The jury of twelve members and six alternates was constituted on Friday at the historic trial of Donald Trump in New York, which will therefore be able to get to the merits of the case on Monday.
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This final phase of jury selection was disrupted by a horrific scene, when a man attempted to set himself on fire in front of the Manhattan courthouse where the trial is being held, in front of the lenses and cameras of the world’s media entire.
The author of this act, with no apparent link to the case, was subsequently identified by the police as Maxwell Azzarello, promoter of theses on a vast financial conspiracy, and whose condition is “critical” according to the firefighters.
The first former American president to appear in a criminal trial, Donald Trump is on trial for having concealed payments intended to buy the silence of a former porn star, Stormy Daniels, a few days before the 2016 election which he had won on the wire against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
The Republican candidate protested again, arriving in court on Friday morning, against “a rigged trial” which prevents him from campaigning.
He also criticized Judge Merchan, the “worst there is”, for forbidding him from any public comments aimed at witnesses or jurors, an attack according to Donald Trump on “his constitutional right to express himself” freely, while he is known for his vitriolic verbal attacks. At the end of the hearing, he denounced “a giant witch hunt”.
Seven men and five women
The process of skimming the more than 200 potential jurors who have paraded since Monday, more than half of whom were exempted after declaring themselves incapable of fairly judging the ex-president, and others challenged by the defense or the prosecution , is now complete.
On Thursday, twelve jurors, seven men and five women residing in Manhattan, had already been sworn in after having had their lives scrutinized and answered numerous questions.
And on Friday, their six substitutes were designated.
Working in finance, law, commerce, education or health, the jurors, whom the judge promised would remain anonymous, represent a snapshot of New York society. A sign of the size of the stakes awaiting them, two women ultimately not selected burst into tears as they answered the court’s questions.
“I’m sorry. I thought I could do it (…). It’s so much more stressful than I thought,” said one of them.
Three other files
More than three years after leaving the White House in chaos, Donald Trump theoretically faces a prison sentence. This would not prevent him from facing Joe Biden in November, for a revenge of the 2020 election, but would project the campaign into the unknown.
If he were found not guilty, however, it would be a major success for the Republican candidate.
Especially since he managed through recourse to postpone his three other criminal trials, two in Washington and Georgia (southeast) for illicit attempts to reverse the results of the 2020 election, and one in Florida (southeast) for supposedly casual handling of classified documents.
In the case tried before the courts of the State of New York, Donald Trump is charged with falsification of accounting documents of his company, the Trump Organization, which were intended to hide, under the cover of “legal fees”, the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels from her then-personal attorney, Michael Cohen.
In exchange, the former X-rated movie star agreed to keep quiet about a sexual relationship with the billionaire in 2006. Donald Trump has always denied this relationship and his defense ensures that the payments were in the private sphere.
But prosecutor Alvin Bragg intends to demonstrate that these are indeed fraudulent maneuvers to hide information from voters a few days before the vote.
If he were elected again, Donald Trump could, once inaugurated in January 2025, order the abandonment of federal proceedings against him, in Washington and in Florida.
