This Tuesday, seven Manhattan residents were selected as jurors for former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial.
The selections come after a complex first day, during which Judge Juan Merchán dismissed more than half of the candidates without selecting a single juror for the trial because they admitted that they could not be impartial or fair concerning Trump or the case.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the rapid selection of seven jurors opens hope for testimonies in the trial to begin next week. However, five more jurors still need to be chosen to complete the team of twelve jurors and another six substitutes.
The newspaper detailed that four of the seven jurors are men and three are women. This is set to be the first jury in the country’s history that will give a verdict on criminal charges against a former president.
The WSJ detailed that among the seven selected jurors, there is a charter school teacher, a software engineer, a salesperson, a corporate lawyer, and an oncology nurse. None of the names of the jurors have been released.
When she was asked about her opinion on former President Trump, the nurse said that she had none, assuring that it is important that all citizens should be treated equally in the courts and that no one should be above the law.
Meanwhile, an IT consultant among the seven selected for the jury revealed in court that he holds a certain fascination with the former president.
“He walks into a room, and he sets people off one way or another,” said the juror who lives on the Lower East Side. “Really, this one guy can do all of this.”
The successful candidates were among an initial group of nearly 100 Manhattan residents who were questioned about their suitability to serve on the jury.
This trial against Trump belongs to the case of hush money payments that the former president allegedly made to porn actress Stormy Daniels during his presidential campaign in 2016.
Last year, Manhattan prosecutor Alvin Bragg charged Trump with 34 counts of allegedly falsifying business records related to these payments in exchange for silence.
However, the former president maintains his innocence and calls the investigation against him a witch hunt.
