The 12-person jury has been selected for former President Donald Trump’s New York criminal trial over accusations that he falsified business records related to payments made before the 2016 election by one of his lawyers.
Lawyers for Trump and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg are still working on selecting alternates in case any of the primary jurors has an emergency. Trump has pleaded not guilty to the 34 counts brought by Bragg’s office and denied that he authorized Michael Cohen to make payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.
The jurors on the case include an investment banker, a security engineer, a retired man from Lebanon, a speech therapist, a man who works at an eyewear company, a product developer, a physical therapist, a salesman, a corporate lawyer, an educator, a software engineer, and a civil litigator. There are seven men and five women on the jury.
One woman on the jury, whom Trump’s team was unable to remove, said that she thought Trump was “very selfish and self-serving,” and that she didn’t “really appreciate that from any public servant.”
Five additional alternates need to be selected after one was selected on Thursday. The selection of the jurors has been difficult as many New Yorkers have strong opinions about the former president. On Thursday, one juror was dismissed after it was discovered that he had previously been arrested for tearing down Right-leaning political posters.
Another juror also left after saying that she did not think she would be able to be impartial. “I definitely have concerns. I don’t think I can be fair,” she said, adding that “outside influence” would “interfere” with her judgment.
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The trial is being overseen by Judge Juan Merchan, a donor to President Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign, whom Trump has repeatedly attempted to have removed from the case.
Trump has said the case is election interference, saying on Thursday that he was supposed to be out campaigning instead of being stuck in court all day. “It really is a shame. This country is devolving into a third world country between having no borders, having no justice, we have no justice, and having a press that doesn’t want to cover the facts,” Trump said.