Jury of 12 Is Seated in Trump Criminal Trial (2024)

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Day 3 of Trump’s Criminal Trial: Five Takeaways

Their work will be a unique challenge: the first prosecution of a former American president. Mr. Trump, 77, is charged with falsifying 34 business records in an attempt to cover up a payment to a p*rn star, Stormy Daniels, who has said she had a brief sexual encounter with him in 2006. He has denied the charges; he could face probation or prison time if convicted.

Here are five takeaways from Mr. Trump’s third day on trial:

Things slowed down fast.

Court officials had earlier thought jury selection might take as long as two weeks. But hopes were high on Thursday that the 12 members might be seated by close of business after seven members were picked Tuesday. Justice Juan M. Merchan had suggested that, if the fast pace continued, the prosecution and defense would offer introductory remarks on Monday morning.

Then Thursday began as a slog, with both sides angling to gain any advantage, or — conversely — to get rid of any problems. For the prosecutors, that meant challenging a previously seated juror who they had discovered had credibility issues. Justice Merchan spent a long sidebar discussing the issue with lawyers from both sides and the juror. In the end, the juror was excused.

By lunchtime, the jury was shrinking, not growing.

They sped up fast, too.

Justice Merchan was quick to get back on track. After 18 potential jurors were seated in the jury box, he kept them moving as they navigated a lengthy questionnaire with Mr. Trump looking on.

After lawyers on both sides had spent 30 minutes each quizzing them, Justice Merchan gave the lawyers about a half-hour to prepare challenges — both for cause, which require lawyers to give reasons, and peremptory challenges that can be made without explanation.

But with both sides having limited peremptory challenges, and Merchan unwilling to strike many jurors for cause, the panel filled up fast.

Trump was still driving people from the jury.

Ninety-six additional prospective jurors were called in on Thursday and asked whether they had a problem with being impartial. Dozens said they did and were dismissed.

That attrition speaks to the difficulties that lawyers have faced in finding people who feel they can be fair in a trial of a man who inspires strong emotions. And there were second thoughts: Several potential jurors told the judge that they would be impartial, only to later admit that they simply could not.

There were also moments of unintentional hilarity: One potential juror, who had said she could be fair, was confronted by the defense team over social media posts she’d made in the past, including one in which she called Mr. Trump a racist and a sexist.

Reading it aloud, she stopped.

“Oops,” she said. “That sounds bad.”

She was excused.

The judge is concerned about the press.

Justice Merchan, a veteran jurist, has overseen trials that attracted great public interest. But there has been nothing to compare with Mr. Trump’s trial, which has drawn scores of reporters to the courthouse. That swarm has been quick to report and post even the smallest developments, including personal details that potential jurors offered up during selection.

On Thursday, that eagerness earned a rebuke from the judge, who cited press coverage that revealed details about a juror as part of the reason she said she could not serve. He said she “probably would have been a very good juror.”

Justice Merchan seemed particularly annoyed by reporters’ firsthand observations, asking them to “refrain from writing about anything that you observe with your eyes and hear with your ears related to the jurors that’s not on the record.”

He also suggested sterner steps if those rules were broken.

“If you can’t do that, if we can’t stick to that, we will have to see what else we need to do to ensure that the jurors remain safe,” Justice Merchan said.

The jury is as diverse as New York.

The 12 members of the panel, seven men and five women, reflect the diversity of Manhattan.

Mr. Trump grew up in Queens. But he made his name in Manhattan, literally putting “Trump” on his buildings. He reveled in a brash love-him-or-hate-him reputation, an outsize figure in an outsize city. He bestrode the tabloid newspapers and craved headlines and front pages.

But then many New Yorkers turned against him after he declared he would run for president in 2015 and voiced right wing views.

In 2020, he declared himself a Florida resident.

He returned to Manhattan under duress and under indictment. His fate will now be in the hands of New Yorkers.

Meet the 12 jurors who will decide Donald J. Trump’s fate

According to their statements in court during three days of jury selection, here is what we know about the jurors:

Juror 1, who will be the foreman, works in sales and lives in West Harlem. He said that he enjoys outdoor activities. He said he gets his news from The New York Times and watches Fox News and MSNBC. He said he had heard about some of former President Donald J. Trump’s other criminal cases, but he did not have an opinion about him.

Juror 2 works in finance and lives in Hell’s Kitchen. He said he likes hiking, music, concerts and enjoying New York City. He said he follows Mr. Trump’s former fixer, Michael D. Cohen, who is expected to be a key witness, on social media. But he also said he follows figures like former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway. He said he believed Mr. Trump had done some good for the country, adding “it goes both ways.”

Juror 3 works in the legal field and lives in Chelsea. He said he does not follow the news closely but, when he does, he reads The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and finds articles using Google. He added that he was not very familiar with Mr. Trump’s other criminal cases.

Juror 4 is an engineer from the Upper West Side. Asked how he was during jury selection, he responded, “I am freezing.” When a lawyer asked if he had strong feelings about Mr. Trump, he responded “No, not really.”

Juror 5 works in education and is from Harlem. She said she tries to avoid political conversations and doesn’t care for news. She said that she appreciates Mr. Trump’s candor. “President Trump speaks his mind,” she said. “I would rather that in a person than someone who’s in office and you don’t know what they’re doing behind the scenes.”

Juror 6 works in technology and lives in Chelsea. She said she gets her news from The New York Times, Google, Facebook and TikTok. She said she probably has different beliefs than Mr. Trump, but that “this is a free country.”

Juror 7 works in the legal field and lives on the Upper East Side. He said that he is aware of Mr. Trump’s other cases but does not have an opinion about Mr. Trump’s character. He said he has “political views as to the Trump presidency,” agreeing with some Trump administration policies and disagreeing with others.

