Trump hush money criminal trial continues in New York: Live updates
Former US President Donald Trump attends the second day of his trial for allegedly covering up hush money payments linked to extramarital affairs, at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York City on April 16, 2024.
Mary Altaffer | AFP | Getty Images
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Jury selection in the New York criminal hush money trial of former President Donald Trump continued Tuesday, after the first day ended without anyone on the 12-person panel being seated.
As he entered the courtroom in Manhattan Supreme Court, Trump railed against the presiding judge and defended his payments to a former lawyer that are key to the prosecutors’ case.
“We have a Trump-hating judge” who “shouldn’t be on this case,” Trump said of Judge Juan Merchan.
Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records as part of a scheme to hide a $130,000 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 presidential election.
Trump’s then-lawyer Michael Cohen made the payment, and Trump later reimbursed him in monthly installments that were falsely labeled, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg alleges.
“I was paying a lawyer and marked it down as a legal expense, some accountant, I didn’t know, marked it down as a legal expense, that’s exactly what it was,” Trump said outside the courtroom Tuesday morning. “And you get indicted over that?”
Bragg accuses Trump of trying to influence the 2016 election by buying the silence of Daniels, who says she had a one-time sexual tryst with Trump in July 2006. Trump denies having sex with Daniels.
Monday’s session revealed some of the many challenges of prosecuting Trump, the highly polarizing presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
Of the first 96 potential jurors brought in for the proceeding, more than half were excused after saying that they could not be fair or impartial to Trump.
His attorneys, meanwhile, received chilly responses from Merchan when they asked to adjust the trial schedule so that Trump can attend other personal and legal matters. Those events include a Supreme Court hearing on his request for presidential immunity in another criminal case and the high school graduation of his youngest son, Barron Trump.
Merchan did not reject those requests outright, but also did not immediately grant them.
Trump then griped outside of court after the session that Merchan was preventing him from attending the graduation.
Bragg’s prosecutors opposed Trump’s request to travel to Washington, D.C., on April 25 to hear Supreme Court oral arguments related to his criminal election interference case in federal court in Washington. Trump faces criminal charges in two other cases besides that and the hush money case.
A prosecutor for Bragg on Monday also asked Merchan to sanction Trump for violating his gag order by sending multiple recent social media posts that referenced Daniels and Cohen, who are likely to testify against Trump.
Before his motorcade left Trump Tower for the courthouse Tuesday morning, Trump sent a Truth Social post lashing out at Merchan and demanding that the gag order be removed.
“This conflicted, Trump Hating Judge won’t let me respond to people that are on TV lying and spewing hate all day long,” Trump posted.
“He is running rough shod over my lawyers and legal team,” he said of the judge. “I want to speak, or at least be able to respond. Election Interference! RIGGED, UNCONSTITUTIONAL TRIAL! Take off the Gag Order!!!”