Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner said on Saturday that potential jurors’ politics will not be disqualifying in former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial.
On Monday, jury selection will begin in the Manhattan criminal case against Trump, who is the presumed GOP presidential nominee. Following an investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, Trump was indicted in March 2023 on charges of falsifying business records relating to hush money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential campaign. Daniels alleged that she had an affair with Trump in 2006, which he has denied.
Trump has maintained his innocence, pleading not guilty to all charges against him and claiming the case is politically motivated.
The former president’s legal team tried to delay the trial because “an impartial jury cannot be selected right now based on prejudicial pretrial publicity.” However, a New York appeals court judge denied the request last Monday.
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Earlier this week, Judge Juan Merchan, who is presiding over the case, issued 42 questions that he agreed would be asked of each potential juror. Included in the jury questionnaire was a prompt asking potential jurors if they have any strong opinions or beliefs that may interfere with their ability to be fair in the trial.
Kirschner, a former assistant U.S. attorney and frequent Trump critic, discussed the upcoming trial with political commentator Brian Tyler Cohen on The Legal Breakdown in a YouTube video posted on Saturday night, in which he reassured viewers that the jury that will be selected will be fair and impartial.
“The people who are called to the courthouse for jury duty, they’re all going to have some views perhaps about Donald Trump. They may have a political party affiliation. They may even be activists on the left or on the right. None of that is disqualifying,” Kirschner said.
The former prosecutor said that the jury selection process “is an intense process designed to try to decide whether each and every person who may end up on the jury can truly be fair and impartial regardless of their politics, their ideology, their preferences and their aversions.”
Kirschner explained that it’s not just the judge that’s involved in the jury selection process, but that “it is the prosecutors who will ask a whole series of very probing questions to make sure they are satisfied that the juror can be fair and impartial and Donald Trump’s lawyers.”
He added: “The job of a defense attorney is not necessarily to ensure a fair and impartial juror. They’re looking for a juror that will be as pro-Trump as can [sic] possibly be and still be qualified to sit. So everybody has their own goals and objectives. But I am confident that there will be a fair and impartial jury seated in the case and Donald Trump and the people of New York will get a fair trial.”
Newsweek reached out to Trump’s spokesperson and one of his lawyers on the case via email for comment.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.