Juror 8 is from the Upper East Side and worked in finance. He said he reads The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and watches CNBC and the BBC. He enjoys fly fishing, skiing and yoga. During jury selection, he said he had no opinions or beliefs that would prevent him from being impartial.

Juror 9 works in an educational setting and is from the Upper East Side. She said of Mr. Trump that “he was our president. Everyone knows who he is,” adding that when he was in office “everyone was kind of talking about politics.”

Juror 10 is a businessman who lives in Murray Hill. He said he does not follow the news, adding, “if anything it’s The New York Times.” But he said he likes listening to podcasts on behavioral psychology, adding, “it’s my little hobby.” He said he does not have a strong opinion on Mr. Trump.

Juror 11 is a product manager and lives in Upper Manhattan. She said she does not have strong opinions about Mr. Trump but added, “I don’t like his persona, how he presents himself in public.” She then added, “I don’t like some of my co-workers, but I don’t try to sabotage their work,” drawing laughter from the jury box.

Juror 12 works in health care and lives on the Upper East Side. She said she likes listening to live music and hiking, and also listens to religious podcasts.

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‘Oops, That sounds bad’: Lawyers use social media posts to strike prospective jurors.

While Mr. Trump’s team succeeded in getting some prospective jurors removed, Day 3 of jury selection ended on Thursday with a full panel of 12 jurors in the case, which could move to opening arguments on Monday.

In one lengthy exchange on Thursday, Ms. Necheles highlighted a series of posts by a woman that were highly critical of Mr. Trump and the Republican Party, leading the woman to apologize in court in front of the former president.

In posts written over a span of years, Ms. Necheles said, the woman suggested that Mr. Trump was a liar, that the GOP was a cult and that the former president “is an anathema” to everything she knows. The defense lawyers sought to have her removed, and the judge in the case, Juan M. Merchan, asked her about the posts.

The woman read aloud one of them, which called Mr. Trump racist, sexist and narcissist. She stopped reading — “Oops. That sounds bad,” she said and apologized.

Justice Merchan dismissed the woman for cause, a victory for Mr. Trump’s lawyers who also had several prospective jurors removed during jury selection on Tuesday over their social media posts.

Both the defense lawyers and prosecutors started jury selection on Monday with 10 opportunities each to strike a prospective juror from the trial without explanation, in what is known a peremptory challenge. By Thursday, Mr. Trump’s legal team only had four opportunities remaining.

When the team asked prospective jurors about their posts, some of them defended their posts by arguing they were reposts, a tactic also used by Mr. Trump to deflect criticism of some of his online comments.

On Tuesday, Mr. Blanche asked a woman about a video she posted on Facebook of people celebrating the results of the 2020 presidential election, when Mr. Trump lost to Joseph R. Biden Jr.

“I very, very strongly believe that regardless of my thoughts about anyone or anything or political feelings or convictions, that the job of a juror is to understand the facts of the trial and to be the judge of those facts,” the woman said.

While she was responding to Mr. Blanche, Mr. Trump began to mutter and gesture — which caught the attention of the judge. “I won’t tolerate that,” Justice Merchan said, before saying that he found that the woman could be fair and denying the defense’s request to dismiss her for cause.

Trump once again complained that the trial was keeping him from campaigning in key states, though his schedule had already been light, with rallies mostly limited to weekends, in the period before the trial started.

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Blanche asks what would happen if he could guarantee that his client wouldn’t do so. “I dont think you can make that representation,” Justice Merchan says, sharply.

As they leave, Trump leans his elbows on the defense table, staring at 12 people who suddenly matter a whole lot to him.

The judge asks the jurors to come back on Monday, saying he is hopeful that opening arguments will start then.

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Trump’s legal team tried to challenge her “for cause,” but Justice Merchan denied their challenge. By that point, they were out of peremptory challenges.

“We have our jury,” says Justice Merchan.

Jury selection will continue so that alternates can be chosen. The judge had said he wanted as many as six alternates. The alternates will sub in for jurors if they fall ill or are otherwise unable to continue at some point during the six-week trial.

And, immediately, the first alternate is seated too.

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The prospective juror in question reads aloud a negative post she wrote about Trump.

In the post, she called Trump racist, sexist and a narcissist. She stops and says “Oops. That sounds bad.”

“These are pretty strong views,” Merchan says, asking how this potential juror can assure him that she will be fair. She apologizes, and notes that “electoral politics can get pretty spicy.” She says she has stopped posting such things.

Merchan dismisses this prospective juror, and calls it “a close call.”

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The prospective juror confirms the sleepover at Necheles’s home, as well as the fact that her husband wrote a book review of our own Maggie Haberman's 2022 book about Trump, “Confidence Man.” The challenge is denied.

That was a very sharp exchange between Susan Necheles, the defense lawyer, and Justice Merchan, who have clashed before. Necheles said that her relationship with the woman was “awkward” for her. Merchan snapped back, saying, “That’s not grounds” for dismissal. “And she doesn't really know you,” the judge continued. “She said she met you once 15 years ago.”

More prospective jurors are excused in response to challenges from the defense, including the woman who just spoke about once staying at Necheles’s home.

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Those who survive the challenge phase will be seated on the jury.

But Trump’s lawyer, Susan Necheles, confronted quite a few of them about their social media activity, leading me to believe that the lawyers know things the prospective jurors weren’t admitting to in open court. We’ll find out soon when they begin to make their challenges “for cause,” or when the parties strike prospective jurors by articulating specific reasons they think they can’t be fair or impartial.

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Frustration for the judge as Trump jury selection flounders forward.

“We have our jury,” Justice Juan M. Merchan proclaimed as the 12th juror was added.

He then swore the seven men and five women to an oath that they would render a fair and impartial verdict, which they accepted with sober expressions as Mr. Trump stared from the defense table. The jurors could hear opening arguments as soon as Monday.

