Friday is anticipated to see the conclusion of the arduous jury selection process for Donald Trump criminal trial. This will be the first time in US history that a jury will decide whether or not a former president is guilty of breaking the law.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys must choose six alternates for the trial, which is scheduled to last until May, as the 12-member jury has already been picked.
On Monday, the opening remarks may begin.
Already, two jurors have been excluded from the trial. One juror said she felt intimidated after learning she had been selected for the trial from friends and family, and Justice Juan Merchan discharged her on Thursday. Another was fired when it was questioned by prosecutors if he had spoken the truth about past run-ins with the law.
The process of choosing jurors is frequently acrimonious, with attorneys from opposing sides vying to put together a panel that will be most sympathetic to their positions.
But in this particular case—involving a controversial former president suspected of hiding a hush-money payment to a porn actress just before he was elected in 2016—it has proven particularly difficult.
Trump entered a not guilty plea.
Of the four criminal prosecutions that Trump is facing, this one is the only one that is expected to go to trial before the election on November 5, when the Republican candidate seeks to unseat Democratic President Joe Biden. His office would be unaffected by his conviction.
Approximately 50% of the over 200 prospective jurors who underwent screening stated they lacked the objectivity necessary to determine whether Trump was guilty or innocent. They were all chosen from Manhattan, which used to be Trump’s hometown and is a strongly Democratic city.
According to Trump, Biden’s friends are attempting to undermine his campaign through all four criminal charges. Concerns regarding harassment have also been raised by his criticism of the court, prosecutors, witnesses, and their families in this case as well as others, leading Merchan to partially enforce a gag order.
By revealing on Wednesday that undercover leftist activists had been lying to be included on the jury, Trump has pushed the boundaries of the gag order. Merchan has been urged by the prosecution to punish him.
In an effort to protect jurors from abuse, Merchan has announced that they would be nameless to everyone save Trump, his legal team, and the prosecution. He declared on Thursday that he would forbid media organizations from disclosing information on prospective jurors’ jobs.
In this instance, Trump is charged with concealing a $130,000 payment made to porn star Stormy Daniels by his former attorney Michael Cohen in exchange for her quiet on an alleged sexual encounter that occurred ten years before to the 2016 election.
Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan District Attorney, has charged Trump with 34 counts of falsifying company documents. Trump has entered a not guilty plea and has denied ever having spoken to Daniels, whose actual name is Stephanie Clifford.
In each of his previous three criminal cases, Trump has entered a not guilty plea. Two accuse him of attempting to reverse Biden’s defeat in the 2020 election, and a third charges him of improperly handling secret material after leaving government.
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