NEW YORK >> Former President Donald Trump is urging the judge who oversaw his Manhattan criminal trial to step aside, claiming in a legal filing that the judge has indirect ties to Vice President Kamala Harris and therefore an “actual conflict and appearances of impropriety.”

In a letter to the judge released on Thursday — two months after Trump was convicted of falsifying documents to hide a sex scandal — Trump’s lawyers said that the judge’s daughter “has a long-standing relationship with Harris,” who is the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and Trump’s election opponent. Trump’s legal team cited the daughter’s “work for political campaigns” as a Democratic consultant.

The letter is the former president’s latest long shot bid to oust the judge, Juan M. Merchan, from the case. The judge, a former Republican now known as a moderate Democrat, refused Trump’s request last year to step aside.

— New York Times