Bumpy Jury Selection As Trump’s Criminal Trial Begins

• It’s ‘political persecution’ – ex-President insists

New York prosecutors on Monday joined former president Donald Trump and his attorneys in a Manhattan Supreme courtroom on the first day of Trump’s Manhattan hush-money trial to mark a notable moment in American history, the official start of the first criminal trial of a current or former president

Trump is facing 34 felony counts involving a catch-and-kill scheme, falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal during his 2016 campaign. If convicted, he could face up to four years in prison. Throughout the day, he sat at the Court in New York City flanked by his lawyers.

Trump had arrived at court for the start of jury selection shortly after 9 am. Wearing his usual uniform, a navy suit and crimson tie, Trump spoke in the hallway before entering the courtroom in the morning.

“This is an assault on America. Nothing like this has ever happened before, there’s never been anything like it”, Trump told a group of reporters. He called it “political persecution”, “a case that should have never been brought” and “an assault on our country”.

After the judge overseeing the case rejected Trump’s latest effort to oust him, the prosecution and the defence began collaborating on the arduous process of choosing a jury. Immediately, they ran into problems.

Both sides – Trump’s defense team and the Manhattan prosecutors – spent hours disputing evidentiary issues, including whether the infamous Access Hollywood tape from 2016 in which Trump bragged that he could sexually assault women because of his fame could be shown.

The judge, Juan Merchan, reiterated that the tape could not be shown but that the words in the tape could be shown to jurors. Merchan also reiterated his gag order banning Trump from attacking witnesses or family members of court officials, his daughter included and warned that Trump could be held in contempt and jailed if he violated the order.

The criminal case against Trump stems from an alleged scheme to cover up purported liaisons with Daniels and McDougal ahead of the 2016 general election. Prosecutors say, Trump, who was indicted in spring 2023 on 34 counts of falsifying business records, participated in an alleged “catch-and-kill scheme” from August 2015 until December 2017 through his then lawyer, Michael Cohen. They said that he did so out of concern that the alleged extramarital encounters with Daniels and McDougal could harm Trump’s candidacy.

Meanwhile, more than half of the first pool of 96 prospective jurors was dismissed after they indicated they did not believe they could be impartial, and the court adjourned for the day with zero jurors chosen.

Reports indicated that such a high initial failure rate is “surpassingly rare,” underscoring the challenges of seating an impartial jury for a defendant whom much of the country has already made its mind up about. Here’s an explanation of the jurors both sides want.

The trial, perhaps the only one against Trump that will unfold before Election Day, is projected to take about six weeks, the judge told the prospective jurors. But it could stretch out longer if jury selection turns out to be especially time-consuming.

The process will be crucial for both sides but could be especially challenging for the defence, which will effectively be searching for red needles in Manhattan’s giant blue haystack.

“The defense will be looking for working-class voters, people that work in city jobs, perhaps firefighters, police, sanitation workers”, Jesse McKinley, who writes the Trump on Trial newsletter, said. – With agencies’ reports