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A video of New Yorkers celebrating Joe Biden’s presidential victory, a parody post calling Donald Trump “stupid” and a call to “lock him up” were among the social media indiscretions discovered by the defense team from the former president as she eliminated jurors for his term. Hush money trial in Manhattan.
The spontaneous searches by Trump’s lawyers came Tuesday as the court moved forward with selecting a jury to decide the first criminal case against a former U.S. president. Seven jurors were seated after hours of questioning over two days, out of a likely total of 18, including alternates.
Trump, 77, once again appeared to be struggling to stay awake during the proceedings in a cozy courtroom in lower Manhattan. During the day, he occasionally smiled at some potential jurors as they answered questions from the judge and attorneys for both sides, before being reprimanded in court for muttering at a high school teacher.
Hundreds of potential jurors are being screened as the court takes on the monumental challenge of selecting more than a dozen people from Manhattan’s predominantly Democratic neighborhood to decide the fate of one of the world’s most polarizing political figures. Trump faces 34 counts of falsifying business records for allegedly concealing payments made to buy the silence of a porn star who alleged an affair in the run-up to the 2016 election.
A software engineer from the Chelsea neighborhood who works for Disney, a woman from Harlem who works as a public school English teacher, an IT consultant from Puerto Rico and two lawyers were among those finally sworn in Tuesday after noon. A West Harlem salesman, originally from Ireland, was made foreman. Their names and addresses will not be made public.
Asked for his opinion of Trump, the IT consultant, a middle-aged man in a black shirt and gold tie, said: “I find him fascinating and mysterious. He walks into the room and he triggers people, one way or another.” The former president, a New York native, appeared to smile in response.
Earlier, Judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing the case, dismissed a prospective juror who posted about the travel ban targeting majority-Muslim countries that Trump proposed while in office, writing “Take him out and lock him up.” When questioned, the man said he no longer maintained that statement. He was still sent home.
Merchan also fired a bookseller on Manhattan’s Upper West Side who posted an AI-generated parody video featuring Trump, titled “I’m Dumb as Fuck,” just weeks before the trial began. The former president’s lawyers claimed the man also posted about the “documents affair” — an apparent reference to a separate federal criminal case against Trump over classified documents found at his Mar-a property -Lago – writing “no one is above the law”. .
However, Merchan refused to dismiss a potential juror who posted a video around the time of the 2020 election, captioned “It’s a full-blown dance party on 96th Street,” that appeared to show Biden supporters rejoicing At New York. She said she was simply parking her car when she witnessed the scene and believed “very, very strongly” that she could be impartial in the decision against Trump.
“The question is not whether someone agrees politically with your client or not,” Merchan told Trump’s team, which previously tried to get answers about potential jurors’ opinions on the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. “The question is whether or not they can be fair and impartial. »
The woman was then hit by the defense, who had several opportunities to dismiss jurors without citing a specific conflict or alleged bias.
There are five additional jurors and about six alternates left to choose, and the court will not sit Wednesday. Mercan said he expected opening arguments to begin as early as Monday.
Trump complained that the four-day-a-week trial schedule would restrict his travel on the campaign trail during his last campaign for president. He was scheduled to visit a convenience store in Harlem Tuesday evening after the court day ended, in an effort to tout his crime-fighting message.
