Trump trial: Full jury chosen for New York hush money case

A
full

jury
of
12
people
was
seated
Thursday
at
the
New
York
criminal

hush
money

trial
of
former
President

Donald
Trump.

One
alternate
also
was
selected.
Five
alternates
remain
to
be
selected
for
the
case
when
proceedings
resume
Friday
morning.

Opening
arguments
in
the
trial
could
begin
Monday.

“I’m
hopeful
we
will
finish
tomorrow,”
Manhattan
Supreme
Court
Judge
Juan
Merchan
said
Thursday
afternoon.

Trump blasted
the
case
after court
adjourned.

“The
whole
world
is
watching
this
New
York
scam,”
Trump
said.

He exited the
courtroom
carrying
a
ream
of
paper
comprising
dozens
of
news
articles
that
were
critical
or
skeptical
of
Manhattan
District
Attorney
Alvin
Bragg’s
case.
Trump
spent minutes
thumbing
through
the
papers
and
reading
headlines.

The
presumptive
Republican
presidential
nominee
complained
that
he
was
forced
to
be
in
court
for
hours
a
day,
preventing
him
from
campaigning
against
President

Joe
Biden.

He
even
railed
against
the
courtroom
itself,
saying
he
was
stuck “in
that
freezing
room,
freezing.”

Earlier
in
the
day,
Merchan
dismissed
two
jurors
who
had
initially
been
seated
Tuesday.

The
first
juror
had
raised
concerns
about
her
identity
being
made
public,
and
her
ability
to
be
impartial.
The
second
juror
was
excused
after
prosecutors
questioned
whether
he
had
had
been
truthful
in
an
answer
about
his
criminal
history.

The
dismissal
of
the
two
jurors
seemed
to
threaten
the
quick
pace
of
jury
selection,
which
looked
to
be
on
track
to
finish
a
week
before
some
legal
experts
anticipated.
But
those
seats,
and
the
rest
of
the
12-person
panel,
were
filled
by
Thursday
afternoon.

The
13
jurors
and
alternate
picked on Tuesday
and
Thursday were
selected
from a
pool
of
192
people.

Prosecutors
earlier
Thursday
accused
Trump
of
violating
his
gag
order
in
the
case
seven
more
times
on
social
media
since
Monday.
The
gag
order
bars
him
making
certain
statements
about
jurors
and
witnesses,
as
well
as
the

family
members
of
the
judge
and
Trump’s
prosecutors.

“It’s
ridiculous,
it
has
to
stop,”
assistant
District
Attorney
Chris
Conroy
told
Merchan.

Conroy
said
that
the “most
disturbing
post”
by
Trump
echoed
a
claim
by
Fox
News
host
Jesse
Watters
that
the
pool
of
potential
jurors
includes “undercover
Liberal
Activists
lying
to
the
Judge.”

Conroy
said
prosecutors
would
decide
later
what
sanctions
to
ask
for
against
Trump.
A
hearing
on
Trump’s
alleged
gag
order
violations
is
set
for
next
week.

The
dismissed
female
juror
said
that
on
Wednesday,
she
received
multiple
calls
from
people
asking
whether
she
had
been
picked.
Watters
in
a
Tuesday
night
broadcast

listed
a
number
of
details
about
the
juror,
including
her
marital
status
and
news
diet,
and
said, “I’m
not
so
sure
about”
her.

That
juror
on
Thursday
morning
told
Merchan, “I
don’t
believe
I
can
be
fair
and
unbiased
and
let
the
outside
influences
not
affect
me
in
the
courtroom.”

The
judge
apologized
and
promptly
excused
her
from
the
trial.
He
admonished
journalists
covering
the
trial
to “apply
common
sense”
and
refrain
from
publishing
identifiable
information
about
jurors
who
are
supposed
to
be
anonymous.

Merchan
also
ordered
the
press
not
to
report
the
answers
to
a
question
on
the
jury
questionnaire
about
past
and
current
employers.

The
parties
were
tasked
Thursday
with
questioning
a
group
of
96
prospective
jurors
to
fill
the
remaining
seats
on
the
jury.
But
half
of
that
group
was
quickly
excused
after
they
signaled
to
Merchan
that
they
could
not
be
fair
and
impartial.

Among
the
would-be
jurors
who
remained,
one
person,
who
said
he
was
born
and
raised
in
Italy,
was
dismissed
after
comparing
Trump
to
the
late
former
Italian
Prime
Minister
Silvio
Berlusconi.
Berlusconi,
who
died
last
June,
was
a

scandal-plagued
billionaire
who
in
2012
was

convicted
of
tax
fraud.

Trump
is
charged
with
falsifying
business
records
in
a
scheme
to
silence
porn
star
Stormy
Daniels
before
the
2016
presidential
election.

Trump
is
required
to
sit
in
court
throughout
the
trial,
which
convenes
on
all
weekdays,
except
Wednesday,
and
is
expected
to
last
around
six
weeks.

Trump
has
denounced
the
trial
as
a
political “witch
hunt”
and
complained
that
it
keeps
him
off
the
campaign
trail.

But
Trump
has
also
used
the
media
frenzy
surrounding
his
trial
—
and
his
three
other
pending
criminal
cases
—
as
an
opportunity
to
spread
campaign
messages
and
attack
his
political
foes.
On
Tuesday
afternoon,
Trump
accused
Judge
Juan
Merchan
of “rushing”
the
trial.

He
then
traveled
to
a
north
Harlem
bodega
for
a
campaign
stop
aiming
to
suggest
that
Bragg
is
failing
to
stop
crime
in
New
York
City
because
of
his
focus
on
the
trial.

On
Wednesday,
Trump
complained
that
his
legal
team
was
given “not
nearly
enough”
chances
to
reject
potential
jurors.
In
fact,
he
received
the
exact
number
of
strikes
allotted
under
New
York
law.