More potential jurors are being dismissed as Trump’s hush money trial enters its second day

(Michael M. Santiago / Associated Press)

More potential jurors are being dismissed as Trump’s hush money trial enters its second day

Election 2024

Michael R. Sisak, Jennifer Peltz, Jake Offenhartz and Alanna Durkin Richer

April 16, 2024

More potential jurors were dismissed from Donald Trump’s hush money case on Tuesday, as lawyers worked a second day to find a panel of New Yorkers to decide whether the Republican will become the first former president convicted of a crime.

The first day of the historic trial in Manhattan ended Monday with no one selected to serve on the panel of 12 jurors and six alternates. At short notice, several others were excused Tuesday morning after saying they could not be impartial or because they had other commitments. Dozens of potential jurors have yet to be interviewed.

It is the first of Trump’s four criminal cases to go to trial and perhaps the only one that could reach a verdict before voters decide in November whether the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee should return to the White House.

The lawsuit puts Trump’s legal troubles at the center of the closely contested race against the president

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Biden. Trump portrays himself as the victim of a politically motivated justice system that is trying to deprive him of another term. It also poses a key test for the criminal justice system because the allegations are viewed through a partisan lens and Trump’s attacks on prosecutors and the judge threaten to undermine public confidence in the courts.

Trump’s history-making hush money trial begins with the challenge of choosing a jury

Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying company records as part of an alleged effort to surface salacious and, he says, false stories about his sex life during his 2016 campaign.

Trump arrived at the courthouse just before 9 a.m. and quickly waved to reporters as he made his way inside. Before entering the courtroom, Trump paused to address a TV camera in the hallway, repeating his claim that the judge is biased against him and that the case is politically motivated.

This is a process that should never have happened,” Trump said. After he went inside, reporters saw him wink at one of the court officials and say, “How are you?” as he walked down the aisle. the defense table with his lawyers.

One woman in the jury pool was released after she told the judge earlier during questioning on Monday that she had a trip planned around Memorial Day. A man was excused after saying he could not be impartial.

The Trump trial is about more than just sex and money. It’s about what presidents can get away with

Another man, who works at an accounting firm, was fired after saying he feared his ability to be impartial would be compromised by unconscious biases resulting from growing up in Texas and working in finance with people who intellectually tend to be Republican.

After another juror said she would not be able to serve impartially, Trump turned in his seat and looked toward the casket. For the first few minutes of the day, he seemed generally attentive, taking notes and holding sheets of paper to his face as the judges rattled off.

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answers to a long questionnaire.

The indictment concerns $130,000 in payments Trump’s company made to his then-lawyer Michael Cohen. He paid that amount on Trump’s behalf to preserve

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Actor Stormy Daniels has been stopped from going public with her claims about a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier. Trump has denied that the sexual encounter ever took place.

Prosecutors say the payments to Cohen were incorrectly recorded as legal fees. Prosecutors have described it as part of a plan to bury damaging stories that Trump feared could help his opponent in the 2016 race, especially as Trump’s reputation at the time suffered from comments he made about women.

Trump has acknowledged that he reimbursed Cohen for the payment and that it was intended to prevent Daniels from making the alleged meeting public. But Trump has previously said it had nothing to do with the campaign.

The judge refuses to postpone the hush-money criminal trial against Trump due to complaints about publicity in the preliminary trial

I paid a lawyer and marked it as legal fees, he said. That’s exactly what it was. And you are being held accountable for this? “I should be campaigning right now in Pennsylvania, Florida and many other states, North Carolina and Georgia,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday.

Jury selection could take several days or even weeks in the heavily Democratic city where Trump grew up and was catapulted to celebrity status for decades before winning the White House.

Only about a third of the 96 people on the first panel of potential jurors brought into the courtroom Monday remained after the judge excused some members. More than half of the group were excused after telling the judge they could not be fair and impartial, and several others were fired for other reasons that were not made public.

Another group of more than a hundred potential jurors sent to the courthouse on Monday have not yet been brought into the courtroom for questioning.

The New York appeals court rejects Trump’s third request to postpone Monday’s hush money trial

In court papers filed Tuesday, prosecutors urged a judge to fine Trump $3,000 over social media posts that they say violate a gag order that limits what he can say publicly about witnesses. In the messages, Trump called Cohen and Daniels two sleaze bags who, with their lies and misrepresentations, have cost our country a lot!

Prosecutors wrote that the judge should admonish Trump to comply with the silence order and warn him that further violations could be punishable not only with additional fines but also with prison time.

If Trump is convicted of falsifying corporate records, he faces up to four years in prison, although there is no guarantee he will receive a prison sentence.

Trump’s cases involving allegations of election interference and hoarding of classified documents could carry lengthy prison sentences, but they involve appeals or other issues that make it increasingly unlikely that they will be ruled before the election.

And if Trump wins in November, he could likely order a new attorney general to dismiss his federal cases.

Sisak, Peltz, Offenhartz and Durkin Richer write for the Associated Press. Richer reported from Washington.

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