Anne Toulouse (in the United States), with AFP / Photo credit: Charly TRIBALLEAU / AFP
This Monday, the historic trial of Donald Trump opens in New York. The former president is accused of making payments to former porn star Stormy Daniels, with whom he allegedly had a relationship. But a few months before the presidential election in which the billionaire is a candidate, the major difficulty is to compose an impartial jury.
A historic trial in the United States. This Monday, Donald Trump will face criminal justice. The former president will have to convince at the bar of the New York court. The billionaire is accused of having falsified accounting documents to hide payments to former porn star, Stormy Daniels, with whom he allegedly had a relationship, to buy her silence.
These payments, which would amount to $130,000, would have occurred a few days before the 2016 presidential election. For this first in American history, the major difficulty is therefore to compose an impartial jury to judge the former president.
To give an idea of the scale of the task, this Monday morning, nearly 500 people were summoned to court by drawing lots and only 18 will be selected: 12 jurors and six substitutes. Many of them will be eliminated outright, based on their responses to the seven-page questionnaire given to them. Among the questions they had to answer: Did they attend any Trump campaign meetings? Did anyone in their family work for him? Do they follow pro- or anti-Trump sites on social media?
Trump plans to turn the court into a forum
One of the criteria that usually governs the selection of a jury, namely not having a preconceived idea about the case, is not current. Donald Trump tried in vain not to be judged on his territory, where there are three Democrats for every Republican. Whether in the jury selection phase or in the rest of the procedure, politics will be omnipresent and we can count on Donald Trump to contribute to it. In the coming weeks, he has concentrated his campaign activities in New York and intends to use the court as a platform there.
A little more than three years after leaving the White House in chaos, he faces, in theory, a prison sentence. This would not prevent him from being a candidate in the presidential election on November 5, where he dreams of a revenge against Joe Biden, but would place the campaign in a completely new situation. If he were found not guilty, it would on the contrary be a major victory for the Republican candidate.