Trump trial: Why the jurors are nervous
If you’re asked to serve on the jury “in the firstever criminal prosecution of a United States president, what could possibly go wrong?” asked Andrew Couts in Wired. “The answer, of course, is everything.” The high-stakes election-interference trial of Donald Trump got underway in a Manhattan courtroom this week, and to protect the 12 jurors and six alternates from “harassment, intimidation, and threats,” Judge Juan Merchan ordered that their names and addresses be withheld from the public. But in this viciously polarized era, social media mobs frequently find personal information on just about anyone and make it public—a tactic called “doxxing.” Because of credible fears of being publicly identified, one juror was excused. On Fox News, Jesse Watters listed the jobs, races, and other identifying information of the 12 Manhattan residents and suggested some are “undercover liberal activists”—an unfounded claim Trump repeated on Truth Social.
“It’s not just Fox News,” said Rex Huppke in USA Today. Many mainstream outlets have been “playing right into Trump’s hands” by exposing details of jurors’ lives, such as their marital status and hobbies. A now deleted Washington Post liveblog update revealed one juror’s neighborhood, how many children he has, and the name of his employer. Why risk their safety? “Anyone paying attention knows threats and intimidation go hand in hand with Trump and his MAGA movement.” In the past, the safety of jurors has been a pressing issue only in trials of mobsters and terrorists—not politicians, said the New York Daily News in an editorial. But the former president “has openly embraced political violence,” signaling to his “fanatical followers” that he wants them to rise up in opposition to his persecution. Don’t forget: Trump has “already sent a mob to subvert a presidential election by force.”
The jurors have “real courage” to serve on this case, said Joe Nocera in The Free Press. Cynics have expressed doubts that a jury in Manhattan, where 85 percent of voters rejected Trump in 2020, could try him fairly. But while dozens were excused when they admitted they could not put aside their biases, the remainder said with evident soul-searching and “deep sincerity” that they could separate their personal feelings about Trump from the facts put before them. It was clear “the importance of the case weighed on them.” These are “Americans at their very best,” who “care about doing their civic duty.”