New York State Criminal Case Against Trump (71543-23)

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      What We Know About the 12 Jurors in Donald Trump’s Criminal Trial

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      Twelve Manhattanites have been chosen to serve on the jury for the first criminal trial of a U.S. president.The judge ordered that the jurors’ identities be kept confidential during the trial and that reporters withhold some information that could identify them.According to their statements in court during three days of jury selection, here is what we know about the jurors:Juror 1, who will be the foreman, works in sales and lives in West Harlem. He said that he enjoys outdoor activities. He said he gets his news from The New York Times and watches Fox News and MSNBC. He said he had heard about some of former President Donald J. Trump’s other criminal cases, but he did not have an opinion about him.Juror 2 works in finance and lives in Hell’s Kitchen. He said he likes hiking, music, concerts and enjoying New York City. He said he follows Mr. Trump’s former fixer, Michael D. Cohen, who is expected to be a key witness, on social media. But he also said he follows figures like former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway. He said he believed Mr. Trump had done some good for the country, adding “it goes both ways.”Juror 3 works in the legal field and lives in Chelsea. He said he does not follow the news closely but, when he does, he reads The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and finds articles using Google. He added that he was not very familiar with Mr. Trump’s other criminal cases.Juror 4 is an engineer from the Upper West Side. Asked how he was during jury selection, he responded, “I am freezing.” When a lawyer asked if he had strong feelings about Mr. Trump, he responded “No, not really.”Who Are Key Players in the Trump Manhattan Criminal Trial?The first criminal trial of former President Donald J. Trump is underway. Take a closer look at central figures related to the case.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Judge in Trump Trial Asks Media Not to Report Some Juror Information

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      The judge in former President Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial ordered reporters to not disclose employment information about potential jurors after he excused a woman who said she was worried about her identity becoming known.The woman, who had been seated on the jury on Tuesday, told the judge that her friends and colleagues had warned her that she had been identified as a juror in the high-profile case. Although the judge has kept prospective jurors’ names private, some have disclosed their employers and other identifying information in court.She also said that she did not believe she could be impartial.The judge, Juan M. Merchan, promptly dismissed her.Moments later, Justice Merchan ordered the press to not report the answer to two queries on a lengthy questionnaire for prospective jurors: “Who is your current employer?” and “Who was your prior employer?”The judge conceded that the information about employers was necessary for lawyers to know. But he directed that those two answers be redacted from the transcript.Justice Merchan also said that he was concerned about news outlets publishing physical descriptions of prospective or seated jurors, asking reporters to “simply apply common sense.”“It serves no purpose,” Justice Merchan said about publishing physical descriptions, adding that he was directing the press to “refrain from writing about anything you observe with your eyes.”With the loss of the female juror on Thursday morning, six seated jurors remain.In early March, Justice Merchan issued an order prohibiting publicly disclosing the names of jurors, while allowing legal teams and the defendant to know their identities.But before the trial, Mr. Trump’s lawyers requested that potential jurors not be told that the jury would be anonymous unless he or she expressed concerns. Justice Merchan told the parties that he’d “make every effort to not unnecessarily alert the jurors” to this secrecy, merely telling jurors that they would be identified in court by a number.On Thursday, Justice Merchan seemed frustrated by news reports that included identifying characteristics of potential jurors that had been aired in open court. He said: “There’s a reason why this is an anonymous jury, and we’ve taken the measures we have taken.”“It kind of defeats the purpose of that when so much information is put out there,” he said.He added that “the press can write about anything the attorney and the courts discuss and anything you observe us do.”But he also said he had the legal authority to prevent reporters from relaying employer information on prospective jurors. He added that “if you can’t stick to that, we’re going to have to see if there is anything else we can do to keep the jurors safe.” More

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      Trump Leaves His Trial to Rail Against Crime and Jab at Prosecutor

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      In his first campaign stop since his criminal trial in Manhattan began, former President Donald J. Trump on Tuesday visited a bodega in Harlem where he made a pointed attack on the district attorney prosecuting him and portrayed himself as tough on crime, a central theme of his 2024 run.His visit to the store — the site of a case that prompted political controversy for Manhattan’s district attorney when an employee was charged after fatally stabbing a man after a confrontation — made for a striking juxtaposition.After spending much of the day in a Manhattan courtroom as a criminal defendant, Mr. Trump immediately traveled uptown both to criticize the district attorney, Alvin Bragg, for being too lenient on crime and to play up his “law and order” message.Mr. Trump has for months tried to draw a distinction between his frequently expressed tough-on-crime stance and the felony charges he faces in four separate cases. Outside the bodega, he again tried to dismiss his charges as political persecution, arguing that Mr. Bragg was too focused on Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign sex scandal cover-up trial and was ignoring crime in the city.“It’s Alvin Bragg’s fault,” Mr. Trump said. “Alvin Bragg does nothing.”Though Mr. Trump is prevented by a gag order from attacking witnesses, prosecutors and jurors in his New York case, the order does not cover Mr. Bragg or the judge overseeing his trial.Before he arrived at the bodega, his campaign attacked Mr. Bragg over his handling of the 2022 incident, in which Jose Alba, a clerk, was charged with second-degree murder after stabbing a man, Austin Simon, in an altercation.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      As Trump Runs in 2024, His 2016 Tactics Are on Trial

