Judge scolds ‘mutter’ in court

The judge in Donald Trump’s hush-money trial accused the defendant of intimidating a potential juror by “muttering” and gesturing when the woman was called in to explain alleged “anti-Trump” social-media posts.

“Your client was audibly muttering something,” said Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan to Trump lawyer Todd Blanche during jury selection Tuesday. “I don’t know what he was muttering.”

The former president’s agitated moment, Merchan said, occurred just “12 feet away” from the prospective panelist — who was standing at a courtroom lectern to answer questions about two Facebook posts Blanche claimed were “extraordinarily hostile.”

Merchan then offered a stiff warning: “I won’t tolerate that. I won’t have any jurors intimidated in this courtroom. I will be crystal clear.”

The flare-up came as Blanche had been questioning a group of 18 possible jurors during “voir dire” — when defense lawyers and prosecutors whittle down the pool in an attempt to get an unbiased group of 12 panelists to decide the defendant’s fate.

Blanche was seeking to have the woman — Juror No. B133 — tossed out over a video posted on social media that showed people celebrating on 96th Street after the 45th president lost his re-election bid in 2020.

“This is a woman who said she never attended a Trump rally,” fellow Trump lawyer Susan Necheles said, noting it was “clearly anti-Trump event.”

But prosecutor Joshua Steinglass countered it wasn’t a rally.

The woman — an employee of the city’s Department of Education who lives on the Upper West Side — said she had been headed to move her car for alternate-side parking when she spotted “people dancing in the street and stuff.” “It reminded me of the 7 o’clock cheer for the health-care workers [during the pandemic],” she said.