Thread by @TylerMcBrien

Good morning from 100 Centre Street for DAY 3 of jury selection in Trump’s NY criminal trial.

Here’s where we stand: 7 jurors, 11 to go. This morning we’re starting fresh with the second panel of 96 jurors, who were already been sworn in on Tuesday.

Follow for updates 🧵⚖️

To catch up on everything you missed from the first two days, don’t miss my blow-by-blow dispatch, up yesterday in @lawfare
lawfaremedia.org/article/seven-…

@lawfare As always, this coverage is powered by you. If you haven’t done so yet, please consider donating to @lawfare’s fundraising campaign: givebutter.com/c/trumptrials/…

@lawfare 8:39 a.m. motorcade is on its way to the courthouse.

@lawfare A few things to look out for on Day 3: Trump has appeared fairly composed, even relaxed at times (to the point of allegedly dozing), w/ the exception of this exchange from Day 2, in which he was heard speaking audibly in the direction of a juror 12-ft away, and was scolded for it

@lawfare In voir dire and some exchanges about the admissibility of evidence, the government's strategy is starting to take shape. You can almost hear in real time Steinglass rebranding the case as an election interference case, rather than a "hush money" case.

@lawfare On April 23 Justice Merchan will hold a hearing on the prosecution's motion to hold Trump in contempt of court for violating the court's gag order. The defense won't want to give them anything else to work with ahead of Tuesday.

@lawfare 8:54 a.m., Trump's motorcade has arrived at 100 Centre Street.

@lawfare At 9:00 a.m. sharp, the jury has started making its way through the magnetometers.

They must have taken Merchan's instructions to be punctual to heart.

@lawfare The timeline of the case, and its several interwoven investigations, can be difficult to keep track of.

@qjurecic alerted me to this helpful diagram from the DA's office.

Full doc here: documentcloud.org/documents/2443…

@lawfare @qjurecic Our first seven jurors are an Irish salesman, a software engineer, two lawyers, an oncology nurse, an IT consultant, and a teacher, who all hail from across the island of Manhattan—Harlem, Chelsea, the Upper East Side, and the Lower East Side.

@lawfare @qjurecic 9:17 a.m. Trump has taken a seat—today in a blue tie for a change—and the two sides are milling about, taking papers out of briefcases and scribbling notes on legal pads. Trump appears to be on the phone.

@lawfare @qjurecic For the prosecution, seated from left to right if facing the bench, we have Joshua Steinglass, Susan Hoffinger, and Matthew Colangelo.

For the defense, same order, we have Susan Necheles, Emil Bove, Donald Trump, and Todd Blanche.

And of course, Justice Merchan on the bench.

@lawfare @qjurecic Per the pool, as Trump entered the courtroom with his lawyers, he waved at the press, but made no remarks and took no questions.

@lawfare @qjurecic 9:23 a.m., all rise as Merchan is on the bench, and the parties introduce themselves.

@lawfare @qjurecic "Do we have a court reporter?" Merchan asks. Apparently not. "That's not good," Merchan jokes.

He asks counsel to approach the bench "in the meantime."

@lawfare @qjurecic Merchan is standing, addressing both teams of lawyers below him at the bench, as Trump remains seated.

@lawfare @qjurecic Now again, "This is the People of the State of NY against—" the bailiff trails off.

Two minutes later, she starts again. Apparently the first introductions were just a dress rehearsal. We're doing introductions again.

"Good morning again," Merchan says.

@lawfare @qjurecic We have a court reporter and we're ready to go. First, preliminary matters: we received a call yesterday from Juror 2, after sleeping overnight she had concerns about her ability to be fair and impartial in this case. Merchan directed her to be here at 9:15 to consult with her.

@lawfare @qjurecic Juror 2 is coming in for clarifying questions from the parties and, I assume, Merchan.

@lawfare @qjurecic Per the pool, "Trump aides Jason Miller and Steven Cheung are in the courtroom, sitting in the last bench on the left side facing the well of the court, across from the pool."

@lawfare @qjurecic Juror B280 explains her thinking: Yesterday alone I had friends, colleagues, and family push things to my phone, regarding questioning my identity as a juror. I don't believe at this point I can be fair and unbiased and let the outside influences not bear on her

@lawfare @qjurecic After her very brief statement, she is excused, without objection.

