pointed out that both Hoffinger and Judge Juan Merchan, presiding over the former president’s trial, had donated to Biden’s 2020 election campaign. She told Fox News Digital that Trump’s Democratic opponents “resorted to a desperate lawfare campaign” to save Biden’s presidency and defeat Trump because they couldn’t win at the polls. She called the New York criminal trial “Joe Biden’s witch hunt against President Donald Trump” and argued that it constituted “blatant election interference.”
Her talking points mirrored those made by the former president before Judge Merchan issued an order restricting extrajudicial statements regarding the case, court staff or their families, or witnesses.
Notably, a 1976 Supreme Court case, Buckley v Valeo, and a subsequent 2010 SCOTUS finding in Citizens United v FEC ruled the First Amendment’s freedom of speech clause also protects an individual’s independent political campaign donations as a political expression. No ethics rules prohibit court staff from donating to the political candidates and causes of their choice.
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