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Trump is charged with 34 counts of first-degree falsification of records.
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s historic secret trial began Monday with the arduous procedure of choosing a jury to hear the case accusing the former president of falsifying business records to cover up stories about his sex life.
The day ended with no jurors seated. The variety procedure will resume on Tuesday.
The first criminal trial of a former U. S. president began as Trump fought to win back the White House, creating a remarkable split-screen spectacle of the presumptive Republican nominee spending his days as a criminal defendant while crusade for his election. Over the past year, he has presented himself to his supporters, during the election campaign and on social media, as the target of politically motivated lawsuits designed to derail his candidacy.
After a turbulent presidency overshadowed by years of investigations, the trial amounts to a trial for Trump, who faces four indictments accusing him of crimes ranging from hoarding classified documents to conspiring to overturn an election. However, the political stakes are less transparent because a conviction will not save him from becoming president and because the allegations in this case go back years and are considered less serious than the conduct of the other 3 accusations.
The day begins with hours of pretrial deliberations (plus a conceivable fine for Trump) before moving on to the start of jury selection. The first jurors (96 in all) have been summoned to the courtroom, where the parties will decide which of them can be selected to decide the legal fate of the former U. S. president, potentially long-term.
Trump craned his neck to look out at the pool and whispered something to his lawyer as they entered the jury stand.
“They’re about to move to a jury trial. The jury trial formula is one of the cornerstones of our judicial formula,” Judge Juan Merchan told jurors. “The case in this case is The People of New York State v. Donald Trump. “
Trump’s notoriety would make the procedure for choosing 12 jurors and six alternates an almost Herculean task over the course of a year, but it will likely prove especially complicated now, as he takes a position in a hotly contested presidential election in the heavily Democratic city where Trump grew up and catapulted to the rank of president. Celebrity prestige decades before winning the White House.
What underscores the difficulty is that only about a third of the other 96 people on the first panel of potential jurors remained after some members of the jury panel were excused. They may simply not be fair and impartial. At least nine other potential jurors were excused after they raised their hands when Merchan asked if they couldn’t sit for some other reason.
One juror apologized after saying he had good reviews of Trump. At the beginning of the questionnaire, the woman, a Harlem resident, indicated that she could be impartial in deciding the case. But when asked if he had good reviews of the former president, the woman replied matter-of-factly, “Yes. “
When Merchan asked her to repeat the answer, she replied, “Yes, I said yes. “She fired.
Merchan wrote that the key is “whether the prospective juror can assure us that he will set aside any private feelings or prejudices and make a decision on the evidence and the law. “
Whatever the outcome, Trump is determined to profit from the process, framing the case and his allegations elsewhere as a vast “militarization of law enforcement” through Democratic prosecutors and officials. He maintains that they are orchestrating false accusations in the hope of preventing his presidential candidacy.
He lashed out at judges and prosecutors for years, a series of attacks that continued until he entered the court on Monday when he called the case an “assault on America” and said, “This is political persecution. It’s a persecution like never before. “
Earlier Monday, the ruling denied a defense recusal request after Trump’s lawyers claimed there was a clash of interests. He also said prosecutors simply wouldn’t be able to play back to jurors the 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump filmed talking about sexually grabbing women without their consent. permission. However, prosecutors will be able to question witnesses about the recording, which was made public in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign.
Prosecutors with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office also asked Merchan to fine Trump $3,000 for social media posts that they said violated the judge’s gag order prohibiting him from attacking witnesses. Last week, he used his Truth Social platform to refer to his former lawyer Michael Cohen and adult film actor Stormy Daniels as “two other sordid people who, with their lies and misrepresentations, have taken a heavy toll on our country. “
Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, argued that Trump was simply responding to witness statements.
“It’s not that President Trump is going after individuals. He responds to lewd and vehement attacks from those witnesses,” Blanche said.
Merchan did not immediately comment on the request and set a hearing for next week.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records. Prosecutors say the alleged fraud was part of an effort to prevent lewd (and, according to Trump, false) stories about his sex life from emerging during his 2016 campaign.
The fees relate to $130,000 in invoices Trump’s company made to Cohen. He paid the cash on Trump’s behalf to prevent Daniels from going public, a month before the election, her allegations of a sexual relationship with the tycoon, whom she had been married for a decade. earlier.
Prosecutors say the invoices to Cohen were falsely recorded as legal fees to hide their true purpose. Trump’s lawyers argue that the disbursements were actually legal fees and a cover-up.
After decades of prosecution and legal compromise, the businessman-turned-politician now faces a trial that could result in up to 4 years of criminal conviction if convicted; A sentence without jail time is also possible. Trump is also expected to appeal any convictions.
Trump’s lawyers lost their bid to have the secrecy case thrown out and have since tried to delay it, prompting a series of last-minute hearings in the appeals court last week.
Among other things, Trump’s lawyers argue that the composition of the jury in Manhattan, which is overwhelmingly Democratic, has been tarnished by negative exposure for Trump and that the case should be moved elsewhere.
An appeals chamber has rejected an urgent request to stay the trial while the request for a change of venue is referred to an appeals panel of chambers, which is expected to do so in the coming weeks.
Manhattan prosecutors countered that much of the exposure was due to Trump’s own comments and that the questions would help determine whether potential jurors can set aside any preconceptions they may have. According to prosecutors, there is no reason to think there are not 12 fair trials. and other independent individuals among Manhattan’s roughly 1. 4 million adult residents.
Potential jurors will only be known through their numbers, as the ruling ordered their names to be kept secret from all prosecutors, Trump and his legal teams. The 42 pre-approved applications, some of which are multi-tiered, come with fundamental requirements. The data also reflects the uniqueness of the case.
They are asked, among other things, about their data usage habits and habits, whether they have strong ideals about Trump that would save them from being impartial, and whether they attend anti-Trump or anti-Trump rallies.
Based on the responses, attorneys can request that judgment be made on other individuals “with cause” if they meet certain criteria for inability to serve or if they are impartial. Lawyers can also use “peremptory recusals” against 10 potential jurors and two potential alternates without giving a reason.
“If you need to hit everyone who is Republican or Democrat,” the ruling observed at a hearing in February, “you’re going to run out of peremptory demanding situations very quickly. “
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Associated Press Jake Offenhartz in New York contributed to this report.
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