Half of jurors in Trump’s hush money trial too biased
More than half of the first New Yorkers asked to serve as jurors in the criminal case against Donald Trump said that they could not be impartial, raising fears about the difficulties of recruiting an unbiased jury in liberal Manhattan.
At least 50 of the first 96 candidates who were shown into the courtroom raised their hand and asked to be excused from the case, saying they could not be impartial. “I just couldn’t do it,” one explained.
“The name of this case is The People of the State of New York v Donald Trump,” Judge Juan Merchan said, introducing the potential jurors to the defendant. About half of those excused were white women.
Trump, in a blue suit and a red tie, rose slowly to his feet and turned and flashed a slight smile. Some candidates craned their necks to look at him. Merchan said they would have to decide if Trump “falsified business records to conceal an agreement with others to unlawfully influence the 2016 presidential election”, in what is the first criminal trial of a former US president. “Mr Trump has pleaded not guilty.”
About 500 jurors had been called and spent half of the day outside the court as the judge heard arguments about which evidence could be admitted.
Joshua Steinglass, prosecuting, said he wanted to tell the jury about a 2015 meeting at Trump Tower with David Pecker, head of AMI, the publisher of the National Enquirer. Pecker would testify that he showed headlines to Trump before publication, attacking Trump’s opponents.
The magazine would use its “network of sources to get information that could be harmful to the Trump candidacy”. This deal led to the suppression of “the Stormy Daniels story” – the allegation that Trump paid hush money to the porn actress.
Todd Blanche, Trump’s lawyer, said the deal was not illegal. Merchan said that if it was not illegal, it was not prejudicial and he would allow it.
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