The selection of the 12 capped a seesaw day in which the judge first excused two people who had been seated earlier in the week, and then hours later replaced them with two new faces and more.

The moment was both routine and never before seen, an act performed every day in courthouses around the country, but never for a former president, a symbol and source of the nation’s political divide.

Mr. Trump, under the Constitution, is entitled to a fair trial by a jury of his peers. And yet he is peerless, a singular force in American politics who was twice impeached and brought democracy to the brink when he refused to accept his election defeat.

Now, just as he bent the political world to his will, Mr. Trump is testing the limits of the American justice system, assailing the integrity of jury and judge alike. His attacks have emboldened his base, and might well resonate more broadly on the campaign trial.

But it will be the 12 men and women of the jury — in Mr. Trump’s hometown — who will first decide his fate, before millions more do so at the polls.

The jury’s makeup and the security of its members will be central to the landmark case. Mr. Trump claims he cannot receive a fair trial in one of the nation’s most Democratic counties, a place where he is deeply unpopular, though some of the jurors who ultimately landed on the panel praised him.

One man said during the selection that he believed the former president had done some good for the country, adding, “it goes both ways.” Another juror, in a possible first for the country, said he didn’t have an opinion on Mr. Trump.

The final 12 were a collection of Manhattanites as eclectic as the city itself. They are Black, Asian, white, male, female, middle-aged and young, including one woman in her first job out of college. They work in finance, education, health care and the law. And they live, among other places, in Harlem, Chelsea, the Upper East Side and Murray Hill.

One alternate was also picked before court adjourned. The judge plans to conclude jury selection on Friday, when the lawyers will select the remaining five alternates.

The long day got off to an inauspicious start as Justice Merchan excused the two jurors, including a woman who had developed concerns about her identity being revealed. That fear, she added, might compromise her fairness and “decision-making in the courtroom,” prompting the judge to excuse her.

The precise reason the judge dismissed the other juror was not clear, but prosecutors had raised concerns about the credibility of answers he had given to questions about himself. Asked outside the courthouse whether he believed he should have been dismissed, the man, who declined to give his name, replied, “Nope.”

The dismissals underscored the intense pressure of serving on this particular panel. Jurors are risking their safety and their privacy to sit in judgment of a former commander in chief who is now their fellow citizen, a heavy responsibility that could unnerve even the most seen-it-all New Yorkers.

During jury selection, prospective members are routinely excused by the dozens. And once a trial formally begins, it is not unheard-of to lose a juror for reasons such as illness or violating a judge’s order not to read about the proceeding. But losing two in one day, before opening arguments even began, was unusual — one of many small ways in which this trial will stand apart.

The ousters appeared to rankle the judge, who has striven to keep the trial on schedule. He said he thought the woman who declined to serve would have “been a very good juror.”

Although the judge has kept prospective jurors’ names private, they disclosed their employers and other identifying information in open court. But Justice Merchan instructed reporters to no longer divulge prospective jurors’ current or past employers, a decision that some media law experts questioned.

Inside a chilly courtroom on Thursday, as lawyers on both sides scrutinized a new round of prospective jurors, Mr. Trump stared intently at the jury box and prodded his lawyers, prompting one, Todd Blanche, to shake his head in response.

Already this week, the judge has admonished Mr. Trump for his comments about jurors, warning him not to intimidate anyone in the courtroom.

And the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which accused Mr. Trump of falsifying the records to hide a hush-money deal with a p*rn star, on Thursday renewed a request that Justice Merchan hold Mr. Trump in contempt of court after he recently reposted attacks on prospective jurors on social media.

The prosecutors have argued that Mr. Trump violated a gag order in the case 10 times, and the judge said he would consider the request next week, when he weighs a related effort to penalize the former president for attacks on witnesses in the case.

Mr. Trump constantly tests the boundaries of the gag order. His political allies, who are not covered by the order, routinely attack the judge and his family. And now, they are attacking the impartiality of the jury.

In early March, Justice Merchan issued an order prohibiting the public disclosure of jurors’ names, while allowing legal teams and the defendant to know their identities.

But before the trial, Mr. Trump’s lawyers requested that potential jurors not be told that the jury would be anonymous unless they expressed concerns. Justice Merchan said that he would “make every effort to not unnecessarily alert the jurors” to this secrecy, merely telling jurors that they would be identified in court by a number.

After the two jurors were excused Thursday, selection continued as lawyers on both sides vetted potential replacements in a courtroom so drafty that even the former president was compelled to acknowledge it, asking reporters, “Cold enough for you?”

Some prospective jurors opted out, acknowledging they might not be fair to Mr. Trump.

One potential juror who was dismissed said he was from Italy and noted that the Italian media had pushed comparisons between Mr. Trump and Silvio Berlusconi, the country’s former prime minister, a media magnate caught up in sex scandals.

“It would be a little hard for me to retain my impartiality and fairness,” he said.

The potential jurors were all questioned about their politics, media diets and views on Mr. Trump. The lawyers were then expected to scrutinize them for any signs of bias, including old social media posts about the former president.

One prospective juror, who had a long career in law enforcement, seemed unlikely to have made any problematic posts. He disclosed that he only had a flip phone.

“And therefore I do not watch any podcasts,” he says, eliciting laughter from the courtroom on an otherwise tense day.

The prosecution used one of its challenges to oust that juror, who “as a wannabe hockey player” had also complimented Mr. Trump on the skating rink his company used to operate in Central Park. It used another to dismiss a man who said he had been “impressed” with the path the former president forged.

The defense ousted several additional potential jurors, including a woman who once stayed overnight at the home of one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers. Justice Merchan had declined to remove her himself at the request of that lawyer, Susan Necheles, even though Ms. Necheles said the woman’s presence was “awkward.”

