First day hush money case adjourns with no jurors picked
The first day of Donald Trump ‘s historic hush money trial ended Monday after hours of pretrial motions and an initial jury selection process that saw dozens of prospective jurors excused after they said they could not be fair or impartial. The court ultimately adjourned without any jurors being seated, with the selection process resuming today.
The process involves selecting 12 jurors, plus six alternates. Trump’s notoriety would make that a near-herculean task in any year, but the process is especially challenging now — unfolding as Trump vies to reclaim the White House during a hotly contested presidential election year.
The trial’s start marks an extraordinary moment in American history — it’s the first criminal trial of any former U.S. commander-in-chief.
Trump is accused of falsifying internal Trump Organization records as part of a scheme to bury stories that he feared could hurt his 2016 campaign, particularly as his reputation was suffering at the time from comments he had made about women.
The allegations focus on payoffs to two women, porn actor Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal, who said they had extramarital sexual encounters with Trump years earlier, as well as to a Trump Tower doorman who claimed to have a story about a child he alleged Trump had out of wedlock. Trump says none of these supposed sexual encounters occurred.
Additionally, Judge Juan M. Merchan on Monday declined a request from Donald Trump’s lawyers to take April 25 off from the trial to allow the former president to attend U.S. Supreme Court arguments on his claim of presidential immunity in another of his four criminal cases.