New York: A jury of 12 people was seated Thursday in former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial in New York, and the court quickly turned to selecting alternate jurors.
The rapid progress Thursday afternoon propelled the case closer to opening statements and weeks of testimony in a case charging the Republican ex-president with falsifying business records to suppress stories about his sex life in the final days of the 2016 election.
The jury includes a sales professional, a software engineer, an English teacher and multiple lawyers. The case centers on $130,000 Trump’s lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen paid to porn actor Stormy Daniels. Trump faces 34 felony counts. He denies any wrongdoing. Earlier in the day, two other jurors were dismissed, one after expressing doubt about her ability to be fair following disclosure of details about her identity. Another juror was let go over concerns that some of his answers in court may have been inaccurate.
In other developments, prosecutors asked for Trump to be held in contempt over a series of social media posts this week, and the judge barred reporters from identifying jurors’ employers after expressing privacy concerns.
The jury selection process picked up momentum Tuesday with the selection of seven jurors. But on Thursday, Judge Juan Merchan revealed in court that one of the seven, a cancer nurse, had “conveyed that after sleeping on it overnight she had concerns about her ability to be fair and impartial
in this case.”