Even as a judge was hearing arguments on last-minute issues in a criminal case that centers on salacious allegations and threatens to upend his bid for the presidency, Mr. Trump appeared to nod off a few times, his mouth going slack and his head drooping onto his chest...The only time Mr. Trump showed a flash of humor was when he laughed at one of his own social media posts, which attacked his former fixer, Michael D. Cohen, who is expected to be the prosecution’s central witness.
— Maggie Haberman, The New York Times, April 15, 2024
Well, he seems to be staying in character anyway.
The rest of the day was taken up by the voir dire process. Like everything else in the case, this mundane legal fandango was...unusual.
Everyone expected that picking a jury to try a polarizing figure like former President Donald J. Trump was going to be a challenge. But the experience of the first round of about 100 potential panelists gave a flavor of just how difficult the process could be: More than half told the judge that they could not hear the case against Mr. Trump fairly and were immediately excused. Justice Juan M. Merchan, who is presiding over the case, read aloud to the prospective jurors a list of people who might serve as witnesses or be mentioned during the trial, asking them whether they recognized the names. Many of those names were indeed very recognizable. Among those who could come up during the trial were Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s former adviser, and Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York and one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers. Several of Mr. Trump’s relatives were also on the list, including his wife, Melania, his older daughter, Ivanka and his son-in-law Jared Kushner.
It's Celebrity Jeopardy!
Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976. He lives near Boston and has three children.
