Judge overseeing Trump's hush money case declines to recuse himself

• This latest legal setback took place as a possible fourth indictment against him looms in Georgia over his efforts to overturn the state's 2020 election results.

Catch up quick: A Manhattan grand jury indicted Trump in March on 34 counts of falsifying business records as part of a case brought by the Manhattan district attorney's office.

• Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges in April.
• Trump's lawyers in May demanded that the presiding judge in the case, acting New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, recuse himself in part because he made minor donations to Democrats in 2020, including $15 to the Biden-Harris campaign.
• They alleged the judge was also biased because he sought the cooperation of Trump's chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, in a previous case involving the Trump Organization.
• They said Merchan should not preside since his daughter, who heads a marketing agency that works with Democratic candidates, stood to financially benefit from his decisions.

Driving the news: Merchan rejected those accusations in a filing dated Aug. 11, according to the Times.

• For the donations and his daughter's marketing agency, Merchan relied on guidance from a New York advisory committee on judicial ethics, which concluded that his impartiality could not "reasonably be questioned" from donations made more than two years ago or his daughter's position.
• The judge said the allegations pertaining to Weisselberg, who was sentenced to five months in prison in January for a tax fraud scheme at the Trump Organization, were "inaccurate."

What to watch: The Manhattan case is set to go to trial in March 2024.

Go deeper: Trump's courtroom calendar clashes with 2024 campaign