On trial off-day, Trump complains about jury selection process for his criminal case
Former President Donald Trump ripped the jury selection process for his historic New York criminal trial Wednesday, the day after the first seven jurors were selected out of a pool of nearly 100 people.
Posting about the hush money trial on its scheduled off-day, Trump — who has repeatedly accused the judge in the case of being biased against him — suggested incorrectly that he should be entitled to unlimited strikes of potential jurors in his criminal case.
“I thought STRIKES were supposed to be 'unlimited' when we were picking our jury? I was then told we only had 10, not nearly enough when we were purposely given the 2nd Worst Venue in the Country," he wrote on Truth Social before he decried the criminal cases against him as "election interference" and part of a "witch hunt."
Under New York law, each side does have an unlimited number of strikes “for cause,” but the judge presiding over the case, Juan Merchan, can decide whether or not that cause is worthy of a strike.
The two sides are also entitled to a limited number of "peremptory strikes" — potential jurors they can dismiss. Because Trump is charged with a Class E felony, which is a lower-level felony, he and prosecutors are entitled to 10 peremptory challenges each. (The number goes up to 20 for defendants facing the highest level of felony charge, Class A.)
While Merchan has dismissed scores of potential jurors who said they could not be impartial or had scheduling conflicts, he has dismissed only two for cause in the two days since jury selection began. One was a person who had written "lock him up" of Trump in a 2017 social media post. Merchan denied some other Trump cause dismissal requests, including one for a woman who had posted on Facebook about celebrating Joe Biden's 2020 election win.
Trump's attorney Todd Blanche then used one of his peremptory challenges to remove the woman.
By the end of the day Tuesday, both Trump and prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney's office had used six of their 10 challenges, meaning they each have only four left for the remaining jurors.
Two potential jurors the DA's office used its strikes on were people who said they had read Trump's book "The Art of the Deal."
Trump is required to attend the trial, which is expected to last as long as eight weeks and take place every weekday except Wednesday and holidays. The rigorous trial schedule will limit his ability to join in-person campaign events as part of his presidential bid — something he has complained about repeatedly. NBC News reported last month that Trump plans to leverage his legal issues for political gain by falsely blaming Biden.
Jury selection is scheduled to resume Thursday morning with a pool of an additional 96 prospective jurors. Once a full 12-person jury has been selected, the two sides will then pick alternate jurors.
Merchan appeared hopeful Tuesday that jury selection will be done by the end of the day Friday. He told the seven jurors who have been selected to return Monday morning for opening statements while also cautioning the date could change.
Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment to a porn star during the closing days of the 2016 presidential election. He faces up to four years in prison if he is convicted.
