New York City is the most difficult place in America to find a fair jury for the former US President’s criminal trial—the first ever for an American president. The case involved allegations that Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen paid $1,30,000 to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to not go public with a story about her sexual encounter with Trump
By Kenneth Tiven
As someone born and raised in the New York City Borough of Queens, you might think he was a local hero, the boy who made good in the real estate business and had a second career in reality television before becoming the 45th president of the United States. However, after over 3,500 civil suits over business deals and a prickly relationship with local media, former US president Donald Trump’s reputation is not great. The reality is that New York City is the least suitable place for a trial based on Trump’s reputation as a builder and landlord, given that the city has the most diversified population in the United States.
Unsurprisingly, the judge dismissed half of the first 100 people selected to be potential jurors based on their claim they could not objectively deal with Trump. The prosecution and defense agreed on seven potential jurors after two days. Jury selection is expected to finish selecting 12 jurors and six alternates by April 23. The combative trial portion is estimated to last six weeks.
As necessary, the possible jury pool is derived from voter registration lists and other government lists. For this case, jurors filled out a 42-page questionnaire while lawyers and consultants swiftly searched social media for any political information or postings they might have made. In the “voir dire” phase, the potential jurors are questioned by judge and lawyers. This is an ancient Anglo-Norman term in common law, meaning “to speak the truth”. Can you be fair and impartial. Because conviction requires unanimous consent, jury selection is critical. Each side looks for the person who will hurt or help their case. “Lose the hurt, keep the helper” is a well-defined process for defense and prosecution.
There are moments of humanity in jury selection: one prospective juror was asked if she knew anyone in the legal field. “I dated a lawyer for a while,” pausing to say, “It ended fine”. There was laughter when one New Yorker answered the question: How do you spend your spare time. “I have no spare time,” he said.
This Manhattan courtroom is not where Trump wants to be. He appeared to snooze for a bit at one point. In contrast, at a rally, a crowd applauds his every repeated claim and eggs him on; here he must sit quietly as a criminal defendant, having been warned on Day 1 that outbursts of the sort that occurred in recent civil cases would not be tolerated. Outside the courtroom, he waged war on the judge and the entire case, angry that something that had happened in 2006, causing a problem in 2016, was now threatening his election campaign in 2024.
Trump’s strategy now is to treat each trial day as a campaign event to feed his loyal MAGA people energy. Before entering the courtroom, he told reporters that the trial “should have never been brought”. As he has in the past repeated his belief that Judge Juan Merchan is a “Trump-hating judge”.
This is Trump, unchanged since 1979. Back then, he was always brash and outspoken in his effort to crack the Manhattan real estate market. His aim was to show up-scale Manhattan that a kid from Queens can beat them at their own game. It’s called Borough Envy in New York, where Manhattan gets all the attention, leaving out the other four boroughs. In 1979, using money from his father’s housing empire in Queens, he spent $15 million to buy and demolish a building on Fifth Avenue, then as today, the “high street” of New York shopping and fashion. Trump Tower stands there today, an audacious move for a 32-year-old real estate beginner.
But he couldn’t leave well enough alone. The building he demolished contained numerous architectural treasures the Metropolitan Museum of Art desired. He promised the museum he would donate them, taking a tax deduction for charity. Instead, he destroyed them all and then, using his nom de plume of John Barron, told the media they were actually worthless. So, from his start, he made it clear he had no respect for rules, regulations, or commitments. To save money on that demolition, he illegally brought in labourers from Poland, underpaying them to avoid the unionized demolition workforce in New York.
This attitude has been a consistent aspect of Trump world. Less familiar is seeing Trump as a criminal defendant, being told to appear at each trial day just like, “any other criminal defendant.” Journalism shorthand describes this case as about “hush money”. However, it is really a case of election interference. In 2016, shortly after the “Access Hollywood” tape in which then-candidate Trump boasted of sexually assaulting women became public, Trump allegedly falsified business records to hide payments to individuals lest his behaviour with women be revealed before the election.
Trump’s lawyer/fixer, Michael Cohen, allegedly paid $1,30,000 to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to not go public with a story about her one-night stand with Trump. He also arranged for a $1,50,000 payment from the publisher of the National Enquirer weekly tabloid newspaper to Playboy model Karen McDougal, who claimed to have had an affair with Trump. The National Enquirer had exclusive rights to the story, meaning they could decline to publish it and she could not take it elsewhere. This practice is known as “catch-and-kill”.
Trump falsified business records to reimburse Cohen for “legal expenses related to the Daniel’s payment,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has charged Trump with 34 counts of falsifying those records.
This trial vindicates the rule of law. Despite his many attempts to delay it, a former president is facing accountability for his actions just as any American should. New York State, which knows Trump from A to Z, has been a problem for Trump for a long time. At the federal level, Trump’s lawyers and friendly judges have been able to slow down the process issues in multiple cases to avoid anything going to trial before the November election.
In the New York State case, the prosecution is not trying to save American democracy. The task is to convince a jury that Trump is corrupt. A conviction demonstrates what we rarely experience: No one, not even Donald Trump, is above the law. No matter how this case ends, no matter the appeals process, people on one side or the other will remain adamant that justice was not done.
—The writer has worked in senior positions at The Washington Post, NBC, ABC and CNN and also consults for several Indian channels