Jury selection continued Tuesday morning in the case of the People of the State of New York against Donald Trump — the first-ever criminal trial of a former president.
The search to find a jury of 12 people and six alternates got off to a slow start Monday, when more than half of the 96 potential jurors summoned to the Manhattan courtroom said they could not be “fair and impartial.” when it came to Trump. , the polarizing New Yorker and former commander-in-chief.
That trend continued Tuesday, with the day’s first prospective juror excused after suggesting he couldn’t be impartial because he’s from Texas, in finance and grew up around Republicans. “I think I have unconscious biases,” he said. A second juror was excused after telling the judge that she had thought about it overnight and decided, “I can’t be impartial and unbiased.”
Several others were also excused. Among those who survived the first round of questioning was a man who works for a software company. The future juror said he followed Trump on Twitter when he was president and had read two of his books, including “The Art of the Deal,” which resulted in a big smile and nods from Trump. He said it would be a challenge not to discuss the case with his wife, but ultimately seemed to accept that not talking about the case is a condition of jury service.
Shortly before walking into the courtroom, Trump told reporters he had done nothing wrong and attacked Judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing the trial, as a “Trump-hating judge.” He also complained that the case is keeping him off the presidential path: “I should be in Pennsylvania, Florida and many other states right now.”
Trump initially appeared animated and engaged in discussions with his lawyers, pointing a pencil in the air to punctuate his response. But after about an hour, Trump was occasionally seen leaning back and closing his eyes, only to shift his weight moments later. Later he had closed his eyes and tilted his head to the left. It was unclear whether he was asleep. He also had his eyes closed during part of the procedures on Monday.
Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, must attend the trial, which is expected to last six to eight weeks. He has pleaded not guilty to 34 charges of falsifying company records in connection with a hush money payment to a porn star during the final days of the 2016 presidential election. The low-level crime carries a prison sentence of up to four years.
Trump complained after court Monday that Merchan would not let him skip court on May 17 to attend his son’s graduation, although Merchan has not yet actually ruled on the request and said he would do so later.
Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche also asked whether Trump could be excused on April 25, the date when the U.S. Supreme Court will hear his arguments on presidential immunity arising from the federal election interference case against him. Merchan denied that request after Blanche told him, “We shouldn’t be here right now.”
“Don’t you think you should be here right now?” responded the indignant judge. ‘He must be here. He doesn’t need to be at the Supreme Court.”
The issues were among several that attorneys for both sides raised in court Monday that led to the jury selection process not beginning until the afternoon. Prosecutors asked that Trump be held in contempt and fined $3,000 for social media posts involving two key witnesses in the case, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and adult film star Stormy Daniels. Cohen has admitted to paying Daniels $130,000 toward the end of the 2016 campaign to keep her quiet about a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump in 2006. The data Trump is accused of falsifying stems from the fact that he repaid Cohen that money.
The district attorney’s office claims that Trump’s messages violated his silence order in the case, and asked the judge in a filing made public Tuesday to warn him “that future violations of the Court’s restrictions on his extrajudicial statements may be punishable not only with additional fines, but also with a prison sentence of up to thirty days.”
At the end of the day, only nine potential jurors answered questions from Merchan’s 42-question form — which included several questions about their political leanings and views of Trump himself — before the end of the court day.
The remaining jurors from the first group will continue answering questions Tuesday morning before prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney’s office and Trump’s lawyers ask follow-up questions.
They will then move on to the next group of 96. Merchan estimates the process will take one to two weeks.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
