MANHATTAN (CN) — A complete panel of 12 jurors and six alternatives was finalized in Manhattan court on Friday afternoon in the first criminal trial of former President Donald Trump. Opening arguments in the historic case are slated begin on Monday morning.
The process of seating alternates for Trump’s trial concluded on Friday — the fourth day of jury selection — as the first 12 jurors and one alternate were sworn in. The remaining five alternates were finalized around 1:30 p.m. on Friday afternoon.
From an original pool of 22 potential alternate jurors, several were excused from consideration on Friday morning after they said they did not think they could be fair and impartial in the historic case.
Manhattan Supreme Justice Juan Merchan likewise disqualified another juror, who had a prior felony conviction and incarceration in Massachusetts but lacked a certificate of disposition that would have made her eligible to sit as a juror in New York.
Later in the day, Merchan also excused a woman who broke down in tears as she asked to be recused because of the pressure of the historic trial.
“This is so much more stressful than I thought it would be,” she said during voir dire questioning by prosecutor Susan Hoffinger. She later added that "I feel so nervous and anxious right now" and “I don't want to waste the court's time.”
In this case, Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee for the 2024 election, faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records — charges brought last year by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. After opening arguments on Monday, the trial is anticipated to last up to six weeks.
The 45th president arrived to the 15th-floor courtroom shortly before 9:30 a.m. on Friday morning, along with his attorneys Todd Blanche, Emil Bove, and Susan Necheles.
He did not look toward prospective jurors as they entered. He instead appeared to lower his glance downward at the defense table, one courtroom reporter observed.
Necheles asked the pool of would-be jurors whether “allegations that Donald Trump was unfaithful in his marriage” would affect their ability to be impartial. The potential alternate jurors all said no.
Merchan excused one woman who works for the New York City Law Department, who explained she doesn't have a bias against Trump but instead has a personal bias that is more focused on his base.
“I think his rhetoric at times enables people to feel as if they have permission to discriminate or act on their negative impulses," she said.
“To be honest — this is a little embarrassing — I’m not even sure what Trump’s policies are,” she added. Still, she said Trump's political rhetoric had stoked and emboldened his supporters’ underlying misogyny and homophobia.
Outside the courtroom, Trump fumed against District Attorney Bragg’s case and said the process had been rigged by Democrats.
"They have White House DOJ people in the trial in the DA’s office representing the DA,” he told reporters on Friday morning. “He's probably not smart enough to represent himself. Guy got elected using Trump, you know, very much like Letitia James."
Bragg claims that in order to avoid bad press during his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump instructed Michael Cohen, his longtime lawyer and fixer, to pay hush money in 2016 to Stormy Daniels, an adult-film star who says she was involved in an extramarital tryst with Trump a decade earlier. Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges and continues to deny having ever met or had any relationship with Daniels.
Merchan, now presiding over this case, also previously oversaw Bragg’s tax fraud trial in 2022 against Trump’s namesake company. That case netted a guilty plea from longtime Trump Org money man Allen Weisselberg.
Earlier this month, Weisselberg was sentenced to five months in jail for lying during a deposition in Trump's civil fraud case brought by the New York Attorney General.
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