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Today in court: the Trump trial is underway
Donald Trump’s first criminal trial has officially crawled to a start.
Before the former president entered the courtroom this morning, he declared the trial was an “assault on America”. But the opening day showed exactly how long this trial may drag on – and how long it might take to actually get into the meat of the accusations.
The New York State supreme court justice Juan Merchan, the judge presiding over the case, began the arduous process of jury selection on Monday afternoon to find twelve citizens (and six alternates) who will determine the former president’s fate. Trump faces 34 felony charges of falsifying business records to cover up hush-money payments to help his 2016 campaign.
The alleged crimes are the most benign seeming of those in the four potential trials Trump faces – hush-money payments to cover up an affair with a porn star don’t exactly rise to the level of trying to overthrow democracy. But the legal and political risk for Trump is sky-high: he could face jail time, and the moniker “convicted felon” wouldn’t exactly be a helpful label on the campaign trail if he loses this case.
Trump himself seemed like he was struggling to stay tuned in. A few hours into the proceedings, Trump closed his eyes and appeared to nod off before jolting awake multiple times, according to Guardian US reporter Victoria Bekiempis. During the afternoon session, Trump leaned back in his chair with his arms crossed and his eyes shut tight for several minutes at a time.
Merchan had initially predicted the trial would last around six weeks – but judging by how things progressed on Monday, that might be optimistic.
Jury selection
The trial began with jury selection this afternoon, as the first pool of 96 jurors filed into the courtroom around 2.30pm ET, after Merchan reminded the court that the jurors’ names were absolutely confidential.
According to pool reports from the half-dozen reporters allowed in the room (the jurors took up a lot of the courtroom), many prospective jurors stared at Trump or craned their necks to get a glimpse of him, while Trump stood, turned around and gave them a brief smirk when he was introduced as the defendant.
More than half of the first wave of prospective jurors were excused after saying they couldn’t be fair or impartial, with at least nine more excused for other conflicts. The three dozen or so remaining prospective jurors then began the arduous process of verbally answering yes or no to the 42-question survey Merchan crafted for jury selection. In total, 500 people have been sent summons to be potential jurors in the case.
Sidebar: housekeeping
Before jury selection began, Merchan made a number of last-minute rulings that will help shape the trial.
Merchan sided with prosecutors and against Trump on a number of issues, including:
• He refused to recuse himself from the case, as Trump’s lawyers had once again requested, calling their claim he has a conflict of interest because his daughter runs a media firm that works for Democrats “offensive”.
• He stood by an earlier ruling against letting prosecutors play the infamous Access Hollywood recording of Trump declaring that women let him “grab them by the pussy” because of his fame because it would be prejudicial – but ruled that prosecutors could use a transcript of the comments.
• Merchan also ruled that prosecutors would be allowed to include in evidence an email chain where the former Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks forwarded a press request about the Access Hollywood video to campaign officials who then forwarded it to former Trump fixer Michael Cohen, a key witness in this case.
• Merchan said he would allow most testimony about the National Enquirer’s alleged “catch-and-kill” scheme, which the tabloid had with former Playboy model Karen McDougal, with whom Trump allegedly had an affair.
• He denied Trump’s request to be excused from trial next week so he could attend the US supreme court hearing on presidential immunity that has held up his DC criminal case (though he held off on ruling whether Trump might be excused to attend his youngest son Barron’s high school graduation).
But it wasn’t all bad news for Trump:
• Merchan told prosecutors they couldn’t introduce public allegations from women who say Trump sexually assaulted them, calling them unproven and saying they’d be “very prejudicial” to the case.
• He said that the fact that Trump’s alleged affair with McDougal occurred while Trump’s wife Melania was pregnant will not be allowed as evidence.
Just before the trial broke for lunch, prosecutors asked Merchan to hold Trump in contempt for violating a gag order that prohibits Trump from attacking potential witnesses in the trial. They pointed to three social media posts Trump had made in recent days that attacked likely witnesses. They asked Merchan to fine Trump $1,000 for each post.
Merchan gave Trump’s attorneys until Friday to file a written response, and scheduled a hearing for 9.30am next Tuesday, 23 April to decide.
In other news
• A judge rejected former Trump adviser and New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s appeal to overturn the $148m in damages he owes for defaming a pair of Georgia election workers.
• Trump’s team has until the end of today to file paperwork proving that the $175m bond he obtained to cover his $454m civil fraud penalty is sound. Trump obtained the bond from Knight Specialty Insurance, a company owned by Trump-supporting billionaire Don Hankey.
But New York attorney general Letitia James’ office has challenged whether that loan is valid, noting that Hankey’s company isn’t registered to issue bonds in the state and hadn’t obtained a certificate of qualification from the New York department of financial services. State law also says a company can’t make a bond to a single borrower that’s more than 10% of its total surplus money – and according to documents filed, the company has just $138m in surplus money and its parent company has around $1bn in surplus.
Judge Arthur Engoron, who presided over Trump’s New York business civil fraud case, has scheduled a hearing for 22 April to consider the matter.
