NEW YORK -- The historic hush money trial of Donald Trump got underway Monday with the arduous process of selecting a jury to hear the case charging the former president with falsifying business records to stifle stories about his sex life.
The day ended without any jurors being chosen. The selection process was scheduled to resume today.
The first criminal trial of any former U.S. president began as Trump vies to reclaim the White House, creating a split-screen spectacle of the presumptive Republican nominee spending his days as a criminal defendant while simultaneously campaigning for office. He's blended those roles over the past year by presenting himself to supporters, on the campaign trail and on social media, as a target of politically motivated prosecutions designed to derail his candidacy.
"It's a scam. It's a political witch hunt. It continues, and it continues forever," Trump said after exiting the courtroom, where he sat at the defense table with his lawyers.
After a norm-shattering presidency shadowed by years of investigations, the trial amounts to a reckoning for Trump, who faces four indictments charging him with crimes ranging from hoarding classified documents to plotting to overturn an election. Yet the political stakes are less clear because a conviction would not preclude him from becoming president and because the allegations in this case date back years and are seen as less grievous than the conduct behind the three other indictments.
The day began with pretrial arguments -- including over a potential fine for Trump -- before moving in the afternoon into jury selection, where the parties will decide who among them might be picked to determine the legal fate of the former, and potentially future, American president.
After the first members of the jury pool, 96 in all, were summoned into the courtroom, Trump craned his neck to look back at them, whispering to his lawyer as they entered the jury box.
"You are about to participate in a trial by jury. The system of trial by jury is one of the cornerstones of our judicial system," Judge Juan Merchan told the jurors. "The name of this case is the People of the State of New York vs. Donald Trump."
Trump's notoriety would make the process of picking 12 jurors and six alternates a near-herculean task in any year, but it's likely to be especially challenging now, unfolding in a closely contested presidential election in the heavily Democratic city where Trump grew up and catapulted to celebrity status decades before winning the White House.
Underscoring the difficulty, only about a third of the 96 people in the first panel of potential jurors remained after the judge excused some members. More than half the group was excused after telling the judge they could not be fair and impartial. At least nine more were excused after raising their hands when Merchan asked if they could not serve for any other reason.
A female juror was excused after saying she had strong opinions about Trump. Earlier in the questionnaire, the woman, a Harlem resident, indicated that she could be neutral in deciding the case, but when asked whether she had strong opinions about the former president, the woman answered matter-of-factly: "Yes."
When Merchan asked her to repeat the response, she replied: "Yeah, I said yes." She was dismissed.
Merchan has written that the key is "whether the prospective juror can assure us that they will set aside any personal feelings or biases and render a decision that is based on the evidence and the law."
No matter the outcome, Trump is determined to benefit from the proceedings, casting the case, and his indictments elsewhere, as a broad "weaponization of law enforcement" by Democratic prosecutors and officials. He maintains that they are orchestrating sham charges in hopes of impeding his presidential run.
Trump has lambasted judges and prosecutors for years, a pattern of attacks that continued Monday as he entered court Monday after calling the case an "assault on America."
"This is political persecution. This is a persecution like never before," he said.
Earlier Monday, the judge denied a defense request to recuse himself from the case after Trump's lawyers claimed he had a conflict of interest. He also said prosecutors could not play for the jury the 2005 "Access Hollywood" recording in which Trump was captured discussing grabbing women sexually without their permission. However, prosecutors will be allowed to question witnesses about the recording, which became public in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign.
Prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney's office also asked for Merchan to fine Trump $3,000 over social media posts they said violated the judge's gag order barring him from attacking witnesses. Last week, he used his Truth Social platform to call his former lawyer Michael Cohen and the adult film actor Stormy Daniels "two sleaze bags who have, with their lies and misrepresentations, cost our Country dearly!"
Trump lawyer Todd Blanche maintained that Trump was simply responding to the witnesses' statements.
"It's not as if President Trump is going out and targeting individuals. He is responding to salacious, repeated vehement attacks by these witnesses," Blanche said.
Merchan setting a hearing for next week on the request.
Trump has pleaded innocent to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Prosecutors say the alleged fraud was part of an effort to keep salacious -- and, Trump says, bogus -- stories about his sex life from emerging during his 2016 campaign.
The charges center on $130,000 in payments that Trump's company made to Cohen. He paid that sum on Trump's behalf to keep Daniels from going public a month before the election with her claims of a sexual encounter with the married mogul a decade earlier.
