Donald Trump criminal trial: The former president is hostile toward jurors.
Read our ongoing coverage of Donald Trump’s first criminal trial here.
Donald Trump’s first criminal trial sped along faster than expected this past week, with a full slate of 12 jurors and six alternates seated by Friday. Slate’s Jeremy Stahl was at the Manhattan courthouse throughout the proceedings and will continue to report from the trial in the coming weeks. On Saturday’s episode of Amicus, he spoke with Mark Joseph Stern about what he saw as the prosecution and defense attempted to shape the jury in their favor. Their conversation has been edited for clarity.
Mark Joseph Stern: Let’s start with a piecethat Dahlia Lithwick wrote with Anat Shenker-Osorio contesting the misguided commentary that assumes this trial won’t sway many voters in one direction or the other. Dahlia and Anat argue that the trial might remind some weary citizens of what’s at stake in this presidential election. They write: “It changes the narrative from a tale of two old men, neither of whom they find appealing, into the possibility that a convicted criminal will be deciding which laws, if any, apply to him and also to everyone else.” Your thoughts?
Jeremy Stahl: So I’m talking from the perspective of somebody who has spent a week listening to potential jurors—who are also citizens and voters. And I’ve heard jurors talk their way through what this means to hold Trump to the same standard of justice as anyone else, to not treat him as above the law, but also to presume that he is innocent until proved guilty. You can hear them really wrestling with the seriousness and weight of the matter. They know how real this is.
AdvertisementThe problem for the public, I think, is that there are no cameras in the courtroom. Most people are not going to seehow serious this is. They’re going to rely on secondary descriptions from people like me, and I think just viscerally, it’s a harder thing to convey. I’m hopeful that it can be conveyed, and that people can appreciate it. This is going to snowball into a bigger and bigger story throughout the course of this trial; people are going to understand the stakes more and more, especially once there’s a verdict. But yes, it’s still a real challenge that it won’t be in front of anyone’s eyes.
Advertisement Advertisement AdvertisementNo matter what, Trump is stuck in that courtroom for the foreseeable future. Judge Merchan is not letting him go, right?
AdvertisementI mean, Trump wants to go to Barron’s graduation. Judge Merchan said, “put it a pin in that.”
I’ve seen conservative Trump defenders say “that’s insane,” but we should remind people that this is how criminal trials work: The defendant does not get to pick and choose which calendar days he or she attends. You’ve got to be there the whole time.
It’s very typical. Also, Trump wants to be at the U.S. Supreme Court for oral arguments in his immunity case next week. His attorneys argued that he had to attend and that it could impact this case. Judge Merchan was like, “I don’t think it’s going to impact this case, and also, no, you can’t go.” He’s very terse, and will sometimes have a bit of pondering in his responses, but then when he decides something, it’s just boom, on to the next issue.
AdvertisementYou and I wrote a pieceabout why the immunity case at the Supreme Court doesn’t even apply here, and why Judge Merchan refused to even consider it because Trump only raised immunity at the eleventh hour as a delay tactic.
That, and the crime itself is private conduct, right? It’s not even arguably presidential conduct. It’s all about a cover-up payment to Stormy Daniels, with whom he supposedly had this affair, and didn’t want voters to know about it. That has nothing to do with being the president.
So Trump is stuck in that chair. He’s trying to find a face that communicates “not guilty” to the jury, and a face that shows to the public—through courtroom sketch artists—that he is the defiant victim of a witch hunt. How’s he doing?
Advertisement AdvertisementMore on Bragg Trial
- Prosecutors Are Finally Revealing Their Strategy Against Trump
- You Don’t Want to Know How It’s Going Between Trump’s Lawyers and the Judge Presiding Over His Criminal Case
- Keeping Up With the Trump Trials: Bad News for Jack Smith’s Election Interference Case
- I Was in the Courtroom With Trump. He Seems Pretty Checked Out.
