Final alternate jurors chosen in Trump trial as opening statements near
The final five alternate jurors in former President Donald Trump’s New York criminal trial were selected on Friday, teeing up opening statements in the trial to begin on Monday.
The new members join the 12 jurors and one alternate who were seated over the first three days of the trial. The process saw dozens of people immediately excused from consideration for saying they couldn’t be impartial, and two seated jurors were excused after being sworn in. One said she became concerned about her ability to be impartial after people in her life figured out she was a juror based on details reported about her in the press. Prosecutors flagged another after discovering a possible decades-old arrest that hadn’t been disclosed during jury selection.
More were dismissed when proceedings got underway Friday, including several who said they had concluded they couldn’t be impartial. The jurors and alternates were selected from two groups of 96 Manhattanites summoned for jury service.
Merchan indicated that he would also hold a pretrial hearing to set the scope of topics prosecutors would be allowed to broach if Trump decides to take the stand in his own defense if jury selection wrapped up early enough on Friday.
Prosecutors indicated in a filing made public Wednesday that they want to question Trump about a host of high-profile legal defeats to attack his credibility. The list includes an almost half-billion-dollar civil fraud judgment recently handed down in another New York court, a pair of unanimous civil federal jury verdicts finding him liable for defamation and sexual abuse of the writer E. Jean Carroll, gag order violations, and sanctions for what a judge concluded was a “frivolous, bad faith lawsuit” against Hillary Clinton.
Trump’s attorneys have indicated they believe all those topics should be out of bounds in this case, which revolves around reimbursements to former Trump attorney Michael Cohen for a “hush money” payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Prosecutors say Trump covered up the reimbursements in order to distance himself from the payment, days before the 2016 presidential election, which temporarily bought Daniels’ silence about an alleged affair. He has also denied having the affair.
Trump has entered a not guilty plea to 34 felony counts of falsification of business records. He has denied all allegations in the case.