Prosecutors say the payments to Cohen were falsely logged as legal fees to cloak their actual purpose. Trump's lawyers say the disbursements indeed were legal expenses, not a cover-up.
After decades of fielding and initiating lawsuits, the businessman-turned-politician now faces a trial that could result in up to four years in prison if he's convicted, though a no-jail sentence also would be possible.
Trump's attorneys lost a bid to get the hush-money case dismissed and have since repeatedly sought to delay it, prompting a flurry of last-minute appeals court hearings last week.
Among other things, Trump's lawyers maintain that the jury pool in overwhelmingly Democratic Manhattan has been tainted by negative publicity about Trump and that the case should be moved elsewhere.
An appeals judge turned down an emergency request to delay the trial while the change-of-venue request goes to a group of appellate judges, who are set to consider it in the coming weeks.
Manhattan prosecutors have countered that a lot of the publicity stems from Trump's own comments and that questioning will tease out whether prospective jurors can put aside any preconceptions they may have. There's no reason, prosecutors said, to think that 12 fair and impartial people can't be found amid Manhattan's roughly 1.4 million adult residents.
The prospective jurors will be known only by number because the judge has ordered that their names be kept secret from everyone except prosecutors, Trump and their legal teams. The 42 preapproved, sometimes multi-pronged queries include background basics but also reflect the uniqueness of the case.
They're being asked, among other questions, about hobbies and news habits, whether they hold strong beliefs about Trump that would prevent them being impartial and about attendance at Trump or anti-Trump rallies.
Based on the answers, the attorneys can ask a judge to eliminate people "for cause" if they meet certain criteria for being unable to serve or can't be unbiased. The lawyers also can use "peremptory challenges" to oust 10 potential jurors and two prospective alternates without giving a reason.
Information for this article was contributed by Jake Offenhartz of The Associated Press.
Former President Donald Trump arrives at Manhattan criminal court with his legal team, Monday, April 15, 2024, in New York. The hush money trial of former President Donald Trump begins Monday with jury selection. It's a singular moment for American history as the first criminal trial of a former U.S. commander in chief. (AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)
Former President Donald Trump leaves Trump Tower on his way to Manhattan criminal court, Monday, April 15, 2024, in New York. The hush money trial of former President Donald Trump begins Monday with jury selection. It's a singular moment for American history as the first criminal trial of a former U.S. commander in chief. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Former President Donald Trump arrives at Manhattan criminal court with his legal team, Monday, April 15, 2024, in New York. The hush money trial of former President Donald Trump begins Monday with jury selection. It's a singular moment for American history as the first criminal trial of a former U.S. commander in chief. (AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)
Judge Juan Merchan poses for a picture in his chambers, Thursday, March 14, 2024, in New York. A dozen Manhattan residents are soon to become the first Americans ever to sit in judgment of a former president charged with a crime. Jury selection is set to start Monday in former President Donald Trump's hush-money trial. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
Former President Donald Trump arrives at court for the start of jury selection in his historic hush money trial, Monday, April 15, 2024 in New York. (Angela Weiss/Pool via AP)
Former President Donald Trump leaves Trump Tower on his way to Manhattan criminal court, Monday, April 15, 2024, in New York. The hush money trial of former President Donald Trump begins Monday with jury selection. It's a singular moment for American history as the first criminal trial of a former U.S. commander in chief. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
FILE - Michael Cohen, former attorney to Donald Trump, leaves the District Attorney's office in New York, March 13, 2023. Trump is set to stand trial Monday, April 15, 2024, in New York on state charges related to the very sex scandal that he and his aides strove to hide. Many details of the case have been public since 2018, when federal prosecutors charged Cohen with campaign finance crimes in connection with a scheme to bury Stormy Daniels' claims, and other potentially damaging stories from Trump's playboy past. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File)
FILE - Adult film actress Stormy Daniels arrives at an event in Berlin, on Oct. 11, 2018. Donald Trump will make history as the first former president to stand trial on criminal charges when his hush money case opens with jury selection. The allegations focus on payoffs to two women, Daniels, a porn actress, and Playboy model Karen McDougal, who said they had extramarital sexual encounters with Trump years earlier, as well as to a Trump Tower doorman who claimed to have a story about a child he alleged Trump had out of wedlock. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)
FILE - Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg listens at news conference in New York, Feb. 7, 2023. Donald Trump will make history as the first former president to stand trial on criminal charges when his hush money case opens with jury selection. Bragg's office has said that Trump was trying to conceal violations of federal campaign finance laws — an unusual legal strategy some experts have said could potentially backfire. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)