Trump trial: Attorneys struggle to find jurors without opinions on Trump

One was a fan of The Apprentice in middle school. One opposed a travel ban he implemented. One thought he was “fascinating and mysterious.”

Most had one thing in common: They came into the Manhattan courtroom with opinions about the most famous criminal defendant in the country.

Choosing 12 jurors and six alternates in former President Donald Trump’s hush money case was never expected to be easy. Two days into jury selection, the court had secured seven jurors, but the process could last at least another couple of days, an unusually lengthy duration.

A pool of six reporters circulated details throughout the day that conveyed, at times, the tribulations Judge Juan Merchan and attorneys for Trump and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg experienced as they sought to find a dozen people who could fairly determine Trump’s fate in a historic criminal trial expected to last several weeks.

Todd Blanche, Trump’s lead attorney, opened his questioning of prospective jurors Tuesday by warning them that the case was not ordinary because typically, jurors would be excused if they knew who the defendant was.

“Here, we all know that every one of you knows President Trump,” Blanche said. “And you all know him in different ways, and you all have different views of him based upon different factors in your life.”

At one point, Blanche asked a group of prospective jurors seated in the jury box if they were aware that Trump was facing criminal charges in other jurisdictions, and all but one raised their hands.

Blanche pressed one person to elaborate when she said, “Obviously I know about President Trump. I’m a female.”

“I know that there have been opinions on how he doesn’t treat females correctly, stuff like that,” she said. “I honestly don’t know the story, so I don’t have a view on it.”

An accountant who was unmarried and did not have children said that in his industry, “a lot of people tend to intellectually slant Republican … so there could be some unconscious bias.”

Merchan asked him if he could provide an “unequivocal assurance” of impartiality, and the accountant replied that it was “probably going to be tough.” The judge then excused him.

While a summons had been sent out to approximately 500 New York City residents, the prospective jurors were called to the courtroom in batches. Of an initial wave of 96, more than 50 raised their hands when asked if they could not be impartial in Trump’s case, and Merchan excused them.

Attorneys were able to grill those who made it through the first round of questioning as they searched for indications of bias.

Blanche at one point asked Merchan to dismiss a juror because of a Facebook post he found in which the juror had written years ago, “Good news!! Trump lost his court battle on his unlawful travel ban!!!”

Merchan said that that post alone would not have been grounds to dismiss the juror, but because the man then wrote, “Get him out, and lock him up,” he would grant Blanche’s request.

While defense attorneys typically seek out sympathetic jurors, prosecutors aim for jurors who could rule in their favor. One of Bragg’s prosecutors, Joshua Steinglass, asked a group of prospective jurors if they were capable of returning a guilty verdict of Trump, to which the jurors each replied, “Yes.”

Another juror said she did not “really” have an opinion of Trump.

“I am here for my civic duty. I’m here to listen to the facts,” she said.

She was one of the seven empaneled on Tuesday.

Although the difficulties in narrowing down a jury pool were apparent, the pace of the process was, as of Tuesday, moving more quickly than some had anticipated.

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“I think you’re going to see between two — somewhere in the vicinity of two weeks, maybe a little more, of jury selection in this case. Could be less. Could be more,” Norm Eisen, a prominent Democrat-aligned lawyer, had predicted.

Merchan told the seven who had been chosen for the jury to plan to return Monday for opening arguments, but the judge caveated that the timing could change.