The judge removed a woman who had assailed Mr. Trump on social media as a “racist sexist narcissist.” When she reread the posts in court on Thursday, the potential juror added, “Oops. That sounds bad.” She later apologized for the tone of her posts.

One woman who expressed skepticism about Mr. Trump made it onto the jury. She said that she didn’t have strong opinions about Mr. Trump, but added, “I don’t like his persona. How he presents himself in public.”

She then went on, though, “I don’t like some of my co-workers, but I don’t try to sabotage their work,” drawing laughter from the jury box.

Nate Schweber, Maggie Haberman, Wesley Parnell and Matthew Haag contributed reporting.

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Prosecutors have accused Trump of violating a gag order seven more times.

“It’s ridiculous,” said Christopher Conroy, a prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office. “It has to stop.”

The gag order bars the former president from attacking witnesses, prosecutors, jurors and court staff, as well as their relatives and relatives of the judge.

Mr. Trump has continued to test its limits by sharing quotes and articles that are critical of his perceived enemies — a tactic that he has used for years to defend his statements while retaining plausible deniability.

His lawyers on Thursday sought to preserve his ability to do so during the trial, while Mr. Conroy laid out new examples of posts that prosecutors say broke the order, and risked inspiring violence against or harassment of people involved in the trial and those close to them.

For instance, the former president posted a link to a New York Post article that called Michael D. Cohen, his former longtime fixer and a key witness in the trial, a “serial perjurer,” and described the case as an “embarrassment for the New York legal system.”

The link was posted Monday on Mr. Trump’s campaign website, and again on Tuesday on both that site and his Truth Social platform.

Mr. Trump attacked Mr. Cohen again on Wednesday, prosecutors said, when he posted on Truth Social a link to a National Review article with the headline “No, Cohen’s Guilty Plea Does Not Prove Trump Committed Campaign-Finance Crimes.”

A lawyer for Mr. Trump, Emil Bove, told the judge that his client’s comments should be considered political speech, and that he was defending himself from attacks by Mr. Cohen.

The most serious violation happened late Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Conroy said, when Trump quoted a remark by the Fox News commentator Jesse Watters about the prospective jurors: “They are catching undercover Liberal Activists lying to the Judge in order to get on the Trump Jury.”

“This is the most disturbing post in light of what happened this morning,” Mr. Conroy said, referring to the dismissal of one juror who had already been seated after she expressed concern that she would be identified.

Earlier this week, prosecutors asked the judge to fine Mr. Trump $3,000 for violating the gag order three times — $1,000 for each violation.

The issue will not necessarily be decided on Tuesday. Though lawyers are expected to make their arguments at the hearing, it is not clear when the judge will issue a ruling.

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Here’s what we know about why two seated jurors were dismissed.

The other juror, a man from the Lower East Side, was excused after he arrived to court later Thursday morning. The precise reason for his dismissal was not immediately clear, but prosecutors had raised concerns early in the day about the credibility of answers he gave to questions about himself.

Asked outside the courthouse whether he believed he should have been dismissed, the man, who declined to give his name, replied: “Nope.”

The dismissals, the latest unexpected episode in a trial that is sure to be full of them, rankled the judge, who said he thought the woman would have “been a very good juror.”

Although the judge, Juan M. Merchan, has kept prospective jurors’ names private, they have disclosed their employers and other identifying information in court. Now, however, Justice Merchan has instructed reporters to no longer divulge where a prospective juror works.

It was unclear how much of a hindrance the two ousters would be for the case, which centers on accusations that Mr. Trump falsified documents to cover up a sex scandal. Justice Merchan had previously signaled that the jury could be set this week and that opening arguments might begin Monday, which is still feasible.

The dismissals brought the number of seated jurors down to five. Lawyers on both sides of the case will now seek to replace them — and find several more through the rest of the week. The final panel will include 12 jurors and as many as six alternates who will step in if a main juror gets sick or is excused for other reasons.

The woman excused from the jury said she had been concerned about public reports about her. She is an oncology nurse and her employer had been widely reported. Her friends, colleagues and family told her she had been identified as a potential juror, an alarming development that she said prompted her to reconsider whether she could serve.

The male juror, when approached by a reporter outside the courthouse, said he didn’t want to answer questions. He nodded, however, when asked if he thought he could be unbiased and shook his head when asked if he felt at all intimidated in the courtroom.

Nate Schweber contributed reporting.

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After reports about potential jurors, the judge demands restraint from the press.

She also said that she did not believe she could be impartial.

The judge, Juan M. Merchan, promptly dismissed her.

Moments later, Justice Merchan ordered the press to not report the answer to two queries on a lengthy questionnaire for prospective jurors: “Who is your current employer?” and “Who was your prior employer?”

The judge conceded that the information about employers was necessary for lawyers to know. But he directed that those two answers be redacted from the transcript.

Justice Merchan also said that he was concerned about news outlets publishing physical descriptions of prospective or seated jurors, asking reporters to “simply apply common sense.”

“It serves no purpose,” Justice Merchan said about publishing physical descriptions, adding that he was directing the press to “refrain from writing about anything you observe with your eyes.”

William P. Marshall, a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law in Chapel Hill, said that Justice Merchan’s order appeared “constitutionally suspect.” Professor Marshall said that a landmark Supreme Court ruling in a 1976 case, Nebraska Press Association v. Stuart, struck down a trial judge’s ruling barring the news media from reporting information introduced in open court.

“The presumption against prior restraint is incredibly high in First Amendment law,” Professor Marshall said. “It’s even higher when it’s publishing something that is already a matter of public record.”

Lawyers for news outlets, including The New York Times, were expected to seek clarification on the order.

With the loss of the female juror on Thursday morning, six seated jurors remain.

