Jury selection for Donald Trump's hush-money trial was finally completed today, setting the stage for opening statements to start on Monday.
The challenge of securing a full panel of jurors proved difficult to the very end, with prospective jurors breaking down in tears on Friday over the pressures of potentially having to stand jury to Trump's criminal trial. That intensity was on full display yesterday when a juror, who has since been dismissed, expressed concerns that the media had effectively outed her. As I wrote:
The dismissal follows several media reports that featured biographical information about selected jurors. Fox News, in particular, aired a segment on Wednesday that ran through individual jurors with details about their employment history, birth locations, and media consumption.
“This nurse scares me if I’m Trump,” host Jesse Watters said at one point, referring to the juror who was eventually dismissed.
It wasn’t clear what about her biography Watters found alarming. But it appeared enough for Trump to attack on social media.
The same fears appeared central to the anxieties of prospective jurors on Friday—and I genuinely can't blame them, especially after reading this from New York magazine's Olivia Nuzzi. "Talked to a former member of Trump's WH legal team who predicts that the court is going to run out of alternate jurors during the trial. He believes it will be virtually impossible to keep the identities of the jurors secret for the duration of the process, and he expects some jurors will begin to crack under the immense pressure."
This is essentially how a mob boss on trial operates. That it applies to a former president who hopes to return to the White House is astonishing stuff. Anyway, opening statements should be pretty chaotic. So enjoy the brief calm over the weekend and settle into The Tortured Poets Department. It makes for a terrific, knee-slapping debate—and I'm genuinely excited to dissect it with my favorite deranged group chat, "Real Housewives of Taylor Swift's Brain."
See you on Monday.
—Inae Oh
