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A video of New Yorkers celebrating Joe Biden’s presidential victory, a parody post describing Donald Trump as “stupid” and a call to “lock him up” were among the social media rumors unearthed by the former president’s defense team as they scrutinized jurors for his presidential victory. Hush money trial in Manhattan.
The impromptu search by Trump’s lawyers was conducted Tuesday as the court moved forward in picking a jury to decide the first criminal case against a former U.S. president. Seven jurors were seated after hours of questioning over the course of two days, out of a likely total of 18, including alternates.
Trump, 77, once again appeared to have trouble staying awake at times during proceedings in a hot Lower Manhattan courtroom. Throughout the day he occasionally smiled at some potential jurors as they answered questions from the judge and lawyers for both sides, before being reprimanded by the court for muttering about a high school teacher.
Hundreds of potential jurors are being vetted as the court undertakes the monumental challenge of selecting more than a dozen people from Manhattan’s heavily Democratic borough to decide the fate of one of the world’s most polarizing political figures. Trump faces 34 counts of falsifying business records for allegedly covering up payments made to buy the silence of a porn star who reported an affair in the run-up to the 2016 election.
A Chelsea neighborhood software engineer who works for Disney, a Harlem woman who works as a public school English teacher, a computer consultant originally from Puerto Rico and two male lawyers were among those finally sworn in Tuesday afternoon . A West Harlem salesman originally from Ireland was named team leader. Their names and addresses will not be released publicly.
Asked about his views on Trump, the IT consultant, a middle-aged man in a black shirt and gold tie, said: “I find him fascinating and mysterious. He comes into the room and makes people go wild, one way or another.” The former president, a New York native, appeared to smile in response.
Previously, Judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing the case, dismissed a potential juror who posted about Trump’s proposed travel ban on Muslim-majority countries while he was in office, writing, “Take him out and lock him up.” When questioned, the man said he no longer stands by that claim. He was sent home despite everything.
Merchan also fired a bookseller on Manhattan’s Upper West Side who had posted an AI-generated parody video featuring Trump, titled “I’m Stupid as Hell,” just weeks before the trial began. The former president’s lawyers said the man had also posted about the “documents case” — an apparent reference to a separate federal criminal case against Trump over classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago estate — writing “no one is above the law”.
However, Merchan refused to dismiss a potential juror who posted a video around the time of the 2020 election, titled “It’s a full-blown dance party on 96th Street,” that appeared to show Biden supporters celebrating in New York. He said that he was simply parking his car when he witnessed the scene and that he believed “very, very strongly” that he could be impartial in deciding the case against Trump.
“The question is not whether someone agrees with your client politically or not,” Merchan told Trump’s team, which had previously sought answers about potential jurors’ opinions of the presumptive Republican nominee for president. “The question is whether they can be fair and impartial or not.”
She was later hit by the defense, which had several chances to dismiss jurors without citing a specific conflict or alleged bias.
Five more jurors and about six alternates remain to be chosen, and the court will not convene on Wednesday. Merchan said he expects opening arguments to begin as early as Monday.
Trump has complained that the four-day-a-week testing schedule will limit his movements on the campaign trail in his latest run for president. On Tuesday evening, after his day in court, he was scheduled to visit a convenience store in Harlem in an effort to publicize his tough-on-crime message.