It isn’t that it affects the trial per se, but it looks like corruption, right?
I use my government position to hire my private practice lover for a high profile case, and then they treat me to several expensive vacations?
It’s not that it points to something fishy with the case directly, but when the DA is involved in obvious corruption, I can see bringing it up if your only defense is “this trial is part of a corrupt bid to keep me off the ballot.”
It’s not, but holy cow does it add fuel to that fire if you are in fact engaged in obvious corruption elsewhere.