NEW YORK – Donald Trump's historic hush money trial began Monday with the arduous technique of choosing a jury to listen to the case through which the previous president is charged with falsifying business records to suppress stories about his sex life.
The day ended with none jurors being chosen. The selection process was scheduled to proceed on Tuesday.
The first criminal trial of a former US president began as Trump battled to retake the White House, delivering a remarkable split-screen spectacle through which the presumptive Republican nominee spends his days as a criminal defense lawyer while campaigning for office. He has mixed those roles over the past 12 months, presenting himself to his supporters on the campaign trail and on social media because the goal of politically motivated prosecutions designed to derail his candidacy.
“It's a fraud. It's a political witch hunt. It goes on forever,” Trump said after leaving the courtroom, where he sat on the defense table along with his lawyers.
After a norm-breaking presidency marred by years of investigations, the trial amounts to a reckoning for Trump, who faces 4 indictments accusing him of crimes starting from hoarding classified documents to conspiring to overturn an election . But the political risks are less clear because a conviction wouldn’t prevent him from becoming president and since the allegations on this case return years and are considered less serious than the conduct underlying the three other charges.
The day began with preliminary discussions – including on a possible tremendous for Trump – before moving on to jury selection within the afternoon, where the parties will resolve which ones must be chosen to make your mind up the legal fate of the previous and possibly future American to appoint presidents.
After the primary members of the jury, 96 in all, were called into the courtroom, Trump craned his neck to look back at them and whispered something to his lawyer as they entered the box.
“You are about to attend a jury trial. The jury trial system is one of the cornerstones of our justice system,” Judge Juan Merchan told jurors. “The name of this case is People of the State of New York vs. Donald Trump.”
Trump's prominence would make choosing 12 jurors and 6 alternates a near Herculean task in any 12 months, but it would be particularly difficult now, with this being a closely contested presidential election within the heavily Democratic city where Trump grew up and lives He achieved celebrity status many years before he won the White House.
Underscoring the problem, only a few third of the 96 people on the primary panel of potential jurors remained after the judge excused some members. More than half of the group were excused after telling the judge they may not be fair and impartial. At least nine others were excused after raising their hands when Merchan asked if they may not serve for other reasons.
One juror was excused after saying she had strong opinions about Trump. At the start of the questionnaire, the lady, a resident of Harlem, indicated that she may very well be neutral in deciding the case. But when asked if she had strong opinions concerning the former president, the lady replied matter-of-factly: “Yes.”
When Merchan asked her to repeat the reply, she replied, “Yes, I said yes.” She was fired.
Merchan has written that the secret’s “whether the prospective juror can assure us that he is putting aside any personal feelings or biases and making a decision based on the evidence and the law.”
No matter the final result, Trump is decided to benefit from the proceedings by moving the case and its charges elsewhere, as a wide-ranging “weapon of law enforcement” by Democratic prosecutors and officials. He claims they’re staging bogus allegations in hopes of hindering his presidential bid.
He has been insulting judges and prosecutors for years, a pattern of attacks that continued when he appeared in court Monday after calling the case an “attack on America.”
“This is political persecution. “This is persecution like never before,” he said.
Earlier Monday, the judge rejected a defense request to withdraw from the proceedings after Trump's lawyers claimed he had a conflict of interest. He also said prosecutors couldn’t show jurors the 2005 “Access Hollywood” recording through which Trump was filmed talking about sexually grabbing women without their permission. Prosecutors, nevertheless, are allowed to interview witnesses concerning the recording, which was released in the ultimate weeks of the 2016 election campaign.
Prosecutors from the Manhattan District Attorney's Office also asked Merchan to tremendous Trump $3,000 over social media posts that allegedly violated a judge's order to attack witnesses. Last week, he used his Truth Social platform to call his former lawyer Michael Cohen and adult film actor Stormy Daniels “two evil guys who have cost our country dearly with their lies and misrepresentations!”
Trump's lawyer Todd Blanche claimed that Trump was merely reacting to the witnesses' statements.
“It's not that President Trump is targeting individuals. He is responding to the salacious, repeatedly violent attacks of these witnesses,” Blanche said.
Merchan is scheduling a hearing on the motion for next week.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records. Prosecutors allege the alleged fraud was a part of an try to prevent salacious — and, Trump says, false — stories about his sex life from coming to light during his 2016 campaign.
The focus of the indictment is payments from Trump's company to Cohen amounting to $130,000. He paid that quantity on Trump's behalf to forestall Daniels from going public a month before the election together with her claims a few sexual encounter with the married mogul a decade earlier.
Prosecutors allege the payments to Cohen were falsely recorded as legal fees to disguise their true purpose. Trump's lawyers say the payouts were actually legal fees and never a cover-up.
After many years of filing and pursuing lawsuits, the businessman-turned-politician now faces a trial that might lead to as much as 4 years in prison if convicted, although a non-prison sentence can also be possible.
Trump's lawyers lost an try to dismiss the hush money lawsuit and have since repeatedly tried to delay the lawsuit, resulting in a flurry of last-minute appeals court hearings last week.
Among other things, Trump's lawyers claim that the jury in overwhelmingly Democratic Manhattan was tainted by negative publicity about Trump and that the case must be moved elsewhere.
An appeals judge rejected an emergency request to postpone the trial, while the request to alter venue goes to a gaggle of appeals judges who will consider it in the approaching weeks.
Manhattan prosecutors have countered that much of the publicity was on account of Trump's own comments and that the questioning will determine whether future jurors can put aside any biases. There isn’t any reason, prosecutors said, to imagine that there aren't twelve fair and impartial people amongst Manhattan's roughly 1.4 million adult residents.
They can be asked questions on hobbies and news habits, whether or not they have strong beliefs about Trump that will prevent them from being impartial, and whether or not they attend Trump or anti-Trump rallies, amongst other questions.
Based on the answers, lawyers can ask a judge to eliminate people “for cause” in the event that they meet certain incapacity criteria or can’t be impartial. Attorneys may use “peremptory challenges” to exclude 10 potential jurors and two potential alternates without providing reasons.
Tucker reported from Washington. Associated Press author Jake Offenhartz in New York contributed to this report.
image credit : www.mercurynews.com