The historic trial of Donald Trump resumed Thursday in New York with the difficult selection of the jury, interrupted at the start of the hearing by a juror who finally threw in the towel in the face of what was at stake.
While the Republican candidate for the November presidential election had just sat down in the courtroom, Judge Juan Merchan reopened the debates by immediately announcing that this New York citizen had finally expressed
“her concerns about the fact to be fair and impartial
. This juror, identified by the code B280, confirmed her fears, also saying she had been recognized by relatives, even though the jury is supposed to be anonymous to avoid pressure. In the process, the judge called on all media covering the trial to use
“common sense”
and avoid, for example, giving physical descriptions of the jurors. After this incident, the number of jurors went from 7 to 6, out of 12 required, not counting the 6 alternates.
Trump cries “witch hunt”
The first former president in the history of the United States to appear in criminal court, Donald Trump is on trial in a case of hidden payments to buy the silence of a former porn star, Stormy Daniels, a few days before the 2016 election that he won narrowly against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Judge Juan Merchan had indicated that he hoped to conclude the jury selection process by Friday evening, which would allow opening arguments for the prosecution and defense to begin on Monday.
Donald Trump claimed Wednesday on his Truth Social network that he had just discovered that the number of juror challenges was limited, once again calling out the
“witch hunt”
orchestrated according to him by the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden. In fact, the prosecution and defense have already used six of the ten authorized juror challenges.
The potential jurors, anonymous citizens plunged overnight into a historic affair, find their lives scrutinized. They must answer a long questionnaire on their profession, family situation, sources of information, centers of interest, and their opinion on Donald Trump, but also to even more detailed questions from the prosecution or the defense, which has tracked down any sign of possible bias against the defendants, particularly in their publications on social networks.
Trump faces possible prison sentence
More than three years after leaving the White House in chaos, Donald Trump 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. If he were found not guilty, however, 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.
In the trial that began Monday, 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 lawyer. staff at the time, Michael Cohen. In exchange, the former X-rated movie star 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.