In a development that supporters say gives weight to Trump’s earlier bid to have the trial moved from Manhattan, more than half of the prospective jurors in the first group of 96 people to enter the court had to be excused after admitting they could not be fair and impartial.
Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer.Credit: AP
Manhattan is a city where 85 per cent of voters backed President Joe Biden at the last election. The selection process to find a jury is now expected to take up to two weeks as potential jurors are grilled using a 42-part questionnaire probing everything from their political leanings, to whether they followed Trump on social media or supported far-right militia groups such as the Proud Boys.
While Trump entered the courtroom telling reporters he was “very proud to be here”, he spent much of the hearing looking unenthusiastic.
According to some court reporters with a clear view of him, he also at times seemed to struggle to keep his eyes open as lawyers engaged in back-and-forth arguments over what evidence should be permitted.
At one point, before he went on a lunch break and before jury selection began, it even seemed as though he nodded off briefly, setting social media alight with jokes about “Sleepy Don”.
“Trump appears to be sleeping. His head keeps dropping down and his mouth goes slack,” wrote award-winning New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman.
Before jury selection began, Trump’s legal team failed a last-ditch effort to remove Merchan from the case, partly because his daughter had worked as a Democratic political consultant.
“There is no agenda here,” Merchan said as he rejected Trump’s bid to recuse him, which would have further delayed the trial.
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Prosecutors also asked the judge to fine Trump $US3000 ($4600) for violating a gag order after he made a reference on social media to Cohen and Daniels as “two sleaze bags who have, with their lies and misrepresentations, cost our Country dearly!”
Merchan will rule on that request next week, but spent the morning making a series of other rulings about what evidence could be brought into the case. This included rejecting a request by prosecutors to play the infamous Access Hollywood tape, but allowing them to ask questions about it.
The judge also refused a request to include other allegations of sexual assault against Trump that have been raised over the years, describing them as hearsay.
Outside the court, protesters and counterprotesters gathered with flags and banners. Among the crowd was Joel Anderson, a serving police officer from Washington state, holding a sign that said: “Trump’s lies got cops killed on Jan 6”.
“The fact that we’re seeing cops posing with Trump and endorsing him is an absolute abdication of our duty and our oath,” he told this masthead. “He’s a career conman, a career liar, a grifter and a fraud.”
Washington State police officer Joel Anderson outside the New York court on the first day of Donald Trump’s hush money trial.Credit: Farrah Tomazin
On the other side of the park, Dion Cini, dressed in a blue shirt and dark blue Make America Great Again cap, took a much different view.
Asked if he thought the hush money payment made to Daniels was false, Cini replied: “I don’t know – I mean, I’ve been to Thailand a few times and I’ve got skeletons in my closet too” – an apparent reference to the country’s seedy underbelly of go-go bars and prostitution.
“But a severance pay is not a crime. What Donald Trump does in his personal life is up to God to judge. Not me.”
The trial is expected to take about six to eight weeks, and is the first of four that Trump faces. The others include a trial in Washington DC over his attempt to stop Biden’s victory from being certified, another one in Georgia over the presidential election subversion in that state, and another in Florida over his handling of classified documents.
“Of all the trials that he is facing, this is the least important, but it may be the only trial that actually comes to pass before the election in November,” said Professor John Coffee, from the Columbia Law School. “His strategy has been to delay everything.”
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