The judge presiding over the New York criminal trial of former President Donald Trump has set Monday as the day for opening statements to be delivered. To proceed with this, he is aiming to select up to five additional alternate jurors by Friday.
Twelve jurors and one alternate have already been sworn in, chosen from a pool of 96 Manhattan residents called for jury duty. Approximately 24 potential jurors from the second group are still being considered. If the required five alternates cannot be finalized from this group, a third set of 96 individuals who were sworn in on Thursday will be called back to the courtroom.
During the trial, Judge Juan Merchan stated that if the remaining alternates are chosen early on Friday, he will conduct a pretrial hearing to establish the range of topics that prosecutors can address if Trump opts to testify in his own defense.
Prosecutors, in a recent public filing, expressed their intention to interrogate Trump regarding various significant legal defeats to undermine his credibility. These defeats include a civil fraud judgment of nearly half a billion dollars in a different New York court, two unanimous civil federal jury verdicts holding him accountable for defamation and sexual abuse of writer E. Jean Carroll, violations of a gag order, and sanctions for pursuing a lawsuit against Hillary Clinton that a judge deemed "frivolous" and in "bad faith."
Trump's legal team contends that all these topics should be off-limits in this particular case, which centers on reimbursements to former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen for a payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels as part of a "hush money" agreement. Prosecutors allege that Trump concealed the reimbursements to distance himself from the payment, which was made just days before the 2016 presidential election to secure Daniels' silence about an alleged affair. Trump has consistently denied the affair.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony charges of falsifying business records and has refuted all accusations in the case.
