Selecting twelve jurors for the hush money prosecution of Donald Trump

In the historic hush money trial of former President Donald Trump, a jury of twelve members was seated on Thursday, advancing the proceedings toward opening remarks and the beginning of weeks of dramatic evidence.

The court moved swiftly to choose alternative jurors.

A retired wealth manager, an investment banker, a speech therapist, an English teacher, a software engineer, a security engineer, several attorneys, and a sales professional are among the jurors.

In the midst of this year’s presidential election, the first-ever trial of a former American president will take place, guaranteeing that the presumed Republican nominee’s legal issues will be a major talking point in the competition against Democratic President Joe Biden.

Unflattering evidence concerning Trump’s personal life prior to his election as president is highly anticipated to be presented during the trial. There are claims that Trump fabricated corporate documents to bury news about his extramarital affairs in the closing days of the 2016 election campaign.

The jury selection process seemed shaky earlier in the day when two jurors were removed; one because she expressed doubts about her capacity to be impartial once her name was revealed, and the other because of worries that some of his statements made in court may not have been true.

However, after starting the day with only five jurors, attorneys quickly decided on the remaining seven, plus one alternative, for the panel. Six alternates are what Judge Juan Merchan has said is his ideal number.

In other news, the court prohibited reporters from disclosing the employers of the jurors after they voiced privacy concerns, and prosecutors requested that Trump be found in contempt over a number of social media remarks made this week.

The main focus of the trial is Cohen’s $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election, which was designed to keep her allegations of having a sex encounter with Trump under wraps in the closing days of the campaign.

Cohen entered a guilty plea to federal charges in 2018 and is anticipated to serve as a prominent witness for the prosecution. According to the prosecution, Trump concealed the actual source of the payments in internal documents when his firm repaid Cohen.

Trump has denied ever having a physical relationship with Daniels, and his attorneys contend that the money paid to Cohen was a reasonable fee for legal representation.

34 criminal charges of falsifying company documents are brought against Trump. whether found guilty, he may get a sentence of up to four years in jail, however it’s unclear whether the court would decide to lock him up. Any conviction would most likely be appealed by Trump.

The other three cases accusing Trump of unlawfully holding confidential materials and of attempting to change the results of the 2020 election have been delayed due to appeals and legal fighting.

With the selection of seven jurors on Tuesday, the jury selection process gained steam. One of the seven, a cancer nurse, however, “conveyed that after sleeping on it overnight she had concerns about her ability to be fair and impartial in this case,” Merchan disclosed in court on Thursday.

The lady also informed the court and the attorneys that she had questions after claiming that certain parts of her identification had been made public, even though the identities of the jurors are kept secret.

She said, “Just yesterday, friends, coworkers, and family pushed things to my phone questioning my identity as a juror.” “I don’t think I can make fair and impartial decisions in the courtroom at this time without allowing outside influences to have an impact.”

Prosecutors expressed concerns about a second seated juror’s possible dishonesty when he claimed to have never been charged with or found guilty of a crime in response to a jury selection question. This led to the juror’s dismissal.

Prosecutors claimed to have located an article about an individual with the same name who had been detained in the 1990s for demolishing political posters associated with the political right in suburban Westchester County. This led to the IT specialist being called to testify in court.

It was unclear if the juror acknowledged or denied that either incident had anything to do with him since he was questioned on Thursday at the judge’s bench away from the microphone and from reporters’ line of sight.

Choosing a jury is an important part of any criminal trial, but it becomes much more important when the defendant is a former president and the likely Republican candidate. In an effort to uncover any prejudices that might make them unable to provide an unbiased verdict, the attorneys and judge have questioned potential jurors about their political opinions, personal experiences, and social media postings.

There is widespread acceptance inside the court that it is pointless to search for jurors who are unaware of Trump. Attorneys, according to a prosecutor last week, were not seeking clients who had been “living under a rock for the past eight years.”

Following the nurse’s exclusion from the jury, Merchan instructed reporters present in court to withhold the responses of potential jurors to inquiries about their present and past workplaces.

“It seems like we lost a potentially very good juror for this case, and her first statement was that she felt scared and intimidated by the media, the press in general, and everything that had happened,” Merchan added, dismissing the juror.

The employer questions were removed from the jury questionnaire at the request of the prosecutors. “Depriving us of the information because of what the press is doing isn’t the answer,” said defense attorney Todd Blanche.

On Monday, the district attorney’s office requested a $3,000 punishment against Trump for three postings on Truth Social that they said went beyond the injunction. Prosecutors claim that he has now published seven more postings that they consider to be in violation of the injunction.

Prosecutor Christopher Conroy stated that a number of the tweets included characterizations of former Trump attorney Michael Cohen as a “serial perjurer,” and one from Wednesday reiterated a statement made by a Fox News presenter that suggested lefty activists were lying to be included on the jury.

Trump was just responding, according to Trump’s attorney Emil Bove, to Cohen’s “public attacks on President Trump.”

Next week’s hearing on the prosecution’s motion for contempt penalties related to Trump’s postings has already been set by the court.