NY. This Friday the jury for the historic trial of Donald Trump over payments to silence a porn actress was completed, clearing the way for prosecutors and the defense to make opening statements in the process next week.
The 12 jurors, along with six alternates, will examine the evidence in the first trial in US history to determine whether a former president broke the law.
The jury is made up of seven men and five women, mostly employed in white-collar professions: two corporate lawyers, a computer engineer, a speech therapist and an English teacher. Most are not natives of New York, but come from all over the United States and countries such as Ireland and Lebanon.
Trump is accused of covering up a $130,000 payment his former lawyer Michael Cohen made to porn actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election to keep her quiet about a sexual encounter she says they had a decade earlier.
The former president has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and denies any such encounter with Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.
Trump also pleaded not guilty in three other criminal cases, but this is the only one that is certain to go to trial before the presidential election on November 5, in which the Republican politician aspires to face Democratic President Joe Biden again.
A conviction would not prevent him from exercising his position.
After the jury was chosen, a person was engulfed in flames outside the New York court where the trial is continuing, the CNN news network reported, adding that the circumstances of the event were unclear.
A spokesman for the New York police reported that the man was in critical condition in the hospital and also reported that he had with him some pamphlets with the slogan “the true history of the world.” No security threats were reported.
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– 2024-04-22 04:06:45
