A woman selected to be a juror in Donald Trump’s hush-money trial in Manhattan was dismissed on Thursday after informing Judge Juan Merchan that she had been identified in the press as a member of the jury.
Prospective jurors have been told that their identities will remain anonymous during the landmark criminal trial of the former president. But the juror, who was seated on Tuesday, told the court that her friends had warned her that some identifying details about her had been made public. When she added on Thursday that she could not be impartial, Merchan dismissed her, leaving six of the necessary 18 to impanel a jury.
In the first few days of jury selection, Merchan did not block reporters from publishing non-identifying details about the anonymous members of the jury and multiple news outlets published details that could be used to identify jurors. ABC, NBC, CNN, and Fox News all aired varying pieces of information that could identify the woman.
On Wednesday, Fox News host Jesse Watters said “they are catching undercover liberal activists lying to the judge” in order to get on the jury after rattling off some more descriptions of jurors, including a description of a different woman.
They are catching undercover Liberal Activists lying to the Judge in order to get on the Trump Jury pic.twitter.com/HlTZKRn8bw
Later that evening, Trump quoted the Watters segment in a Truth Social post:
On Thursday, the Manhattan district attorney’s office presented Trump’s post to Merchan as more evidence of what they said was a violation of the gag order barring Trump from disparaging witnesses, court staff and family, and jurors. Merchan has scheduled a ruling next week to determine whether Trump has violated the order.
After dismissing the nurse on Thursday, Merchan told reporters not to publish information about the employment history that prospective jurors are required to answer in a questionnaire. Jurors are also quizzed in open court by attorneys for the defense and prosecution, where more details have been revealed. While Merchan said that “the press can write about anything the attorney and the courts discuss,” he advised reporters to use “common sense” when discussing jurors: “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.” The effort to impanel the jury faced another setback on Thursday when a juror was removed after prosecutors found that the person, or someone with the same name, was arrested for tearing down political ads in the 1990s.
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