Most Americans think Trump is innocent, but hush-money trial could destroy him

Unless you’ve been living on Mars for the past decade, chances are you have strong opinions about Donald Trump.

Among Americans, feelings toward the polarizing former president range from adoration to disgust. So finding 12 good men (and/or women) who are open enough about Trump’s guilt or innocence in the hush-money case is a tall order.

Trump was back in a New York courtroom on Tuesday where a judge was working to assemble a jury, which he told reporters before entering the courtroom that unfairly barred him from campaigning. “This is a trial that should never have happened,” he said.

More than 500 Manhattan residents came to the courthouse, surrounded by a raucous rally and heavy security, to see if they were fair enough to try the Republican presidential candidate on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Payment Sent to porn star Stormi Daniels. He denies all charges.

Potential jurors must answer a 42-question form about their backgrounds and perspectives and spend hours searching for 12 people and six substitutes that both prosecutors and Trump lawyers can agree on. in the tortuous process of the person.

As the selection process began on Monday, prospective jurors filed past Trump into a dingy courtroom. Some people reportedly craned their necks to look at the 77-year-old. New York Times. After the judge introduced Trump as a defendant, Trump stood up, turned around, and gave them a nervous smile.

More than half of the prospective jurors on the first panel of 96 were dismissed after telling the judge they could not be fair and impartial.

The fact that about 45 people are willing to at least consider this seems like a good start I think Joyce Vance, a law professor and former federal prosecutor. “We’re talking about the trial of Donald Trump, so it’s not surprising that many jurors may have strong feelings that they can’t overcome,” she said. “The whole idea of ​​this program is to weed them out.”

Read next

Defense attorney Caroline Polisi told MSNBC that hundreds of jurors were “herded like cattle” in the waiting room, further slowed down by simultaneously considering other legal technicalities in the case. During the jury selection process, Judge Merchant “did himself no favors by not making the members of the jury want to serve on this jury.”

Polisi said a big issue for the court to deal with is the issue of “hidden jurors” who have already made up their minds about Trump’s guilt.

“These one or two jurors are going to lie during questioning because they want to fly under the radar, they want to be on the jury because they’ve already made up their mind in some way,” she said. “Those are the people this process is going to identify…it’s not an easy process.”

Legal experts say Trump almost certainly has a team of jury advisers who will examine the social media accounts of potential jurors for evidence of their political leanings. Jury selection could take up to two weeks, given the complexity and stakes of the process.

Despite his boasts and nonchalance as he strutted into the courthouse, Trump has begun to recognize the harsh reality. The bronzer was thickly applied, but he still looked gaunt, with bags under his eyes the size of Melania’s Birkin bags.

One has to be tested and experience humiliation and fear to do this. Especially when you were up until the early hours the night before, posting grumpy claptrap in capital letters on Truth Social.

On Tuesday morning, Trump claimed on his social media platforms that a gag order related to the case prevented him from responding to “people on TV who lie and spread hate all day long.”

Reporters in the courtroom on Monday reported that Trump glared for a while before falling asleep. He was observed with his eyes closed Tuesday afternoon as jury selection was just beginning. “It’s hard to impress jurors,” Vance said.

Even if a jury is finally selected, polls on Tuesday showed prosecutors will still face an uphill task in convincing jurors of the former president’s guilt.

Overall, only one-third of U.S. adults believe Trump did something illegal in the hush-money case, according to The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research opinion pollBy comparison, 50% of respondents believed he was guilty in three other pending criminal cases. Republican voters are much less likely than Democrats to think Trump broke the law in the hush-money case.

Still, polls show that half of Americans would think Trump is unfit to serve as president if he is convicted in a New York court. The outcome of this case may be historic in being the only one to be decided before November.

Patricia Krause, a political scientist at the University of New Haven, said interest is high because this is Trump’s first criminal trial.

“Trump could actually be jailed if found guilty, unlike previous civil trials, which resulted in only monetary settlements,” she said.

“He was also required to be in the courtroom every day during the trial, which put the spotlight on him. Normally, Trump thrives on that kind of attention, but I think it ultimately wore him down Unbearable.”