NY vs Donald Trump: Hush money case

Birdjaguar

Birdjaguar

Hanafubuki
Super Moderator
Supporter
Joined
Dec 24, 2001
Messages
58,227
Location
Albuquerque, NM
Now that we have a trial underway, it seems suitable for a thread dedicated to it. News, thoughts, opinions on this trial are all welcome.

Six jurors have been seated and things are moving along. No court tomorrow Wednesday.
 

Judge tells jurors not to read news or research the case​

Judge Juan Merchan gave the jurors instructions, from logistics like arriving before 9 a.m. ET to give them time to clear the mags for court, to serious matters like not accepting bribes and reporting any attempts to influence them.
He told them to avoid reading the news or researching the case.
"In addition, not conversing face-to-face with anyone about the case," Merchan said, adding that jurors cannot communicate electronically with anyone.
 
EvaDK said:
How many days before Trump will receive a gag order from the judge, I wonder? :lol:
Click to expand...
He's already under one! This judge didn't wait around.

The question is how long until he gets meaningfully sanctioned for violating it.
 
Five more to go. Plus alternates.

What we know about the 7 jurors seated Tuesday​

Seven jurors have been seated in Donald Trump's hush money criminal trial so far today. Here's what we know about them:
  1. The first seated juror, who will be the foreperson on Trump’s jury, is a man originally from Ireland. He works in sales and has some college education. He is married but doesn’t have kids. He reads the New York Times and Daily Mail and watches some Fox News and MSNBC.
  2. The second juror is an oncology nurse who lives with her fiancé. She’s a native New Yorker. She reads the New York Times and watches CNN.
  3. The third seated juror is a corporate lawyer. He’s originally from Oregon. He gets his news from The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Google. He’s a younger man who’s never been married and doesn’t have kids.
  4. The fourth juror is an older Puerto Rican man who’s married with adult children and two grandkids. When asked about his hobbies, he said, "I guess my hobby is my family." He has an IT business for training and consulting and attended one year of college. He told the court he finds Trump fascinating and mysterious. “So many people are set off one way or the other and that is interesting,” the man said. “Really, this one guy can do all of this, wow.” Trump “makes things interesting,” the man said, but also didn’t indicate any strong feelings about his politics.
  5. The fifth juror is a young Black woman who teaches English language in a public charter school system. She has a master’s degree in education, is not married and doesn’t have any kids. The juror said that as a person of color she has friends who have strong opinions on Trump, but she personally is not a political person. She said she tries to avoid political conversations and doesn't really care for the news. The juror did say she appreciates Trump’s candor: “President Trump speaks his mind and I’d rather that than someone who's in office who you don’t know what they’re thinking." She was also the only juror of 18 in the box Tuesday morning who said she wasn’t aware that Trump is facing charges in other criminal cases.
  6. The sixth juror is a software engineer at a large broadcast company who recently graduated from college. She voiced no strong feelings about Donald Trump one way or the other and said, “I will be fair and impartial." She is not married and has no kids, currently living with three roommates in Chelsea. The juror gets her news from the New York Times, Google, Facebook and TikTok. She asked the judge whether her sister’s wedding on a Sunday in September would be a scheduling conflict. Merchan quipped, “If we were still here in September that would be a big problem,” garnering laughs in the courtroom.
  7. The seventh juror is a civil litigator who is married with two kids and lives on the Upper East Side in Manhattan. Originally from North Carolina, he reads the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Post and Washington Post. He said he has "political views as to the Trump presidency" and that he thinks there were likely Trump administration policies he disagreed with. "I don't know the man and I don't have opinions about him personally," he said. "I certainly follow the news, I'm aware there are other lawsuits out there. But I'm not sure that I know anyone’s character."
Men: 4
Women: 3

One Irish, one black one Puerto Rican

All appear to have an education past HS
 
Last edited:
Moderator Action: This is not a TV thread. We already have one of those. Posts removed.
 

If Trump testifies at NY criminal trial, prosecutors want to use his past legal run-ins to discredit him to jury​


If Donald Trump opts to testify at his New York criminal trial, Manhattan prosecutors want to use his past legal run-ins to discredit him to the jury.

In a filing released Wednesday, prosecutors for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office say they’ll ask the former president about the recent verdicts against him, including the recent civil fraud trial with the New York attorney general, where a judge found Trump and his company liable for committing persistent and repeated fraud by inflating the value of his assets to get better loan rates.

Prosecutors say they’ll want to question him about what they claim is false testimony he gave on the stand at that trial last November. They’ll also ask about E. Jean Carroll who juries have said Trump should pay nearly $90 million over her claims that he raped her in 1996 and then defamed her repeatedly after she came forward in 2019. Prosecutors also listed Trump’s lawsuit against Hillary Clinton that was dismissed for being frivolous and in bad-faith and a settlement with the New York attorney general that resulted in the dissolution of the Donald J. Trump Foundation.