In early March, Justice Merchan issued an order prohibiting publicly disclosing the names of jurors, while allowing legal teams and the defendant to know their identities.

But before the trial, Mr. Trump’s lawyers requested that potential jurors not be told that the jury would be anonymous unless he or she expressed concerns. Justice Merchan told the parties that he’d “make every effort to not unnecessarily alert the jurors” to this secrecy, merely telling jurors that they would be identified in court by a number.

On Thursday, Justice Merchan seemed frustrated by news reports that included identifying characteristics of potential jurors that had been aired in open court. He said: “There’s a reason why this is an anonymous jury, and we’ve taken the measures we have taken.”

“It kind of defeats the purpose of that when so much information is put out there,” he said.

He added that “the press can write about anything the attorney and the courts discuss and anything you observe us do.”

But he also said he had the legal authority to prevent reporters from relaying employer information on prospective jurors. He added that “if you can’t stick to that, we’re going to have to see if there is anything else we can do to keep the jurors safe.”

Here’s the latest in the case against the former president.

Seven new jurors were added in short order Thursday afternoon, hours after two others who had already been picked were abruptly excused. One alternate juror was also picked before court adjourned for the day, and the selection of alternates was set to resume on Friday.

The case stems from a hush-money payment made during the 2016 presidential campaign to a p*rn star, Stormy Daniels. Mr. Trump is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up the payment and the scandal, which threatened to derail his campaign.

The latest jurors were picked hours after the two dismissals by Justice Merchan. The precise reason for the dismissal of one juror was not immediately clear, but prosecutors had raised concerns about the credibility of answers he gave to questions about himself. Asked outside the courthouse whether he believed he should have been dismissed, the man, who declined to give his name, replied: “Nope.”

Earlier, Justice Merchan dismissed another juror who said she had developed concerns about her identity becoming public. Although the judge has kept prospective jurors’ names private, some have disclosed their employers and other identifying information in court.

After excusing the woman at the start of the morning session, Justice Merchan instructed journalists to stop reporting on prospective jurors’ employers. “I have the legal authority to do it,” the judge said of blocking the news media from reporting the information. Lawyers for news outlets, including The New York Times, were expected to seek clarification on the order.

Mr. Trump has denied having sex with Ms. Daniels or breaking any laws. If the jury convicts him, he faces up to four years behind bars.

Here’s what else to know about Day 3:

• Justice Merchan ordered news outlets not to report the answer to two queries on a lengthy questionnaire for prospective jurors: “Who is your current employer?” and “Who was your prior employer?” He also directed that those answers be redacted from the transcript. Read more about the judge’s demands.

• Prosecutors urged Justice Merchan to hold Mr. Trump in contempt of court, arguing that he had repeatedly violated a gag order that bars him from attacking witnesses, prosecutors, jurors and others. Justice Merchan said he would take up the matter next week, along with previous examples of what prosecutors say was prohibited conduct.

• Before the prospective jurors can even be queried by the lawyers, they must respond to 42 questions. The inquiries range from their neighborhood and marital status to the programs they might listen to on talk radio or whether they’ve attended one of Mr. Trump’s rallies. See the full list of questions here.

Nate Schweber contributed reporting.

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We fact-checked Trump’s claims about his court cases.

He has described the cases against him with colorful hyperbole, defended his conduct with faulty comparisons and lobbed false attacks and baseless accusations at opponents and adjudicators alike.

Asked for evidence of Mr. Trump’s claims, the campaign did not directly address the matter but continued to insist, with no evidence, that Mr. Trump was the target of a “witch hunt” led by the Democratic Party.

Here’s a fact-check of some of his most repeated claims.

Baseless accusations of a Biden-orchestrated conspiracy

What Mr. Trump Said

“Biden said it. He said — you know what their whole plan is? It was just released the other day. It didn’t — it was leaked by one of the many people that probably thought it was wrong. Their whole plan is to go after Trump in every way possible, especially criminally and legally.”
— at a rally in Georgia in March

This lacks evidence. Of the four criminal cases against Mr. Trump, two were brought by state or local prosecutors, meaning that the Justice Department itself has no control over them. His two other criminal cases are overseen by a special counsel, whom Attorney General Merrick B. Garland appointed to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.

It is unclear what leak Mr. Trump was referring to, and The New York Times was unable to find an instance of such a plan to target Mr. Trump “criminally and legally.” False posts circulating on social media have used deceptively edited clips to suggest that Mr. Biden or his aides have admitted to weaponizing the legal system.

Still, there is no evidence that Mr. Biden is personally directing the cases against his political opponent. Mr. Biden has publicly emphasized the independence of the Justice Department. Moreover, The Times and other news outlets have reported that Mr. Biden’s campaign strategy is to say nothing about Mr. Trump’s legal woes.

What Mr. Trump Said

“Jack Smith just admitted what the American People already know, namely, that his case is being directed and supervised by the Biden Administration. So, although he denies it, Garland is carrying out the orders from his boss to prosecute me, and to interfere in the 2024 Election.”
— in a Truth Social post in March

This is misleading. Mr. Trump was referring to — and wildly distorting — a court filing from prosecutors in the classified documents case.

The document was responding to a motion by Mr. Trump’s lawyer to dismiss the case, claiming that Attorney General Merrick B. Garland had no authority to appoint Jack Smith, the special counsel in the case. Prosecutors argued that the Supreme Court had affirmed such an authority 50 years ago in the Watergate case, and that many special counsels had been appointed since then, including by the Justice Department under Mr. Trump.

Mr. Trump was apparently referring to a description in the filing of the special counsel’s role, although he used it out of context: “The special counsel was retained from outside of the department to ‘ensure a full and thorough investigation’ of certain sensitive matters. While he remains subject to attorney general direction and supervision, he also retains ‘a substantial degree of independent decision making.’”

