Criminal trial of Donald Trump | Jury selection enters final phase

(New York) The goal now appears within reach: the judge in Donald Trump’s historic trial, Juan Merchan, hopes to conclude the laborious jury selection process on Friday to get to the heart of the case on Monday.

The former President of the United States (2017-2021), candidate for his return to the White House, arrived at the court for a fourth day of hearing, protesting once again against “a rigged trial” which prevents campaigning. He also targeted the judge presiding over the proceedings, Juan Merchan, the “worst there is”, for forbidding him from attacking witnesses or jurors, an attack according to Donald Trump on “his constitutional right to express himself” freely.

The first former US president to appear in a criminal trial, Donald Trump is on trial in a case of hidden payments to buy the silence of a former pornographic film star, Stormy Daniels, a few days before the 2016 election which he won on the wire against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

For now, the court must still finalize the composition of the citizen jury which will find him guilty or not guilty. Twelve jurors have already taken an oath on Thursday to judge the Republican billionaire in an “impartial” manner, after having seen their lives scrutinized and answered numerous questions from the defense and the prosecution tracking down any sign of bias.

On Friday, only five alternate jurors were missing out of the six required to complete the panel and get to the heart of the debates from Monday.

Three other criminal proceedings

Donald Trump’s lawyers asked, in vain, for the prosecution to provide them with a list of the first three witnesses they intend to call to the stand. Prosecutors declined, arguing that the former president had already attacked several witnesses on social media.

More than three years after leaving the White House in chaos, Donald Trump theoretically faces a prison sentence. This would not prevent him from finding himself facing Democratic outgoing President Joe Biden in November, for a rematch 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 appeals to postpone his three other criminal trials, two for illicit attempts to reverse the results of the 2020 election, and one for supposedly casual handling of classified documents.

In this case tried in New York, Donald Trump is charged with falsifying accounting documents from his company, the Trump Organization, which allegedly aimed to hide, under the cover of “legal fees”, the payment of $130,000 to Stormy Daniels by his personal lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen.

In exchange, the former pornographic film 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.