by Alexis Simendinger & Kristina Karisch
Trump’s first criminal trial, that began Monday, is history-making, promises to test novel legal arguments and will include lively testimony from an adult film celebrity. The defendant, even if convicted of criminal violations and imprisoned, could conceivably be elected in November and serve as president, according to the Constitution. In other words, the trial is unlikely to be boring when it gets going.
But in a Manhattan courtroom where jury selection may take weeks and the presentation of evidence at trial may last months, not everyone was happy to be there. More than 50 prospective jurors from Manhattan showed up and made quick exits after saying they could not be fair and impartial. The defendant, seated for hours wearing expressions that alternated between irritation and sleepiness, according to The New York Times, was told he can’t be excused later this month for a Supreme Court oral argument about his claim that he has absolute immunity against prosecution.
“Your client is a criminal defendant in New York. He is required to be here. He is not required to be in the Supreme Court. I will see him here next week,” Judge Juan Merchan told Trump lawyer Todd Blanche as jury selection began, CBS News reported.
Merchan has imposed a gag order limiting the former president’s public statements about trial participants and he denied a second appeal Monday asking that he recuse himself. Trump, who has pleaded not guilty of wrongdoing, has repeatedly referred to Merchan as “corrupt” and biased. Prosecutors asked the judge to fine Trump for violating the gag order.
A “spectacle” is one takeaway from The Hill’s Niall Stanage on the first day of the trial.
The Hill: Day One: No New York jurors picked; selection resumes today.
ABC News: Former Trump lawyer and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani on Monday lost his appeal to dismiss a $148 million judgment in a defamation case. Giuliani admitted to making false statements while accusing a mother and daughter in Georgia’s Fulton County of committing election fraud during ballot counting on Election Day in 2020.