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      Donald J. Trump first ran for president nearly a decade ago.Now, as he runs again in a political climate that he helped create, his Manhattan criminal trial is partly a referendum on his tactics during that first campaign.The trial’s very premise is that prosecutors believe Mr. Trump orchestrated an election interference scheme. Faced with damaging stories that could have doomed his campaign — sex scandals involving a porn star and a Playboy model, for example — he concealed them, the prosecutors say.But in a development that will bolster their case, prosecutors on Monday secured permission from the judge to admit evidence connected to Mr. Trump’s overall political strategy in 2016. Much of it bears the former president’s imprint: aggressive tweets, false denials, coordination with a tabloid publisher and more.The judge’s ruling showed how the weapons that worked so well for Mr. Trump then are being turned against him in the courtroom now.The techniques prosecutors highlighted Monday were not invented by Mr. Trump for use in his campaign; they are behaviors he exhibited throughout his life as a businessman and a reality-television star. But in modern American political history, such raw tactics had rarely been seen at such a high level.One example is Mr. Trump’s relationship with The National Enquirer tabloid and its publisher, David Pecker, who is expected to appear as a witness.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Melania Trump Avoids Hush-Money Trial but Shares Her Husband’s Anger

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      Melania Trump has long referred to the hush-money case involving Stormy Daniels as her husband’s problem, not hers. But she has privately called the trial a “disgrace” that could threaten his campaign.In January 2018, when she first saw reports that her husband had paid off a porn star, Melania Trump was furious. She jetted off to Palm Beach, leaving the president to languish in Washington. She eventually returned, only to take a separate car to Donald J. Trump’s first State of the Union address.As a criminal trial against Mr. Trump opened on Monday, on charges that he had falsified records to cover up that sex scandal involving Stormy Daniels, Mrs. Trump did not appear. She has long privately referred to the case involving Ms. Daniels as “his problem” and not hers.But Mrs. Trump, the former first lady, shares his view that the trial itself is unfair, according to several people familiar with her thinking.In private, she has called the proceedings “a disgrace” tantamount to election interference, according to a person with direct knowledge of her comments who could not speak publicly out of fear of jeopardizing a personal relationship with the Trumps.She may support her husband, but Mrs. Trump, whose daily news habit involves scouring headlines for coverage of herself, is bound to see headlines involving Mr. Trump and Ms. Daniels that could reopen old wounds. On Monday, Justice Juan M. Merchan, the judge presiding over the case, also said that Mrs. Trump could be among the potential witnesses as the trial gets underway.All of this could put Mr. Trump on shaky ground with his wife, who has defended him in some critical moments — including when he bragged on tape about grabbing women by their genitals — and withheld her public support in others, like when she did not appear alongside him as he locked up victories on Super Tuesday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Inside the Manhattan Courtroom Where Trump Is on Trial

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      Protesters railed outside, media and security swarmed the area, and inside the courtroom, Donald J. Trump appeared to nod off.It was about 2:30 on Monday afternoon when the first 96 potential jurors filed into a drab courtroom in Lower Manhattan to encounter the world’s most famous defendant: Donald J. Trump.Some craned their necks to catch a glimpse, an indication of the undeniable power of Mr. Trump’s celebrity.But not long after, more than 50 of those same prospective jurors — drawn from one of the nation’s most liberal counties — were dismissed because they said they could not be impartial about the 45th president.The beginning of the first criminal trial of a former American president drew intense security, loud demonstrations and smothering media coverage to a dingy Lower Manhattan courthouse that will be the unlikely center of American politics for the next six weeks.Who Are Key Players in the Trump Manhattan Criminal Trial?The first criminal trial of former President Donald J. Trump began Monday. Take a closer look at central figures related to the case.And if the first day is any indication, the trial may well be a surreal experience, juxtaposing the case’s mundane-sounding criminal charges — falsifying business records — against the potentially seismic effect it could have on the presidential race.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Gag Order Is Expanded to Stop Attacks on Judge Merchan’s Family

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      Donald Trump had in recent days targeted the daughter of Juan Merchan, the judge overseeing his criminal trial in Manhattan, in blistering social media posts.The New York judge overseeing Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial later this month expanded a gag order on Monday to bar the former president from attacking the judge’s family members, who in recent days have become the target of Mr. Trump’s abuse.Justice Juan M. Merchan last week issued an order prohibiting Mr. Trump from attacking witnesses, prosecutors, jurors and court staff, as well as their relatives. That order, however, did not cover Justice Merchan himself or the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, who brought the criminal case against the former president.And although the ruling issued on Monday still does not apply to the judge or the district attorney, Justice Merchan, granting a request from Mr. Bragg’s office, amended the gag order so that it does now cover their families.In his ruling, the judge cited recent attacks against his daughter, and rejected Mr. Trump’s argument that his statements were “core political speech.”“This pattern of attacking family members of presiding jurists and attorneys assigned to his cases serves no legitimate purpose,” Justice Merchan wrote. “It merely injects fear in those assigned or called to participate in the proceedings, that not only they, but their family members as well, are ‘fair game’ for defendant’s vitriol.”Mr. Bragg’s office had asked the judge to clarify that their relatives were included, calling such protection “amply warranted.” Noting Mr. Trump’s track record of issuing “threatening and alarming remarks,” Mr. Bragg’s office warned of “the harms that those family members have suffered.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More