April 17 (UPI) — Former President Donald Trump will return to court Thursday for more jury selection after trial proceedings in his New York hush-money case took a one-day break.
Opening statements in the trial could begin as early as next week after more than half of the jury was sworn in Tuesday.
Jury selection in the criminal case over payments Trump allegedly made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels will focus on selecting six more jurors from a new group of 96 New York citizens. Six alternate jurors for the trial also will be selected.
“We don’t know exactly how long that will last,” Judge Juan Merchan commented this week about the ongoing jury selection.
Seven jurors were sworn in Tuesday for the criminal trial over alleged hush-money payments of $130,000 made in 2016. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all 34 counts of falsifying business records.
On Wednesday, jury selection took a break so Merchan could attend to other cases. Proceedings are not scheduled on Wednesdays for the duration of the trial.
While Trump — who is required to be in court every day — has scheduled his campaign events for days off during the trial, he blasted the judge for not making an exception so he could attend his son’s upcoming graduation.
“The judge, Juan Merchan, is preventing me from proudly attending my son’s graduation. Seems very unfair, doesn’t it?” Trump wrote Tuesday in a post on Truth Social.
Since jury selection began this week, multiple jurors have been dismissed over their inability to be impartial or for their political ideology. Others were dismissed over social media posts, including one man who had posted “lock him up” while Trump was president.
A prosecutor from the district attorney’s office told potential jurors that they must remain open-minded, as lawyers scoured potential jurors’ social media sites.
“Everyone and their mother has an opinion about this case, and what the right outcome should be,” as jurors were questioned about their source of news, feelings about Trump, the election and the former president’s legal trials.
More than 50 potential jurors were dismissed on the first day alone.
The four men and three women who were ultimately sworn in as jurors Tuesday include a West Harlem married man with no kids who will serve as the jury foreperson. He was born in Ireland and works in sales.
The second juror is an oncology nurse at Memorial Sloan Kettering and lives on the Upper East Side. The third juror is a corporate lawyer from Oregon who lives in Chelsea.
The fourth juror is an IT consultant and married grandfather who lives on the Lower East Side and is originally from Puerto Rico. The fifth juror is a charter school teacher from Harlem.
The sixth juror is a software developer for Disney who lives in Chelsea.
At one point during this week’s jury selection, Merchan scolded Trump for gesturing toward a juror.
“Mr. Blanche, your client was audibly uttering something” the judge told Trump’s lawyer. “He was audible, gesturing and speaking in the direction of the juror. I won’t tolerate that.”
“I will not have any jurors intimidated in this courtroom. I want to make that crystal clear,” Merchan added.
Trump told reporters outside the courtroom Tuesday that the trial was a “disgrace” and that he should be on the campaign trail in “Pennsylvania, in Florida, in many other states.”
“This is all coming from the White House, because the guy can’t put two sentences together,” Trump claimed. “He can’t campaign. He’s using this in order to try to win an election, and it’s not working that way.”
Next week, Merchan is expected to rule on whether to sanction Trump for violating an expanded gag order. The prosecution is asking Trump be fined $1,000 each for three separate posts it claims were in violation.