The Manhattan court on Tuesday managed to choose seven of the twelve citizens responsible for trying Donald Trump in the historic trial which impacts the former US president’s campaign to return to the White House.
Upon his arrival Tuesday morning at the Manhattan court, the Republican presidential candidate complained of being prevented from campaigning because of this trial which will take place every day except Wednesdays over several weeks.
At the end of the day, he nevertheless had to go to a convenience store in Harlem, the scene in 2022 of a bloody news story which should allow him to talk about one of his favorite themes, insecurity.
In the courtroom, at the end of the second day of hearing, six jurors, some feverish, others smiling, were invited by Judge Juan Merchan to fill a row of their boxes, before taking the oath in front of the court, standing , right hand raised. Just after, a seventh was selected again.
All had their lives scrutinized: first by answering a long general questionnaire on their profession, family situation, sources of information, centers of interest, and their opinion on Donald Trump, before submitting to even more questions detailed information from the prosecution or the defense, who tracked down any sign of possible bias against the accused, even in their publications on social networks.
“The question is not whether anyone agrees politically with your client. The question is whether they can judge him fairly and impartially,” the judge reminded the defense.
Recall the order
The magistrate, whom Donald Trump describes as “corrupt” or an “anti-Trump judge”, also issued a sharp warning to the defendant, who appeared to whisper a few words to one of the potential jurors.
“I will not allow jurors to be intimidated in my court,” Judge Juan Merchan told Donald Trump’s lawyers, urging them to restrain their client.
To be complete, the panel needs five more full jurors, plus six alternates, but the judge intends to move forward and wrap up the process within a week, so that the prosecution’s opening arguments and of defense can begin on Monday.
In the middle of the presidential campaign, Donald Trump, 77, must watch, in silence, this long and tedious jury selection process, at a time when his rival Joe Biden is campaigning on the ground in his hometown of Scranton, in the State of Pennsylvania (northeast), crucial for the November election.
“I should be in Pennsylvania and Florida right now, in many other states, in North Carolina, in Georgia, campaigning,” protested Donald Trump, before sitting down in his chair. warned.
“All this comes from the White House,” said the man who describes his legal cases as “political persecution”.
Donald Trump is being prosecuted for payments intended to buy the silence of former porn star Stormy Daniels, a few days before the 2016 election which he won narrowly against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
More than three years after leaving the White House in chaos, he theoretically faces a prison sentence. This would not prevent him from being a candidate in the presidential election on November 5, where he dreams of revenge on Joe Biden, but would project the campaign into the unknown.
Fake accountants
If he is found not guilty, it would be a major success for the Republican candidate.
Especially since he managed through appeals to postpone his three other criminal trials, two for illicit attempts to reverse the results of the 2020 election, and one for supposedly casual handling of classified documents.
Donald Trump is charged with falsifying accounting documents from his company, the Trump Organization, which allegedly aimed to hide, under the cover of “legal fees”, the payment of $130,000 to Stormy Daniels by his personal lawyer at the time , Michael Cohen.
In exchange, the latter had agreed to keep quiet about a sexual relationship with the billionaire in 2006. Donald Trump has always denied this relationship and his defense ensures that the payments were in the private sphere.
But prosecutor Alvin Bragg intends to demonstrate that these are indeed fraudulent maneuvers to hide information from voters a few days before the vote.
“No one can seriously dispute that the reason he (Michael Cohen, Editor’s note) and Trump came up with this ploy was to deprive voters of information that could have changed the outcome of an extremely close election,” he said. explained legal analyst Norman Eisen for CNN.