Juan Merchan, the judge overseeing former president Donald Trump’s hush-money trial, refused the Trump legal team’s request that he recuse himself on the grounds that he is biased due to his daughter’s work as a Democratic political consultant.
The request came as Merchan, prosecutors, and defense lawyers began the jury-selection process at the courthouse in lower Manhattan. Merchan argued that Trump’s team had not presented evidence of his bias, citing an advisory committee report which found no reason to justify his recusal.
Trump attacked Merchan on social media Monday morning before arriving at the courthouse.
“I want my VOICE back. This Crooked Judge has GAGGED me. Unconstitutional! The other side can talk about me, but I am not allowed to talk about them! Rigged Trial!” Trump wrote on social media.
“Why didn’t they bring this totally discredited lawsuit 7 years ago??? Election Interference!” he added.
The former president continued his tirade outside the courthouse.
“Nothing like this has ever happened before,” Trump said. “This is political persecution … it’s a case that should have never been brought.”
“This is an assault on America and that’s why I’m very proud to be here,” he added.
Merchan also oversaw the civil-fraud trial of former Trump Organization CFO Alan Weisselberg. Last year, Merchan pushed back against allegations that the case was politically motivated.
“I will not allow you in any way to bring up a selective prosecution claim or claim this is some sort of novel prosecution,” Merchan said, adding that he “will have very little patience at trial any questions that are not in a good-faith basis.”
Trump’s legal team has a difficult task before them: finding unbiased jurors in the Democratic stronghold that is Manhattan, where President Joe Biden won 87 percent of the vote in 2020. The jury-selection process will take at least a week — and possibly as long as two — as lawyers on both sides try to whittle an initial pool of hundreds of Manhattanites down to twelve jurors who can set aside their opinions of Trump during the trial.
The case revolves around the Republican presidential nominee’s alleged role in falsifying business records and paying Stormy Daniels in 2016 to cover up a sexual encounter he had with the porn star while his wife Melania was pregnant with their son Barron. Trump has accused Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, of leading a political vendetta against him with a 34-count indictment. Trump has denied any wrongdoing on his part.
The hush-money payment case is the first of four criminal cases brought against Trump, and this notably marks the first criminal trial of a former president in U.S. history.
Prospective jurors will be brought into the courtroom in groups of 100 and asked a list of 42 questions that were approved by Judge Juan Merchan after protracted negotiations between Trump’s attorneys and Bragg’s team. Each side has ten peremptory strikes, which entitle them to disqualify a juror for any reason at all. After those ten strikes have been used, jurors can only be disqualified for cause.
The jurors will be asked what news sources they regularly read or watch, if they have worked or volunteered for Trump’s campaign or an anti-Trump organization, and whether they hold strong views of Trump that would make them biased, among dozens of other questions.
Trump’s lawyers pushed to be able to ask more explicitly political questions, but Merchan barred them from doing so.
“President Trump is running for president,” Trump attorney Todd Blanche said in a February hearing. “Whether we like it or not, a juror’s political affiliation has to be something that we know and understand.”
At that same hearing, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass argued that prospective jurors’ opinions of Trump, regardless of whether they’re favorable or unfavorable, would not automatically disqualify them from being considered.
“They can like him or dislike him,” Steinglass said. “They can still be fair jurors so long as that is not going to affect their ability to fairly judge the evidence in the case.”
Trump’s team has a preference for younger black men, people who have had a negative experience with the criminal-justice system, and public-sector employees such as sanitation workers, firemen, and police officers, the New York Times reported last week. The prosecution will be looking for more highly educated jurors from progressive neighborhoods who favor MSNBC and other liberal media outlets.
“In a normal criminal case, it is the prosecution that’s looking for the white, older male, and it is the defense that’s looking for the minority individual, the anti-police individual − but in this case it’s actually reversed,” Jo-Ellan Dimitrius, a jury consultant who has worked on many high-profile trials, including the O.J. Simpson murder trial, told USA Today.
The jurors will remain anonymous and Judge Merchan warned in a gag order that Trump cannot make any comments about the jurors, or direct any of his allies to do so.
The proceedings will not be televised and only a few reporters will be allowed in the courtroom at once to witness the jury-selection process. Those reporters will not be permitted to take audio recordings or photographs.