Jury selection by former president Donald Trump’s historic criminal trial in New York will continue for a second day Tuesday, when the process of selecting potential jurors will resume in front of the accused.
The first group of jurors were sworn in Monday after pretrial discussions on evidence and procedural rules. About two-thirds of the group of 96 New Yorkers were quickly dismissed, with most saying they would not be able to be fair and impartial at trial. Others were excused for various other reasons, including their responses to a list of questions posed to each juror.
The slow process of identifying suitable jurors is expected to take at least a week. Other jurors will be questioned at the start of the second day of proceedings, at 9:30 a.m.
Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment his lawyer brought in adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges, saying the lawsuits were part of a plot by Democrats to prevent him from running again the White House. The case is the first of four criminal prosecutions against Trump to go to trial.
Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The first day of the trial also saw a series of rulings from Judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing the case. He sided with prosecutors in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office on several issues, and sided with Trump’s lawyers on other issues.
At several points during pretrial closing arguments Monday morning, Trump appeared to fall asleep at the defense table, his chin briefly dropping to his chest. In one case, he was woken up by his lawyer.
The trial is expected to last between six and eight weeks, every day of the week except Wednesday, with a few shortened days for the Passover holiday. The timeline severely limits Trump’s ability to hit the campaign trail, something he has cited to support his claims of political bias.
Merchan made it clear that Trump would have to attend every day of the trial and said he would risk arrest if he did not show up. He rejected defense attorneys’ request to allow Trump to attend Supreme Court arguments over his request for presidential immunity in one of his federal cases next week.
“Your client is a defendant in New York County Supreme Court. He needs to be here. He doesn’t have to be in Supreme Court. I’ll see him here next week,” Merchan told the one of Trump’s lawyers.
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