What Mr. Trump Said

“Look, the Manhattan D.A. has a man named Colangelo in there. He was Merrick Garland’s top person. They put him into the Manhattan D.A.’s office. Fani Willis and her lover spent a lot of time in Washington talking about my case. They came out during the hearings talking about my case. The A.G. of New York, Letitia James, deals with Washington all the time.”
— in an interview with Fox News in March

This is exaggerated. Asked for proof of his claim that Mr. Biden was personally directing the local cases against him, Mr. Trump pointed to purported ties between prosecutors and “Washington,” but provided no evidence that Mr. Biden had been involved in any of the hiring decisions, conversations or meetings that Mr. Trump cited.

The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, hired Matthew Colangelo as a senior counsel in December 2022. Mr. Colangelo previously worked at the New York attorney general’s office and at the Justice Department as acting associate attorney general — the third highest-ranking, not “top,” official — before that position was filled permanently. There is no proof that the appointment of Mr. Colangelo was directed by Mr. Biden or the Justice Department. The two men previously worked together at the New York attorney general’s office under Ms. James’s predecessor, and Mr. Colangelo’s appointment came as Mr. Bragg ramped up his investigation into Mr. Trump’s role in hush money payments made in the 2016 election.

The Times earlier reported that Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Ga., and her office had been consulting with the bipartisan House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack as part of her election interference case. An outside lawyer hired by Ms. Willis — Nathan J. Wade, her former romantic partner who resigned from the case in March — to lead the prosecution met twice with the White House Counsel’s Office in 2022. It is not clear what the purpose of those meetings was, but a former White House counsel told The Times that the office can become involved when prosecutors seek the testimony of former officials.

Mr. Trump often points out that Letitia James, the New York attorney general who brought a civil fraud case accusing him of inflating the value of his properties, has visited the White House three times. According to visitor logs, her first visit was in April 2022 at the South Lawn, where a crowd had gathered to celebrate the confirmation of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. She again visited in July 2023 to meet with Vice President Kamala Harris and other state attorneys general about efforts to stop fentanyl trafficking. And she visited in August 2023 to attend an event Ms. Harris hosted recognizing Black women serving in public office. The White House has said Mr. Biden did not speak to individual guests at the first event and did not attend the latter two.

Hyperbolic claims of persecution

What Mr. Trump Said

“Why didn’t they bring these Fake Biden inspired cases against me 3 years ago? Because Crooked Joe Biden wanted them to be brought right in the middle of my 2024 Presidential Election Campaign, strictly Third World Country ‘stuff!’”
— in a post on Truth Social in March

False. Of the multiple cases Mr. Trump has been embroiled in, at least three began before Mr. Biden took office while another three center on Mr. Trump’s post-election and post-presidency conduct. There is no evidence that Mr. Biden has sought to drag out the cases. Investigations and prosecutions generally take time, and Mr. Trump himself has repeatedly sought to delay proceedings.

The inquiry over hush money payments began while Mr. Trump was still in office in 2018. Ms. James began her investigation into the Trump Organization over its financial dealings in March 2019. The writer E. Jean Carroll filed her first lawsuit against Mr. Trump in November 2019, accusing him of defamation.

Ms. Willis opened her investigation into Mr. Trump and his allies’ efforts to overturn the election in Georgia in February 2021. A top Justice Department official said in January 2022 that it had opened an investigation into a plan by Mr. Trump and his allies to reverse the results of the 2020 election; the investigation was widened in March 2022. Mr. Smith was appointed the special prosecutor in the documents case in November 2022.

What Mr. Trump Said

“It is a form of Navalny. It is a form of communism or fascism.”
— in a town hall on Fox News in February

False. Asked about the ruling in his civil fraud case, Mr. Trump compared himself to Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who had died days earlier in prison. The two cases are not at all similar.

Mr. Navalny had been behind bars since early 2021, sometimes in solitary confinement, and serving multiple prison sentences. He had also been poisoned in 2020, and survived earlier physical attacks. At the time of his death, he was being held in a penal colony north of the Arctic Circle. In contrast, Mr. Trump was ordered to pay a fine, which was reduced and which he has appealed.

What Mr. Trump Said

“A bond of the size set by the Democrat Club-controlled Judge, in Corrupt, Racist Letitia James’ unlawful Witch Hunt, is unConstitutional, un-American, unprecedented, and practically impossible for ANY Company, including one as successful as mine. The Bonding Companies have never heard of such a bond, of this size, before, nor do they have the ability to post such a bond, even if they wanted to. The statute used to attack me has never been used for such a purpose before.”
— in posts on Truth Social in March

False. A New York State Supreme Court judge ruled in February that Mr. Trump must pay $355 million, in addition to interest — or about $454 million — in his civil fraud case. Mr. Trump initially had trouble securing a bond and argued, wrongly, that both the bond amount and Ms. James’s use of the New York state law were unprecedented.

As PolitiFact has reported, some companies have posted bonds as large as $1 billion. The state statute Mr. Trump cited was enacted in 1956, and has been used by New York attorneys general in lawsuits and actions against the oil giant Exxon Mobil, the tobacco company Juul, and two other entities belonging to Mr. Trump: his family charity, the Trump Foundation, and his for-profit Trump University.

Faulty and irrelevant comparisons

What Mr. Trump Said

“I got indicted more than Al Capone.”
— in a rally in Ohio in March

False. Mr. Trump has been indicted four times. Mr. Capone, the famous gangster, was indicted at least six times, according to A. Brad Schwartz, a historian who has written a biography of him.