@lawfare @qjurecic As we wait for Juror 4, Merchan wants to address the press now. "There's a reason why this is an anonymous jury and why we're taking measures," he says. "It kind of defeats the purpose of that as so much info" is put out there that it's easy to identify the jurors.

@lawfare @qjurecic He says, the press is able to write about anything that is said and put on the record, and anything the court discusses and press observes, but Merchan asks to avoid physical descriptions. He asks for common sense. It's just not necessary, it serves no purpose.

@lawfare @qjurecic He gives the example of describing one of the jurors as having an Irish accent.

If we can't do that, if we can't stick to that, Merchan says he'll have to impose measures to make sure the jurors are safe.

@lawfare @qjurecic "It's a matter of common sense," Merchan says.

First, Steinglass rises to make a suggestion—not elicit answers to 3A (current employer) and 3D (prior employer) it's the most identifying information, as far as government can tell.

Merchan calls it a great suggestion.

@lawfare @qjurecic Necheles rises and says they share the concern, "but we asked for a written questionnaire because of this."

Merchan: "But it's too late."

Necheles: "It's the government's fault that we don't have a written questionaire, but they wanted everything out there"

@lawfare @qjurecic Blanche is saying there's a transcript and there's a record, and the press can report on it.

@lawfare @qjurecic Merchan seems to be deliberating right now. The parties are waiting for him to speak.

@lawfare @qjurecic Merchan agrees with the defense that that info is necessary. But he says that it has become a problem. Merchan directs that we are going to continue with the questionnaire as is, but 3A and 3D will be redacted from the record, and press is prohibited from reporting the answers.

@lawfare @qjurecic Now for the prosecution, I think it's Chris Conroy: Since Monday, Trump violated the gag order 7 more times "It's ridiculous, and it must stop." He wants Merchan to add these 7 violations to the hearing on Tuesday.

@lawfare @qjurecic Including a 9:12 a.m. post from Monday, that Trump posted again at 10:26 a.m. both from the courtroom, which was a NY Post article with Cohen's face and calling him a perjurer. Trump went on to post it again a few times on his campaign website.

@lawfare @qjurecic Last night at 7:09, on Trump's Truth Social account, again an article with a photo of Cohen. Finally, most disturbing post, says Conroy, related to outburst: 4/17 truth social post: they're attaching undercover liberal activists lying to judge to get onto jury from Jesse Watters

Bove now: The comments this morning call to your honor's attention a number of challenges w/r/t the gag order. Brings to light some of the ambiguities in the order. Cohen has been attacking Trump w/r/t his candidacy. "His comments are political in nature" Bove says.

Bove plans to challenge the idea that reposting statements by others that are already in public constitutes a violation.

"I look forward to seeing that," says Merchan.

"We haven't had the hearing yet," Merchan says as Bove and Conroy have a brief back and forth.

Steinglass says into the record they have served defense with the order Merchan just signed. Merchan wants to convey one more concern. Steinglass alerted judge of email that DA found as part of its research, came across info that called into question veracity of Juror 4's answers

Juror 4 was directed to come in at 9:15 a.m., but now at almost 9:50 a.m. juror is still not here.

Steinglass gives context: "we can confirm it involves the juror in question, but we did discover"—Merchan cuts him off briefly.

The DA was doing research into Juror 4 and found information re: past involvement in a corruption case, which the juror did not disclose during the questionnaire or voir dire. But, we have to table this, because the juror has still not arrived.

"We have 96 jurors, any reason why we can't bring them in here?" Merchan asks. They're coming in.

Merchan hands each side 5 copies with juror numbers, and one copy with actual names.

After an interesting morning so far, the second panel is about to kick off.

We were starting to seat jurors at a breakneck pace by the end of Day 2, but today we're moving in the opposite direction.

A full jury and opening arguments by Monday seems like a tall order at this point. But the day is young.

Per the pool: "The 96 new prospective jurors are entering the courtroom. In order to make room for them, Jason Miller and another Trump aide have moved to the second row behind the defense table. Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung has left the courtroom."

Another pool reporter notes that as the new panel files into the courtroom, some of the jurors are "looking up surprised to see Trump at the defense table. Trump appears keenly attentive to those potential jurors seated in the jury box."

This panel has already been sworn in, so Merchan welcomes the new jurors, and makes the now familiar introductions. He thanks them for their promptness.

Trump seems to be scanning the new arrivals.

As Merchan reads the indictment, including the number of counts, Trump shakes his head as he looks down at the table.

A pool reporter notes that, curiously, "when the defense is introduced to the potential jurors seated in the audience, Trump does not stand up like his legal team does to turn and face them."

Hoffinger is back in the middle seat of the prosecution's table, having replaced Conroy.

As Merchan reads the boilerplate instructions to the second panel, a reminder that something Merchan will *not* mention (unless "necessary") is that this is an anonymous jury, per Trump's wishes, b/c doing so might be prejudicial.

However, it's likely that jurors at this point will have learned of the anonymity of the jury in the media coverage over the past few days, even if inadvertantly.

Merchan continues to read from the script, as Bove passes a folded written note across Trump (whose eyes are closed again) to Blanche.

Merchan is again reading the list of people involved in the case in some way—though not necessarily as witnesses.

The dramatis personae is long.

We're now onto the "hybrid" process in which jurors raise their hands if they feel if they can't be fair or impartial, or cannot serve for another reason.

Per the pool, six jurors from box raise their hands to say they can't be fair and impartial.

Those six jurors have been excused, and 12 remain in the box. The video is disabled again, but a pool reporter opints out that, as potential jurors are being excused from the courtroom, Trump has turned around to stare at those behind him, the first time he's looked back at them

Another pooler now says that we're up to 21 jurors who have now left because they said they cannot be fair and impartial.

Six more have been excused, bringing the total to 27 who said they cannot be fair and impartial.

After 48 of 96 jurors were excused out of belief they couldn't be fair and impartial, Merchan asks remaining jurors to raise their hand if they believe they're unable to serve for some other reason.

Merchan asks counsel to approach for a moment.

Three more jurors in the box raised their hands and said they had other reasons why they couldn't serve, probably schedule conflicts, and were excused, per the pool.

Scratch that: make it 9 jurors who were excused for reasons other than being fair and impartial.

By my count, we have 39 left right now, about on par with the first panel at this point in the process.

The court will now select 18 jurors at random to take a seat in the box and answer the questionnaire.

Before answering the questionnaire, the first juror asks if it's disqualifying that she discussed this case at length with coworkers and boss, including the Mark Pomerantz book. The press laughs. The first laugh of a thus far slightly tense day.

It's not immediately disqualifying, she continues the questionnaire.

Per Merchan's order, I'll be tweeting less during questionnaire answers (also b/c it has now become a bit repetitive), but for curious readers, Benjamin Wittes will address this matter and @lawfare's stance on today's Trump's Trials & Tribulations @ 5:30pm

@lawfare When asked about experiences with law enforcement, one juror said she got a parking ticket once, and didn't love that.

If that were a strikeable view, I don't think a jury in any jurisdcition would be possible.

@lawfare We have our first juror who has copped to following Truth Social posts by Trump.

@lawfare So far, we have had a lot of lawyers, or people who know lawyers, or people who are related to lawyers, or people who are married to lawyers, or...

@lawfare Another first: a potential juror has served on a jury before, but it was declared a mistrial. As others have noted, this is the kind of profile the defense might seek out. A not guilty verdict would be great for Trump, but a mistrial would do just fine as well.

"I read the first 10 pages or so of 'Disloyal,'" one juror admits, then adds curtly, "for business reasons." A chuckle from the press.

(Disloyal is the name of Michael Cohen's 2020 memoir)

Trump has scooted his chair back from the table and turned it about 45 degrees to face the jurors as they answer the questions.

The pace of the questionnaire round of vetting has settled into a slow grind, and some reporters shuffle in and out to use the restroom.

One juror says she has subscribed to the New York Times for most of her adult life, but add, “Mostly for the crossword.” No mention yet of Wordle, Connections, and Spelling Bee.

So far, we've also had a lot of people in finance, or people who know people in finance, or people who are related to people in finance, or people who are married to people in finance, or...

We've got a real New Yorker up now: "The only news I read is the Daily News and the Post."

(that's the New York Post, mind you, not Washington)

Merchan calls for a 15-minute recess.

A sigh of welcome relief washes over the press overflow courtroom.

While the jurors are in recess, tardy juror 4 is now here and waiting outside. They're bringing him into the courtroom now.

The questioning happened in sidebar. Per pool: Merchan stands at the bench with counsel, as Steinglass asks Merchan questions and Blanche nearby.

"Don't try to listen," a court officer tells reporters seated 35 feet away.

Per pool: Juror 4 "seems animated and something he said provoked laughter from lawyers on both sides."

Trump remains seated at the defense table, having waived his right to be present at sidebars yesterday.

Juror 4 is now being led out of the courtroom.

Merchan now gives the attorneys time to discuss the matter, and leaves the bench.

Merchan is back. The juror "expressed annoyance" at how much information was out there, among other things.

Counsel approaches the bench again.

Merchan is deep in conversation mostly with Steinglass and Hoffinger, but the defense lawyers are present as well.

After a long sidebar, Juror 4 is brought back in, per the pool, "and led up into the courtroom well where Merchan is standing at the judge's bench and the lawyers on both sides are standing in the well of the courtroom."

Side bar is over, and the lawyers are headed back to their seats. We're waiting to hear if Juror 4 will stay or go.

Merchan directs Juror 4 is excused, "he does not need to come back and should not come back," the judge says.

Blanche is now complaining about a fan, saying how cold it is in the courtroom.

"I agree with you, it's chilly in here, no question," Merchan says, taking a swig of water.

We started the day with 7 jurors, and now, at 12:15 p.m., we're back down to 5.

The jurors are back, and we're continuing with Seat 10 in the second row, which Merchan wants to get through before lunch.

One juror watches Fox News, but just to see what's going on "on all sides."

"This is so bizarre," the next potential juror begins, as she starts to answer the questionnaire.

She came to New York with dreams of making it big in theater, but ended up in the legal field.

Shoot for the moon, even if you miss, you may land among the lawyers.

Several jurors have had a hard time holding the mic at an angle that keeps it working, resulting in the audio cutting in and out.

New Yorkers are just like anyone else. We put our pants on one leg at a time and struggle with simple technology every day.

One juror mentions that her apartment was burgled once, but adds, “That has nothing to do with this…should be fine.”

The next potential juror, originally from Italy, says he has "very strong associations between Mr. Trump and Silvio Berlusconi," the former prime minister of Italy. Adds that this would make it hard to be fair and impartial.

Excused without objection.

We've done it, a full jury box, ready for voir dire. But first, we're breaking for lunch.

For those keeping score: -2 jurors, 0 bagels, and an incalculable number of references to lawyers and the legal profession.

There’s at least one perk of 100 Centre St: proximity to Chinatown.

The press is going back through the magnetometers now, we’re set to resume at 2:15 p.m.

We're still waiting for voir dire to begin, but at lunch we got two more filings from Trump, both pre-motion letters mentioned on Tues. One is a request for limiting instructions on testimony from Cohen on his 2018 guilty plea and from David Pecker on his deal with prosecutors.

The second, another pre-motion letter, requesting that the court preclude evidence of the specific statements on the Access Hollywood tape or reserve ruling until after testimony from Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.

Per the pool, Merchan clarifies that the press are not to report jurors' answers to question 3A & 3D.
3a - Who is your current employer? 
3d - Who was your prior employer?

Unclear if he's back on the bench yet or not, as the video and audio is still cut in the overflow.

At 2:35 p.m. we have audio again, but still no video, and we hear Merchan say "Thank you, please be seated."

Merchan welcomes the jurors and starts by apologizing for how chilly it is in the courtroom.

Video is back on, and both sides are seated in the same seats as this morning.

Merchan proceeds to read the boilerplate instructions for voir dire. Reminder: 30 mins per side.

Steinglass takes the lectern and begins by introducing himself and co-counsel, and launches into the same speech as we heard before. To the question of how jurors should answer these questions he says: "I know this sounds simple and trite, but the answer to that is: the truth."

This isn't a referendum on whether you like Trump or not, he says, it's about whether the defendant broke the law. So far, hewing very closely to his spiel yesterday.

He cold calls B555, who says "I can be objective."

B639 now, who has no worries about his objectivity either.

Steinglass says again that this case has generated a fair amount of publicity, (an understatement surely), so he's not looking for a tabula rasa per se, but rather an open mind.

Now to the juror who said he followed Trump on social media, Steinglass asks whether he still follows him (no), juror clarifies he followed him because it was a news item when he put a tweet out, and because he was the president. But no concerns about being fair & impartial.

"Have you seen him post anything on this case?" asks Steinglass.

"I don't pay much attention to it," says the juror.

One juror thinks the fact that she spent a year discussing this case with her boss and coworkers, she's worried that she knows to much, and that it will seep in.

Steinglass thanks her for being honest, says that you may think you can put things aside, but you're a human being.

Trump leans an arm on the table as he turns his chair once again to face the jury box. We see him in profile on the video feed.

The witnesses in this case are not actors reading from scripts, says Steinglass, so there might be inconsistencies.

Today, however, he doesn't make a baseball analogy, but rather an analogy about when two people see the same movie and pick up on different things.

"Let's talk about some of the witnesses in this case," Steinglass again says that they might come with what you might call "baggage."

Many of the witnesses have publicly denied the facts presented in this case but they'll learn why they did.

Steinglass says that the jurors will learn that some of the witnesses received immunity for testimony, and it appears as though Blanche or someone from the defense objected, which was overruled by Merchan.

Steinglass asks the potential juror who said she had a prior relationship of sorts with defense attorney Susan Necheles to clarify, the juror says that she met her once 15 years ago, has no concern that this will keep her from being objective, fair, and impartial.

Correction on earlier objection tweet: per pool, "Necheles [not Blanche] attempts to interject as Steinglass is talking. Merchan says it's overruled. Trump is touching his hair, smirking slightly, as Merchan speaks."

Steinglass is making the hiring-a-hitman analogy again to explain accessorial liability, which had angered the defense on Tuesday, and sure enough the defense tries to interject again, which Merchan overrules again.

Steinglass explains the importance of determining Trump's intent... I can feel an analogy coming on.

There it is: "I know you guys all like examples," Steinglass says.

He offers again his crossing-a-street-while-someone-is-honking-at-you analogy, the need to use context clues to determine intent, etc.

Another example: you walk into the kitchen, a chair has been dragged over to the fridge where a cookie jar is, which is upturned, and you see your daughter stepping off the chair wiping cookie crumbs off her mouth "What happened here?" Steinglass asks a juror. "Work with me here"

The juror, without any hint of irony, suggests that it's possible someone could have snuck into the house and smeared a cookie on her face.

Really.

Steinglass asks each juror to take a moment, look within yourselves, and look at the defendant—will you be able to come back in here after jury deliberations and look the defendant in the eye and say guilty, if you come to that conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt?

He's going down each row, one-by-one, for each of the 18 jurors, asking if they can do it. With the exception of one juror, whom he thanks for their candor (I assume it's the juror who said she can't be fair or impartial at the beginning of voir dire.)

Merchan thanks Steinglass, and Necheles steps up to the lectern.

She introduces herself and co-counsel, says "we have the honor of representing President Trump in this case."

She starts with Steinglass's point that witnesses may contradict each other.

Can you use your common sense to know when two witnesses get on the stand and say two diametrically opposed things under oath, that one of them is lying? Any problem with making that determination?

Some of these witnesses have expressed great dislike, personal animus against Trump, Necheles says. She says one even has said they want to take revenge against Trump.

Does anyone have a problem with holding the People to their burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt even about events that happened a long time ago?, Necheles asks the box.

We start with B430, she says no she doesn't have strong feelings or opinions about Trump. They agree on some things, not others. Yes, she has occasionally posted about him on social media, generally negative, but she's often negative about politicians.

First of all since the whole COVID situation, B430 says, politics just seems like a nasty thing to be posting about during an international crisis, so she backed off of posting in general.

Now we're talking about who B565 follows on X—or rather, Twitter, as he "prefers to call it."

We have our first mention of @MuellerSheWrote on the record.

@MuellerSheWrote Necheles is asking another potential juror about what her husband posts on social media—despite Merchan's apparent impatience with holding someone responsible for the posts of their spouse.

I am not my husband's Twitter account's keeper.

@MuellerSheWrote One juror when asked about opinions abt Trump: "I've got opinions, yea, I'm born and raised in Brooklyn, New York" and she spent her whole life hearing about him, even saw Trump and Marla Maples shopping for baby things once and had family who lived in Trump buildings.

@MuellerSheWrote The juror who had family living in Trump constructions said they had no complaints with how they were built, as Trump nods along approvingly.

@MuellerSheWrote "I'm freezing," another potential juror says.

If someone doesn't act quickly, we might lose yet another juror to frostbite.

@MuellerSheWrote "I don't have strong opinions about him, but I don't like his persona," says one potential juror, getting a pretty good laugh from the press. Then mumbles, and repeats herself, "I don't like some of my coworkers." Even bigger laugh from the press.

@MuellerSheWrote Jurors are being much more forthcoming about their feelings about Trump today. The potential juror who doesn't like his "persona" says:

"He's very selfish and self-serving, and I don't really appreciate that in a public servant."

"Some policies are good, some are outrageous," says another potential juror about Trump the president, not the person. But he assures Necheles that it won't affect his ability to be unbiased inn this case.

Another potential juror seems a bit in awe of Trump when asked his opinion on him: "I mean, he was our president, pretty amazing," Trump came from "New York" and forged his way (unintelligible), juror mentions he's an entrepreneur himself.

The next juror talks about just how ubiquitous Trump is in the media, in discussions with friends, at "dorm meetings." It's inescapable. "Everyone knows who he is," she says.

A pool reporter caught the full quote of the man in awe of Trump: The man said he, like Trump, started out as an entrepreneur. “He was our president. Pretty amazing. He was a businessman in New York. He forged his way. He kind of made history… I’m impressed with that.”

"Sometimes the way [Trump] may carry himself in public leaves something to be desired," says one potential juror, after forcefully arguing that she's a centrist, and that her personal feelings won't get in the way of her impartiality.

Necheles is closing by asking each juror that if the government fails to prove Trump's guilt beyond a reasonsable doubt, if they would deliver not guilty.

One women says yes, because she's done it before on a jury.

Merchan thanks the jurors, and asks them to step outside while the attorneys review their notes.

This round of challenges should be interesting.

Trump voiced some confusion on Truth Social about how this all works, so as a reminder, each side has unlimited challenges for cause, and 10 peremptory challenges total for this class of felony, of which each side has 4 left.

Apparently Merchan is bringing in the third panel now. Per the pool: "Trump started to try to leave the room as there appeared to be a break, but the new jurors are being brought in, and he sat back down after Todd Blanche tapped him."

Another pool reporter clarifies that Merchan will swear in the 3rd panel of prospective jurors while both sides review their notes for "for cause" challenges and peremptory strikes on the jurors who just left the box from panel 2.

The third panel has been sworn in, and Merchan lets them know that they're about to be excused until tomorrow. He gives the familiar instructions not to read /watch or talk to anyone about the case.

To clarify: there are still about ~40 people left from the second panel, 18 of whom were just in the jury box for voir dire.

Merchan checks with counsel, who still need a few minutes to review their notes.

Per the pool: "Trump just looked at his aides in the gallery, and could be heard saying, "'It's freezing.'"

"We started the day with 7, and now we're unfortunately down to 5," Merchan says as we start with challenges for cause on the prosecution side.

Seat 1 stated that she could not be fair and heard so much about this case. GRANTED.

That was it for prosecution.

Necheles rises to challenge Seat 4, who met her 15 years ago, Necheles says the potential juror apparently stayed at her house overnight at one point.

Small town New York City.

Seat 4 comes in and clarifies, and Necheles renews the challenge. Merchan isn't convinced. The issue is more so with the potential juror's husband's relationship, so challenge for cause is DENIED.

That was it for challenges for cause in seats 1-7, now the defense needs a minute to decide on peremptory challenges for seats 1-7.

TWO MORE JURORS are in.

After peremptory challenges:
Seat 3 B565 becomes Juror 2
Seat 7 becomes Juror 4

The next seat we fill will be Seat 8.

Updated (with juror numbers):

B565 is Juror 2.
B470 is Juror 4.

Now back to challenges for cause for the rest of the box, Neceheles is moving to challenge a potential juror based on social media posts, which Necheles says shows that she "harbors a deep hatred" of Trump. Merchan is noting specifically the dates, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, & 2020.

With thanks to the pooler, specifics on peremptory challenges (SEATS 1-7): DA - B784; DEFENSE - B502, B675, B680.

By my count, DA has 3 peremptory challenges left, defense has 1.

On the challenge, Steinglass points out that unlike the juror from Day 2 who posted something about locking Trump up, this is anti-Trump rhetoric but it's quite old. (she's the potential juror said who since COVID, her political posts and feelings have mellowed.)

B430 is back in the courtroom to clarify the meaning of the posts, and someone hands her a copy of the posts in question.

"Are these your posts?" Merchan asks. Yes. "Do you remember making these posts?" No I do not.

This trial has been a lesson in digital permanence.

She is now forced to read the post out loud in court—a literal nightmare—and as she does, she stops herself and says, "Yikes that sounds bad, sorry guys."

Merchan:"Those are pretty strong sentiments"
Juror:"Yes they were...Oh gosh, let's see," she says as she goes to the next.

In case you missed it, B565, noted @MuellerSheWrote mentioner, is Juror 2.

@MuellerSheWrote Back to the potential juror reading her posts: "Electoral politics can get pretty spicy, and Mr. Trump can get pretty spicy with some of his politics too," she says, also saying she should apologize for the content of some of her posts.

@MuellerSheWrote She withdraws the term "racist," she had used in a post, and clarifies that there have been some behaviors of Trump's "toward females" that she doesn't approve of, but argues that this case isn't about that.

She steps out, Merchan says that this is a close call, can easily find that she's quite credible, notes that she apolgogized to Trump, but viewed as a whole he doesn't want to take a change. Challenge for cause GRANTED.

That's it for the for cause challenges for 8-12.

Peremptory now: prosecution strikes B555 (2 left for them), and defense strikes B742, their last strike.

TWO MORE JURORS become Juror 8 and Juror 9.

Progress.

Seats 13-15, the prosecution strikes B496 and B744 (the last of the peremptory strikes).

B789 is Juror 10.

Necheles challenges for cause the potential juror in Seat 16, who said Trump was selfish and self-serving, and doesn't like his persona.

Merchan says that those were only some of many statements that she said. Steinglass says "that's not close to a cause challenge."

Jury update, with numbers now:

B639 is JUROR 8
B423 is JUROR 9
B789 is JUROR 10

We're now talking again about whether Trump's likability is a factor. Merchan mentions that he often tries gang members, sex offenders, etc. "Nobody likes a sex offender, but you don't like the crime," Necheles tries to distinguish.

Merchan seats Juror 11 and 12, and WE HAVE A JURY. Now we just need 6 alternates.

Update:

B500, SEAT 16 = JUROR 11

B440, SEAT 17 = JUROR 12

ALTERNATES

B714, SEAT 18 = ALTERNATE 1

The newly empaneled jurors are back to be sworn in: Juror 2 B565, Juror 4 B470, Juror 8 B639, Juror 9 B423, Juror 10 B789, Juror 11 B500, Juror 12 B440, and first alternate B714.

Merchan asks the empaneled jurors to return on Monday at 9:30 a.m. The judge at least still has hope for opening arguments on Monday.

"For those of you that remain out in the audience, we're not done with you," Merchan says. We're not going to go through the questionnaires now (thankfully), but the sergeant is calling out juror box numbers so they know where to sit tomorrow morning to start right away.

"Alright jurors, these are your seats for tomorrow," says Merchan, who wants to start at 9:30 a.m. sharp tomorrow.

The jurors leave but we're not done yet. Two brief issues from Steinglass.

Question of whether we can break early Monday and Tuesday (for Passover, I'm guessing), Merchan says yes to both days, plan is to work through lunch and break at 2 p.m.

Next issue: Steinglass inquires for the record the court's preference for potential witnesses to be present for other witnesses' testimony.

This is the first Blanche is hearing of it, so he requests the names of the first three witnesses. Steinglass says that's usually a courtesy, one he doesn't want to extend bc Trump has been tweeting about the witnesses. Merchan says he can't fault them for that, won't order it.

And that's a wrap on Day 3.

13 down, 5 left. Progress!

(Assuming we don't hemorrhage any more empaneled jurors tomorrow, though each side is out of peremptory challenges.)

Thanks, as always, for following along. See you all tomorrow.

And, before I go, may I humbly ask: buy me a bagel?
givebutter.com/c/trumptrials/…

A pool reporter had a bit more context on that last exchange over witnesses:

"What if I commit to the court that president trump will not" post Truth posts about witnesses, Blanche says. "I don't think you can make that representation," Merchan replies.