Today, the hush-money prosecution of former President Donald Trump started in earnest. But could this case be over before it has even begun?
In the prosecution’s opening statement, Matthew Colangelo, on behalf of the Manhattan district attorney’s office, told the jury that Trump orchestrated “a criminal conspiracy and a coverup,” to win the 2016 presidential election. Predictably, in his own opening statement, Trump’s leading lawyer Todd Blanche told the jury that the former president is “innocent” and “did not commit any crimes.”
The statements were directed towards the jury composed of 12 members and six alternates. Finding members to serve with impartiality has unsurprisingly proved difficult. When court proceedings began on Monday, one of the twelve jurors met with Justice Merchan and both sides’ attorneys because they were concerned for their safety. Before the jurors were chosen from the 96 prospects, they were among the scores to fill out a 42-question form.
One question, the results of which have been reported by the New York Times, asked about the media appetites of prospective jurors.
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The most frequent response from jurors on the list: the New York Times. The Gray Lady has been deeply involved in the deep state’s effort to delegitimize President Trump’s election in 2016. Even disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok admitted in 2017 that the Times’ reporting was full of errors. Nevertheless, the Times reporters who worked on this Russian collusion story received Pulitzers.
Only one juror watches Fox News, and only one other reads the New York Post (the outlet that originally broke the Hunter Biden laptop story). One other juror says they receive their news from X (formerly Twitter) and Truth Social—which has caused some users on social media to suggest this juror will prevent a Trump conviction.
Maybe so, but to pretend that the jury members’ media appetites suggest anything other than a difficult road ahead for the former president is disingenuous. In fact, that’s the entire point of the operation: get a conviction against Trump before the election by trying him in the most hostile territory imaginable.