What Mr. Trump Said

“Well, nobody else has been over the years, because, you know, Hillary took a lot and Bill took a lot. Bill took them out in his socks, they call it the socks case, which he won with a very tough judge, which he won. Bush took them. Everybody. Reagan took them out. Everybody took them out. It only became a big subject when I took things out.”
— in the Fox News town hall

False. The examples Mr. Trump cites as comparable to the federal criminal case in which he is accused of mishandling classified documents, obstructing justice and making false statements to officials in fact have little in common with it.

Prosecutors say Mr. Trump took hundreds of classified documents from the White House at the end of his term, ignored a subpoena to return them to the National Archives and Records Administration, stored them in locations accessible to resort employees and shared military secrets with visitors to his properties.

Hillary Clinton set up a private email server during her time as secretary of state. While it did store emails that contained classified information, several official inquiries have concluded that Mrs. Clinton did not systematically or deliberately mishandle classified material.

Former President Bill Clinton’s case is even less relevant. A conservative legal group sued the National Archives for access to audiotapes of interviews between Mr. Clinton and the author and historian Taylor Branch. Mr. Branch has said that Mr. Clinton stored the recordings in his sock drawer. A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2012, reasoning that the National Archives did not have the tapes in its possession and had no obligation or authority to seize them.

And there is no evidence that any presidents before Mr. Trump took classified documents with them upon leaving office, despite Mr. Trump’s repeated insistence that there was a precedent. The National Archives has said that it “assumed physical and legal custody of the presidential records from the administrations of Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, when those presidents left office.”

“Reports that indicate or imply that those presidential records were in the possession of the former presidents or their representatives, after they left office, or that the records were housed in substandard conditions, are false and misleading,” the agency has said.

What Mr. Trump Said

“The special counsel’s report tries to let Biden off by claiming that he is too mentally incompetent to convict at a trial.”
— in a rally in South Carolina in February

This is misleading. Mr. Trump was referring to the report released by Robert K. Hur, the special counsel who investigated Mr. Biden’s handling of classified material. Mr. Hur described Mr. Biden as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” who had “diminished faculties and faulty memory.” He did not declare Mr. Biden mentally incompetent to stand trial.

Mr. Hur wrote that while he believed Mr. Biden knew he was not allowed to keep classified notebooks, there was not sufficient evidence “to prove his willfulness beyond a reasonable doubt.” He added that Mr. Biden’s “diminished faculties in advancing age and his sympathetic demeanor” would make it difficult to persuade a jury to convict him.

Inaccurate attacks on judges

What Mr. Trump Said

“Judge Juan Merchan is totally compromised, and should be removed from this TRUMP Non-Case immediately. His Daughter, Loren, is a Rabid Trump Hater, who has admitted to having conversations with her father about me, and yet he gagged me.”
— in a Truth Social post in March

This is exaggerated. Loren Merchan, the daughter of the judge presiding over the hush money case, served as the president of a digital campaign strategy agency that has done work for many prominent Democrats, including Mr. Biden’s 2020 campaign.

The “conversations” Mr. Trump mentioned refer to an anecdote from a podcast interview Ms. Merchan did in 2019 about campaign strategy. In the episode, Ms. Merchan recounted that her father had said in recent conversations: “I hate that politicians use Twitter. It’s so unprofessional.” She said she had argued that there are improper uses of social media, like posts by Mr. Trump sharing “anything that he thinks,” but that social media allows candidates to bypass traditional media.

Experts in judicial ethics have said Ms. Merchan’s work is not sufficient grounds for recusal. When Mr. Trump’s legal team sought his recusal based on his daughter, Justice Merchan sought counsel from the New York State Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics, which said it did not see any conflict of interest.

What Mr. Trump Said

“This judge, he levels a fine for $355 million on a loan that’s a fraction of that size because he’s a corrupt Democrat clubhouse judge. He wouldn’t allow a jury. There was no jury.”
— at a rally in Georgia in March

False. Mr. Trump’s civil fraud trial did not go to a jury, but not because Justice Arthur F. Engoron, the judge presiding over the case, refused one. There was no jury because it was brought by Ms. James under a New York state law that provides the attorney general with broad authority to investigate corporate fraud and requires adjudication at what is known as a bench trial, which is conducted by a judge alone.

Justice Engoron addressed the unusual setting at the beginning of the trial in October: “You have probably noticed or already read that this case has no jury. Neither side asked for one and, in any event, the remedies sought are all equitable in nature, mandating that the trial be a bench trial, one that a judge alone decides. I promise to do my best, despite my lame attempts at humor.”

What Mr. Trump Said

“Engoron’s fraudulent valuation of Mar-a-Lago for $18,000,000, when it is worth 50 to 100 times that amount, is another piece of the Election Interference HOAX.”
— in a post on Truth Social in March

This is misleading. Justice Engoron did not himself value Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s Florida club and residence, at $18 million.

“From 2011-2021, the Palm Beach County assessor appraised the market value of Mar-a-Lago at between $18 million and $27.6 million,” Justice Engoron wrote in his September ruling against Mr. Trump.

Mr. Trump, for his part, valued the property at $426 million to $612 million, an overvaluation that Justice Engoron said was at least 2,300 percent of the assessor’s appraisal.

(Mar-a-Lago has a current market value of $37 million, according to the Palm Beach County appraiser.)

5 takeaways from the second day of Trump’s criminal trial.

Mr. Trump, 77, is charged with falsifying nearly three dozen business records in an attempt to cover up a payment to a p*rn star, Stormy Daniels, who has said she had a brief sexual encounter with him in 2006.

If convicted, he could face probation or up to four years of prison time. Mr. Trump denies having been involved with Ms. Daniels, and has declared his innocence, calling the charges against him a “witch hunt” conjured by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, a Democrat.

Here are five takeaways from Mr. Trump’s second day on trial:

We are moving unexpectedly quickly.

The trial is expected to last about six weeks, according to Juan M. Merchan, who is overseeing it, and court officials had warned that the selection of 12 jurors and several alternates might take two weeks.

