Unlock Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, editor-in-chief of the FT, selects her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Two of the seven carefully selected jurors for Donald Trump’s “secret” trial were sent home Thursday, after a woman’s identity was pieced together by family and friends from details made public, and another man was involved in an arrest for tearing up right-wing posters in 2007. the 1990s.
The setbacks came as the court continued the arduous process of selecting 12 New Yorkers and about six alternates, who pledge to remain impartial in judging the first criminal trial involving a former U.S. president, which has sparked controversy. intense media coverage from media outlets around the world. world.
Trump faces 34 counts of falsifying business records for alleged payments made to buy the silence of a porn star who claimed she had an affair with him in the run-up to the 2016 election. He has pleaded no guilty and must be present in the Lower Manhattan courtroom throughout the six-week trial.
Hundreds of potential jurors have been questioned since Monday, and dozens have already been dismissed for saying they couldn’t put aside their bias when it came to determining Trump’s fate. Seven of them were ultimately selected after two days of careful examination of their media habits, political views and personal circumstances.
Shortly after the trial resumed Thursday morning, an oncology nurse from Manhattan’s Upper East Side, who was sitting late Tuesday, told Judge Juan Merchan that she had “friends, family and colleagues” who had contacted her after gathering news reports that she had been chosen as a juror in the Trump trial.
She added that due to external pressure, she no longer felt capable of being fair and impartial and was quickly excused.
Minutes later, lawyers for the Manhattan District Attorney, who brought the case, revealed that their research had revealed that a male juror may not have told the truth about his past and had been arrested for tearing down right-wing political posters in the Westchester County area of New York. York State in the 1990s. His wife may have been “previously charged or involved in a corruption investigation,” the prosecutor’s office said.
The juror, an IT consultant from the Lower East Side, arrived later for questioning and engaged in a heated conversation with attorneys that could not be heard in open court. Merchan noted that the juror expressed some reluctance to appear when told he had to come to discuss the search, and then excused him without further explanation.
Although the names and addresses of prospective jurors were kept confidential for fear of reprisals, Merchan chastised the press for publishing “so much information” about their physical attributes and professional lives that some had become “very, very easy to identify.” “.
He urged journalists at the trial to “just use common sense” and refrain from providing such details because “it serves no purpose.” He then ruled that details about where jurors work or worked would be removed from the transcripts and could no longer be reported.
Prosecutors on Thursday also renewed their request that Merchan hold Trump in contempt for violating a silence order that prevents him from speaking about many people involved in the case, specifically pointing to a social media post shared by the former president who appeared to implicate some potential jurors were “undercover liberal activists.”
Merchan said he would rule after oral arguments on the issue, scheduled for Tuesday.