Jury selection is set to resume in former President Donald Trump’s secret trial in New York City after a pause in action on Wednesday.
With seven jurors already selected from a pool of 96, Thursday’s schedule will largely focus on questioning potential jurors in a second pool of the same size to see if they can be fair and impartial when it comes to Trump. The judge said he expects to have 12 jurors, plus alternates, selected by the end of Friday.
Trump’s prosecutors and lawyers will have fewer opportunities to dismiss potential jurors going forward because both used six of their 10 peremptory challenges on Tuesday.
While both sides can file an unlimited number of for-cause challenges, it is up to the judge to decide whether to grant those challenges and eliminate the jurors. State Judge Juan Merchan dismissed two jurors for cause on Tuesday, one of whom posted a “lock him up” message about Trump on Facebook but denied some other challenges.
Trump lamented the number of challenges he could face on Wednesday.
“I thought STRIKES was supposed to be ‘unlimited’ when we were choosing our jury. I was then told that we only had 10, which is not enough when we were purposely given the second worst location in the country”, he wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social, before criticizing the case as “electoral interference”.
Under New York law, defendants charged with low-level crimes, like Trump, are entitled to just 10 peremptory strikes.
Wednesday’s scheduled day off followed some fireworks at the Manhattan courthouse, where Merchan chided Trump for appearing to speak to one of the potential jurors who was being questioned about a Facebook post in which she had apparently celebrated Joe Biden’s electoral victory over Trump in 2020.
“I will not tolerate this. I will not allow any juror to be intimidated in this courtroom. I want to make that very clear,” Merchan said.
Eventually, seven jurors were sworn in on Tuesday: two lawyers, a professor, an oncology nurse, an IT consultant, a professor and a software engineer.
The jury president – who typically leads and directs the jury and serves as its spokesperson – is a married man who lives in West Harlem and works in sales. He told Merchan that he reads The New York Times and watches Fox News and MSNBC.
The names of the jurors were not released because Merchan, citing security concerns, decided to use an anonymous jury.
Trump faces 34 counts of falsifying business records and has pleaded not guilty. He faces up to four years in prison if he is convicted.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office alleges that Trump falsified business records to hide money he was paying his former lawyer Michael Cohen to reimburse him for the $130,000 he paid adult film star Stormy Daniels near from the end of the 2016 presidential campaign. Daniels alleged that she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006. Trump denied sleeping with Daniels but acknowledged repaying Cohen.
The DA’s office also alleges that American Media Inc. paid $150,000 to model and actress Karen McDougal, who appeared in Playboy magazine and claimed she had a nine-month affair with Trump before he was elected president, “in exchange of their agreement not to speak about the alleged sexual relationship.”
Trump also denied having a sexual relationship with McDougal.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