Trump is doing himself no favors with his demeanor in front of these jurors. He isn’t offering a pleasant demeanor to them, and sometimes he has been outright hostile and almost aggressive toward them. He’s making persistent eye contact, he’s looking at people, and then when he gets out of the courtroom, he does his normal campaign spiel: “This is a witch hunt. Everybody’s against me. Blah, blah, blah.”
Tell us what you’re watching out for next week.
Next week is a big week—the start of the trial. It will actually begin in earnest on Monday. We’ll have opening arguments from the prosecution, in which they lay out their entire theory of the case. Both sides have already started to do that in jury selection. But next week we’ll hear the full story that each side is going to tell, and we’ll learn who the first witnesses are. On Tuesday, we’ll also hear this question over Trump’s continued gag order violations. Judge Merchan does not appear inclined to be friendly to Trump based on his previous comments. If Trump continues to violate Merchan’s gag order, I don’t know what the escalation is going to look like. But it’s going to be something serious.
Tweet Share Share Comment-
Best Home Depot Labor Day sale dealsBelle Delphine now claims she was arrested after vandalizing a carStephen Colbert mocks Trump's absurd attempt to hold the G最懂你的乡宴!佛冈“村晚”即将在水头镇上演We Cannot Live Without Cryptography!S. Korea's virus caseload surpasses grim milestone of 500,000 amid unrelenting spread of virus市教育督导委员会赴荥经县开展调研How to enable dark mode on WhatsApp for iOS and AndroidEssential Apps to Install on your Windows PC or MacBleak thrills make 'Tell Me Your Secrets' an awkward bummer: TV review
- ·21 Caves That Offer Otherworldly Experiences
- ·How to enable dark mode on WhatsApp for iOS and Android
- ·Milan face test of mettle
- ·James Fields sentenced to life in prison for Unite the Right killing of Heather Heyer.
- ·When Are Next
- ·考察招商投资环境 磋商合作发展事项
- ·预防手足口病要注意环境卫生
- ·'WandaVision' Episode 8 made a strong new case for keeping Disney+
- ·Best smart home deals this week at Amazon
- ·Facebook now lets you create 3D photos without a portrait mode camera
- ·Twitter tests disappearing 'fleets' which sure look a lot like Stories
- ·名山区:开展应急演练提高学生自救应变能力
- ·18 Slightly Submerged Architectural Wonders
- ·Trump tweets misleading claim about FBI agents’ missing texts to discredit Russia probe.
- ·S. Korea to release report on forced labor in N. Korea for 1st time
- ·氢能源产业起步发展 氢能源汽车是突破口
- ·Table tennis star Shin Yu
- ·A Marine who worked on 'Six Days in Fallujah' explains why it exists
- ·N. Korean missile launches only solidify US alliances with S. Korea, Japan: Blinken
- ·S. Korea's virus caseload surpasses grim milestone of 500,000 amid unrelenting spread of virus
- ·18 Places for Epic Outdoor Adventure Across Colorado
- ·上汽大众途昂X推6款新车
- ·‘Golden time’ in inter
- ·N. Korean accusation of airspace violation unfounded: State Dept.
- ·9 Planetariums to Get Lost in the Cosmos
- ·800余名运动员参赛角逐多个奖项
- ·中山古镇:到苏炳添家乡看“村BA”,来一场说走就走的美食之旅
- ·Blinken to raise N. Korea issues at upcoming ARF meetings: official
- ·新技术:助推农产品产量质量双丰收
- ·普及急救知识 践行大爱担当
- ·Giant dual
- ·‘Magic: The Gathering’ Time Spiral Remastered gives angels a new vintage look
- ·Education ministry to improve vaccine pass application measures at cram schools
- ·Twitter is now adding a controversial 'hacked materials' warning label to tweets
- ·Apple Intelligence is now a little easier to get outside the U.S.
- ·Cat gets petty revenge by pushing another cat in the pool