politics

CNN reports that so far, and in lightening quick fashion seven people have been seated on the jury in the unprecedented Donald Trump hush money trial in Manhattan. Court will not be in session Wednesday. Jury selection will continue Thursday until prosecutors and defense counsel can agree on 12 jurors and probably six alternates in the first criminal trial of a former President of the United States.

Let’s get to what we know about the seven jurors that have been already seated. Not that this reporting comes from CNN:

1. The first seated juror, who will be the foreperson on Trump’s jury, is a man originally from Ireland. He works in sales and has some college education. He is married but doesn’t have kids. He reads the New York Times and Daily Mail and watches some Fox News and MSNBC.
2. The second juror is an oncology nurse who lives with her fiancé. She’s a native New Yorker. She reads the New York Times and watches CNN.
3. The third seated juror is a corporate lawyer. He’s originally from Oregon. He gets his news from The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Google. He’s a younger man who’s never been married and doesn’t have kids. 
4. The fourth juror is an older Puerto Rican man who’s married with adult children and two grandkids. When asked about his hobbies, he said, “I guess my hobby is my family.” He has an IT business for training and consulting and attended one year of college. He told the court he finds Trump fascinating and mysterious. “So many people are set off one way or the other and that is interesting,” the man said. “Really, this one guy can do all of this, wow.” Trump “makes things interesting,” the man said, but also didn’t indicate any strong feelings about his politics.
5. The fifth juror is a young Black woman who teaches English language in a public charter school system. She has a master’s degree in education, is not married and doesn’t have any kids. The juror said that as a person of color she has friends who have strong opinions on Trump, but she personally is not a political person. She said she tries to avoid political conversations and doesn’t really care for the news. The juror did say she appreciates Trump’s candor: “President Trump speaks his mind and I’d rather that than someone who’s in office who you don’t know what they’re thinking.” She was also the only juror of 18 in the box Tuesday morning who said she wasn’t aware that Trump is facing charges in other criminal cases.
6. The sixth juror is a software engineer at a large broadcast company who recently graduated from college. She voiced no strong feelings about Donald Trump one way or the other and said, “I will be fair and impartial.” She is not married and has no kids, currently living with three roommates in Chelsea. The juror gets her news from the New York Times, Google, Facebook and TikTok. She asked the judge whether her sister’s wedding on a Sunday in September would be a scheduling conflict. Merchan quipped, “If we were still here in September that would be a big problem,” garnering laughs in the courtroom.
7. The seventh juror is a civil litigator who is married with two kids and lives on the Upper East Side in Manhattan. Originally from North Carolina, he reads the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Post and Washington Post. He said he has “political views as to the Trump presidency” and that he thinks there were likely Trump administration policies he disagreed with. “I don’t know the man and I don’t have opinions about him personally,” he said. “I certainly follow the news, I’m aware there are other lawsuits out there. But I’m not sure that I know anyone’s character.”

The post Here’s What We Know About the Jurors Seated in Trump’s Historic Criminal Trial first appeared on The Source.

The post Here’s What We Know About the Jurors Seated in Trump’s Historic Criminal Trial appeared first on The Source.