7 jurors chosen for criminal trial
NEW YORK — The first seven jurors for Donald Trump’s hush money trial were seated Tuesday after lawyers grilled the jury pool about their social media posts, political views and personal lives to decide who can sit in fair judgment of the former president.
The panelists who were selected are an information technology worker, an English teacher, an oncology nurse, a sales professional, a software engineer and two lawyers.
Eleven more people still must be sworn in before opening statements begin as early as next week in the first criminal trial of a former commander in chief. It’s a moment of reckoning for Mr. Trump, who has tried to put off his prosecutions until after the November election and casts himself as the victim of a politically motivated justice system.
The trial puts Mr. Trump’s legal problems at the center of his closely contested race against President Joe Biden. It’s the first of Mr. Trump’s four criminal cases to reach trial, and it may be the only one to return a verdict before voters decide whether to elect the presumptive GOP presidential nominee.
The methodical process unfolding in the Manhattan courtroom highlights the challenge of finding people who can fairly judge the polarizing defendant in the city where he built his real estate empire before being elected president in 2016. Even so, jury selection moved more quickly than expected Tuesday afternoon. It was set to resume Thursday.
On his way out of the courthouse, Mr. Trump stopped in the hallway to rail against the case to reporters, accusing the judge of “rushing” the trial.
“We are going to continue our fight against this judge,” said Mr. Trump, who pushed unsuccessfully to have the judge removed from the case.
Over two days, dozens of potential jurors have been excused after saying they could not be impartial or because they had other commitments. Mr. Trump’s lawyers challenged a handful of people over social media posts, and one person was dismissed over a 2017 post about Mr. Trump that said “Lock him up!”
Several would-be jurors told the judge they believed they could decide the case fairly, no matter their feelings about Mr. Trump or his policies as president.
Mr. Trump looked on in the courtroom as his lawyers urged the judge to remove one potential juror for a social media post she made after his 2020 election loss. The judge admonished Mr. Trump at one point after he spoke loudly and gestured while the judge questioned the woman about her post.
“I don’t know what he was uttering, but it was audible and he was gesturing. And he was speaking in the direction of the juror,” Judge Juan Merchan said. “I won’t tolerate that. I will not tolerate any jurors being intimidated in this courtroom.”
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass took Mr. Trump’s notoriety head-on, telling wouldbe jurors that attorneys were not looking for people who had been “living under a rock for the past eight years.” They just needed to keep an open mind.
“This case has nothing to do with your personal politics … it’s not a referendum on the Trump presidency or a popularity contest or who you’re going to vote for in November. We don’t care. This case is about whether this man broke the law,” he said.
Mr. Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records as part of an alleged effort to keep salacious — and, he says, bogus — stories about his sex life from emerging during his 2016 campaign.
With the trial expected to last for six weeks or more, several jury pool members brought up plans they have for Memorial Day and beyond.