Two seated jurors in Trump's hush money trial were excused, underscoring difficulty of finding impartial jurors

Thursday's jury selection in former President Donald Trump's hush money trial in New York City began with a rocky start after two jurors who'd already been sworn in were dismissed from the case, underscoring the difficulty lawyers are having in finding jurors who can remain impartial.

One of the seven already-selected jurors was let go after she told the judge she now had concerns that she could not be impartial after friends, colleagues and family members asked her if she was a juror on the case. The juror, a nurse, said she did not believe she could "let the outside influences not affect my decision-making in the courtroom.”

After she was dismissed, Judge Juan Merchan chided the media for reporting on some of the details of jurors' appearances and places of work, and ordered the press not to report on physical descriptions of the prospective jurors or their answers about where they currently work and used to work going forward.

“We just lost” what "probably would have been a very good juror for this case" because of such reporting, the judge said.

The judge had previously ordered the jury to be kept anonymous because of safety concerns and said Thursday, “It kinds of defeats the purpose of an anonymous jury” if people can be easily identified.

The second juror was released after being brought in for further questioning following concerns from prosecutors that one of his answers during questioning was not accurate.

The man, who'd been sworn in as juror number 4, had said in that neither he nor a family member had been accused of a crime, but Joshua Steinglass of the Manhattan district attorney's office discovered that somebody with the same name had been arrested in the 1990s for tearing down political posters and that his wife appeared to have been involved in a corruption inquiry by the DA's office in that same time period.

Merchan said that during the additional questioning, which was conducted at the bench with the lawyers, the juror "expressed annoyance about how much information was out there about him in the public."

After conferring with the lawyers, the judge said, “I’m directing that juror number 4 be excused.” 

After dealing with the two dismissed jurors, attention turned once more to the process of selecting additional jurors from a pool of 96 people, the same size pool that was used Monday and yielded the jurors who've already been sworn in.

As it did with the earlier group, the process got off to a slow start. Asked as a group if they thought they could not be fair or impartial, 48 people raised their hands and were dismissed — a slightly smaller number than the 50-plus who were excused Monday. Another nine were excused for undisclosed different issues before those remaining began individually answering questions from the judge's 42 question questionnaire.

One juror in the initial group, who said he was born and raised in Italy, was dismissed immediately after comparing Trump to Silvio Berlusconi, the late media tycoon and former prime minister of Italy who'd been involved in numerous sex and corruption scandals.

“The Italian media have had a very strong association with Mr. Trump and Silvio Berlusconi,” the man said, adding, “it would be a little hard for me to retain my impartiality and fairness.”

Trump started intently at the individual jurors as prosecutor Joshua Steinglass began to question them. The former president appeared to smile after Steinglass said that some witnesses “have what you might consider to be some baggage" and mentioned that one key witness, former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, had pleaded guilty to lying to Congress.

Trump seemed far less engaged earlier in the day. He remained seated when he and his lawyers were introduced to the jury pool by the judge, but his attorneys did stand. The former president had his eyes closed as Merchan described the case to the assembled crowd, and could be seen yawning as Merchan wrapped up his remarks.

Prosecutors and lawyers for Trump will have less opportunity to dismiss potential jurors going forward, because both used six of their 10 peremptory challenges Tuesday.

While both sides can make an unlimited number of challenges for cause, it is up to the judge to decide whether to grant those challenges and strike those jurors. Merchan dismissed two jurors for cause Tuesday, one of whom had posted a “lock him up” message about Trump on Facebook, but he denied some other challenges.

Trump bemoaned the number of challenges he can make Wednesday.

The judge has said he hopes to have 12 jurors, as well as alternates, selected by the end of Friday.

Earlier Thursday, the DA's office complained that Trump had been continuing to violate the gag order barring him from trashing potential jurors and witnesses with a series of posts on his social media platform, Truth Social.

"Since you signed the last order that we handed up on Monday, the defendant has violated the order seven more times,” Chris Conroy of the DA's office told the judge, adding, “It’s ridiculous. It has to stop.”

Trump attorney Emil Bove said some of the posts were responses to accusations by former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, and others were simply reposting items by other people and news outlets, which Bove maintained is not prohibited by the gag order.

The judge has scheduled a hearing for Tuesday on the DA's motion to hold Trump in contempt.

Following the dismissal of the two jurors, the panel currently has five people on it, including two lawyers, a teacher, and a software engineer.

The jury foreperson — who typically leads and steers the jury and acts as its spokesperson — is a married man who lives in West Harlem and works in sales. He told Merchan he reads The New York Times and watches Fox News and MSNBC.

Trump faces 34 counts of falsifying business records and has pleaded not guilty. He faces up to four years in prison if he is convicted.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office alleges that Trump falsified business records to hide money he was paying his former lawyer Michael Cohen to reimburse him for $130,000 he paid adult film actor Stormy Daniels near the end of the 2016 presidential campaign. Daniels has claimed she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006. Trump has denied that he slept with Daniels, but he has acknowledged repaying Cohen.

The DA's office also alleges that American Media Inc. paid $150,000 to model and actor Karen McDougal, who appeared in Playboy magazine and claimed that she had a nine-month affair with Trump before he was elected president, “in exchange for her agreement not to speak out about the alleged sexual relationship.”

Trump has also denied having a sexual relationship with McDougal.