But Justice Merchan, an experienced jurist known for his no-nonsense style, has kept things moving fast. Before leaving Tuesday, he swore in another 96 prospective jurors, who will return on Thursday — Wednesday is an off day for the trial — raising the possibility that a full jury will be seated this week.

The seven jurors who were selected were told to return on Monday. Justice Merchan said that if jurors continue to be seated at this pace, opening arguments will likely begin that day.

The prosecution had many questions. The defense basically had one.

Potential jurors answer a basic set of 42 questions, many with subsections, and then lawyers quiz them directly.

For the prosecution, this meant asking about the rule of law, flawed witnesses and immunity deals, and whether they believed people could be guilty of crimes that they helped plan but did not carry out. Prosecutors also asked prospective jurors about their feelings about Mr. Trump, but insisted they were irrelevant.

“This case has nothing to do with your personal politics,” Joshua Steinglass, a prosecutor, told the group.

But the defense team, led by Todd Blanche, was intensely concerned with prospective jurors’ feelings about the former president, asking again and again, “What is your opinion of President Trump?”

He made a point of reminding prospective jurors that Mr. Trump was innocent until proven guilty.

“He has no burden to do anything,” Mr. Blanche said.

There is Trump in the room. And then there’s Trump outside.

Inside the dingy Lower Manhattan courtroom, Mr. Trump, a showman and salesman at heart, is not allowed to speak his mind. Indeed, he was warned on Monday that outbursts would not be tolerated. Unlike the other trials he has faced, he has so far not caused any major disturbances.

Outside the courtroom is another matter. Mr. Trump has taken to addressing reporters — and their cameras, of course — in short bursts, bashing the case and the judge’s decisions.

That strategy continued on Tuesday morning, as he stopped before entering the courtroom to tell reporters that the trial “should have never been brought.” He called Justice Merchan, as he has many times before, “a Trump-hating judge.”

Mr. Trump has not totally avoided moments of bluster inside the courtroom. After Mr. Blanche questioned a prospective juror about a video on her social media feed that suggested she supported President Biden, Mr. Trump muttered something under his breath.

Justice Merchan was angered.

“I will not have any jurors intimidated in this courtroom,” the judge said.

Jurors are telling a lot about themselves. Maybe too much.

Last month, Justice Merchan ruled that prospective jurors’ names would be shielded from the public.

Yet several have provided potentially identifying information, including the names of their employers. One, a city worker, revealed her agency. One disclosed the name of the three-person company she owns with her husband.

In his March 7 order establishing the limited anonymity, Justice Merchan said it would prevent the bribery or harassment of jurors. But some prospective jurors revealed sensitive information on their own, without any interjection from the judge.

There are occasional laughs.

Lawyers and jury experts say that jury selection is one of the most critical elements of any trial, let alone the first criminal trial of a former American president. The mood inside Justice Merchan’s courtroom on Tuesday was tense, as lawyers for both sides probed for potential biases or facts that would help them.

But there were still humorous moments. Asked whether she knew anyone in the legal field, one prospective juror said that she had “dated a lawyer for a while.”

She then paused, before adding: “It ended fine.”

Another prospective juror, a Lower East Side resident, drew laughs with his very-New-York answer to a question about how he spent his spare time.

“I have no spare time,” he said.

And when one potential juror asked if her planned September wedding might be a conflict, Justice Merchan smiled.

“If we’re sitting in September,” he said. “That would be a real problem.”

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Fairness, a Trump obsession, is now central to jury selection for his criminal trial.

News outlets, he often insists, treat him “unfairly.” Political rivals and critics treat him “unfairly.” Prosecutors who have charged him with crimes treat him “unfairly.”

“No politician in history — and I say this with great surety — has been treated worse or more unfairly. You can’t let them get you down. You can’t let the critics and the naysayers get in the way of your dreams,” Mr. Trump said of himself in 2017.

Such grievance was at the heart of his appeal to voters who propelled him in primary races, in a general election in 2016 and in his efforts to overturn the 2020 election that he lost.

Now, the question of fairness — how people view Mr. Trump’s treatment by prosecutors, and whether they can judge him impartially — is at the heart of a laborious jury selection for the first criminal trial of a former president. Prosecutors and defense lawyers are choosing 12 people from a pool of hundreds to decide whether Mr. Trump falsified business records to cover up a hush-money payment during the 2016 presidential race.

More than 50 prospective jurors said at the outset that they didn’t think they could be impartial — or, put another way, fair — in the trial, in which Mr. Trump, like all criminal defendants, is innocent until proven guilty. Over the next hours, still more said that they were uncertain about their internal fairness meters and were dismissed.

Reminders about fairness are routine during jury selection in criminal cases. Yet with Mr. Trump, even the routine can become fraught, subject to the lens of politics.

A prosecutor, Joshua Steinglass, reminded possible jurors that the case was “not a referendum on whether you like” Mr. Trump. It was, he said, about the law, although he noted that everyone “and their mother” had an opinion on this case.

Mr. Trump’s lead lawyer, Todd Blanche, when it was his turn, told prospective jurors he wanted to test their statements that they could be fair to his client. “You all have different views of him based on all kinds of factors,” Mr. Blanche said.

One man resisted Mr. Blanche’s attempts to learn his political beliefs. The man repeatedly said his opinion of Mr. Trump wouldn’t affect his ability to be a juror.

“I can compartmentalize,” the man insisted.

To another potential juror, Blanche said that he wanted to make sure that Mr. Trump started with her at “zero.”

Earlier, a different woman said, “nobody’s above the law,” and then added, “I believe he’s being treated fairly.” She acknowledged that probably counted as a strong opinion.

“I’m not 100 percent sure I can be fair,” she concluded. She was excused.