They’ll also question him about the 2022 tax fraud conviction of Trump’s company, a case also tried by the DA’s office before Judge Juan Merchan. The judge plans to hold a proceeding called a Sandoval hearing to rule on what’s fair fodder for prosecutors if Trump takes the stand in his defense later at trial.

A Sandoval hearing is a common preliminary proceeding that reviews a defendant’s criminal history and looks at how much prosecutors can ask if a defendant testifies. Merchan said at the end of the day Tuesday that the matter could be debated in court on Friday – but only if jury selection was completed in time, which is still to be determined.

“If for some reason we are fortunate and get done early on Friday, we will take up Sandoval at that time,” Merchan said.
 
Apparently DJT went after the jury tonight on TS. It was covered on both Fox and MSNBC. Seems he is pushing for a gag order showdown with the judge. It might be the first item on the court docket tomorrow morning.
 
You can't give him a list of people, like the one you provided above, and not have his mind do two things in sequence: 1) try to determine whether that person is "with me or against me" and 2) demonize anyone he puts in the second category. That is the structure of his brain.

Me and things associated with me: the best in the history of our country (some are saying the best in the history of humankind).
People opposed to me: the worst in the history of humankind.

And, of course, his thumbs have no censor. As soon as he thinks a thing, he must post it.

By the way, that list contains details that seem to me sufficiently unique that a sufficiently determined person could identify those jurors for bribery or intimidation.
 
Gori the Grey said:
By the way, that list contains details that seem to me sufficiently unique that a sufficiently determined person could identify those jurors for bribery or intimidation.
Click to expand...
If I were a juror in this case, I don't think I'd want anyone to know. Acquit him and the country's mad at you. Convict him and he may have people who would "pay you a visit" - or he'd just find a way to completely ruin your reputation, no actual physical violence needed. Just job loss, blacklisting, breaking up the family...
 
The court will take steps to keep their identity concealed, for the reasons you say. But evidently the details in Bird's list came from reporters sitting in on the jury selection, and again, enough stuff came out about them, that with some follow-up sleuthing they could probably be identified.
 

Trump's social media posts may be "baiting" judge, but it's complicated under New York law, legal expert says​

From CNN's Maureen Chowdhury

Donald Trump's Truth Social posts repeating unsubstantiated claims about potential jurors is "baiting" Judge Juan Merchan into acting and "thumbing his nose at the system," Elliot Williams, CNN legal analyst, said.
"However, it is not entirely straightforward under New York law what happens next," Williams added. Prosecutors say Trump has violated his gag order seven more times, pointing to posts online and calling the situation "ridiculous."
Click to expand...
Williams notes that despite the repeated violation allegations, Merchan can't just throw Trump in jail. The judge has to bring Trump in for a hearing and he has to decide if it's a civil or criminal proceeding. "There's pitfalls to both of those approaches," the legal analyst added.
Williams added: "What's telling is that the judge has waited five days" and he's not having a hearing until April 23 regarding the gag order violations, "which is quite significant. He's letting this all stay out there." Williams said that it's maybe a way of the judge trying to be more fair to the former president than Merchan needs to be "just in the interest of caution."
 
News, thoughts, and left-wing opinions on this trial are all welcome here.
 
He lacks stamina.
 
From WaPo today:

It all raises a familiar and vital question about Trump’s 2024 campaign — about people’s memories.
How much have people simply forgotten what they didn’t like about him? And how much will being reminded about that — and being more deeply informed about potentially criminal actions in cases like the Manhattan one — affect the presidential race?

What’s clear is that Trump supporters and independents are at a significant deficit when it comes to understanding these cases:
Polling has shown huge numbers of Republicans believe things that simply aren’t true about the cases. For instance, a majority of Republicans have said Trump didn’t even try to overturn the election. Half have said he didn’t take top-secret and classified documents from the White House. (He objectively did both.)
  • A Marquette University Law School poll last summer showed a majority of independents said they had heard only “a little” (40 percent) or “nothing at all” (16 percent) about his classified documents case.
  • A Reuters/Ipsos poll last month showed nearly half of independents and Republicans said they were following Trump’s election subversion cases “not so closely” or “not closely at all.” Just 3 in 10 Democrats said the same.
  • An Economist/YouGov poll last month showed just 18 percent of Republicans said they had heard “a lot” about the hush money case, and 39 percent said they had heard “nothing at all” about it. Those numbers were basically reversed among Democrats, 39 percent of whom had heard “a lot” and just 20 percent of whom had heard “nothing at all.”
The total picture suggests that lots of Americans and even Republicans could soon learn — or relearn — plenty about a situation they regard as unsavory or even illegal.
It might not be as much of a deal breaker for voters as Trump’s other cases, and there is a real threat for prosecutors and Democrats in having Americans regard this process as overzealous.
That doesn’t mean it will be a proud moment for Trump.
Click to expand...

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom