NEW YORK — Donald Trump is pushing the boundaries set for criminal defendants in the first days of his Manhattan hush money trial, at one point earning a rebuke from Judge Juan Merchan for purportedly trying to influence a prospective juror.
thanks for being there, Josh K! I appreciate your updates!
One New York City finance worker told the judge that “growing up in the state of Texas, graduating from Texas A&M, I feel that I have some unconscious bias.”
That seems pretty conscious to me…
Josh rocks! I hope when this is all over you don’t need specialized therapy. I feel sorry for anyone who has to be in proximity to the orange lummox for that length of time.
But kinda wish we could get them more like the live blogging y’all did during the Atlanta hearings… 
The foreperson is an immigrant and waiter with some college education, who likes MSNBC, Fox News, the New York Times, and Daily Mail as news sources.
That’s a head-scratcher. Does anyone really like and follow news sources with such different outlooks on news? Or was this guy trying a little too hard to sound like the ideal unbiased juror?
People who do not make distinctions, believing that quantity is more important than quality. Similar to someone who sees social success as how many contacts they have over a few of real meaning. He actually might be a reasonable juror, open to everything that will come at him in the trial. Or not.
I read somewhere that the jurors were being referred to by number instead of their names so they could remain anonymous, if so how can the defense attorney look up their social media posts over lunch? Isn’t the point of making them anonymous to protect them from Trump and MAGA?
I believe in yesterday’s reporting there was a 2nd list of the jury pool that did have their names given to attorneys with the admonition that the list with names was not to be copied or disseminated. So that would give the defense staff the ability to check for social media posts.
Was just about to ask something similar. I read yesterday that the Prosecution and the Defense would each get a list of names that they could look at, but they’d have to turn the list back over and were not allowed to photograph or copy it. Or at least I assumed they’d have to turn the list back over. Unfortunately, they had it long enough to do research. So they know names, they’ve likely got photographs, locations. They’ve got enough information to indimidate or bribe.*
This is not good. These folks should have been given a number and that’s it. I can’t believe the court was this careless.
*I said on these boards long ago: Trump will commit and/or inspire others to commit crimes on his behalf in order to avoid consequences for the crimes he’s already committed.
Blanche was trying to corrode the premise that jurors could be impartial regardless of their political view.
This fits Trump world perfectly. He cannot believe that anyone can operate with a higher sense of honor. And what Trump world has done over the years, at its core is trying to prove everyone is as corrupted and self serving as they are. If they can do that, they can excuse their own actions.
The prosecution and defense were given a list.
It’s creepy. I hope the rest of the jurors have the maximum privacy settings on their social media accounts.
And don’t accept new friend requests!
Right, the defense has the names but can’t reveal them. Although there would seem to be a big gaping hole in that instruction, because quoting a juror’s specific social media posts in full text might not be difficult to track down. Does the judge know what Google is?
Social media is such a cancer on society.
He doesn’t really have a legal strategy. It seems more accurate to say that he has an illegal strategy, in the sense that he is “defending” himself by delegitimizing the court, and the rule of law in general.
The basic assumption of the law is that everybody recognizes its authority. Defendants may lie, seek to intimidate, or corrupt, etc etc, but they’re still seeking the right legal outcome. Trump’s approach is “fuck the law, when it seeks to make me recognize its authority it is by definition illegitimate.” Not a lawyer, but I don’t think there’s any law against treating the law with absolute contempt. I think Judge Merchan is trying really hard, god bless him, but I’m not sure he’ll be up to it.
Hell, the intimidation has already started by the social media posts from these folks being revealed. They may be disinclined to punish someone who already knows how to find them online. What a colossal fuckup.
I look at it as more like dynamite or other explosives…they have a use when managed in a conscientious manner and also have the capability of destroying property and lives…waddya gonna do?
They would have a hard time finding me. I don’t do social media - at all. Just a personal preference to stay away from it.
