Trump in the Dock: First Criminal Trial of a Former U.S. President Begins in NYC

this is democracy now I'm Amy Goodman Republican Presidential front runner Donald Trump's making history today in a New York courtroom as the first former president to stand trial for criminal charges jury selection begins today as Trump faces 34 criminal charges falsifying business records as part of a scheme to hide hush money payments to adult film star stormmy Daniels in an attempt to influence the 2016 election the payments were not illegal themselves but Trump's accused of violating Federal campaign Finance laws because he failed to disclose the payments and recorded them as a legal expense giving the money to his lawyer each of the 34 counts carries a maximum sentence of four years in prison Trump's required to be in the courtroom while prosecutors lay out their case unlike uh the Civil trials where he chose to be there he didn't have to be there Trump's also facing criminal charges in three other cases two Federal cases involving the retention of classified materials and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election that culminated in the January 6 Insurrection and Rico charges in Georgia based on his push to reverse Georgia's 2020 election results Manhattan da Alvin Bragg may be the only prosecutor to try Trump on criminal charges before election day on Truth social Trump's uh social media platform he called the trial quote this is Trump election interference Trump spoke Saturday at a campaign rally in the Battleground state of Pennsylvania the RO Biden TRS you know that right and I'm proud to do it for you have a good time watching have a good time watching on Monday in New York City I will be forced to sit fully gagged I'm not allowed to talk could you believe it they want to take away my constitutional right to talk I have a crooked judge for more we're joined by Ron kuy longtime criminal defense civil rights lawyer based here in New York's closely followed the Trump cases welcome to democracy now it's great to have you with us thank you so much um so he talks about being persecuted and singled out you're a longtime defense attorney uh others are saying no he is getting a kind of special treatment that defendants almost never get well I I don't think either of those are completely true uh one part of the special treatment is his case has moved very very quickly it's been about a year from indictment to the beginning of trial today whereas we have thousands of young people mostly young people of color on Riker's Island sitting there who don't have the luxury of baale whose cases are far older so certainly this case is moving on an expedited basis but what Donald Trump is accused of is the type of crime that's prosecuted in New York every single Day by the Manhattan DA's office it has nothing to do with being president or a candidate or a campaign or presidential Powers it's just a sort of garden variety ordinary grift falsifying business records for the purpose of committing another crime and almost everybody who falsifies their business records does so to conceal the commission of another crime you don't just wake up in the morning and decide to falsify business records because you have nothing better to do well you're a defense attorney and you know choosing the right jurors is extremely important um and I wanted to ask you about the juror questions because we know a lot of those questions right now they're going to be asked about what podcasts and talk radio programs they listen to where they get their news um and this is question 30 have you ever considered yourself a supporter of or belong to any of the following the qinon movement proud boys oathkeepers 3centers Baloo boys and TI talk about the significance of this well both sides want to weed out people who they think uh by virtue of organizational membership are really incapable of being fair and impartial uh one way or the other either the prosecution or to the defense obviously if you're a member of the oathkeepers no matter what you say about your ability to be fair and impartial it could reasonably be called into question and as far as I know antifa is not a membership organization I last time I checked they didn't issue cards but if you self-identify as being a member of antifa chances are you can't be fair to Donald Trump uh this is question 31 do you have any strong opinions or firmly H beliefs about whether a former president may be criminally charged in state court and that question is designed to weed out primarily the people who take the position that Donald Trump by virtue of being uh the president of United States at one point or another is not just absolutely immune from everything that that he did as president but he's absolutely immune from everything he did in his life period And if you're that far off the page uh then you probably should not be sitting on this jury uh then 32 do you have any feelings about how Mr Trump is being treated in this case it's another one of those questions where if people say I think he's being treated unfairly I think he's being persecuted I think you know he's Mar ing himself for the rest of us uh you're not going to be allowed that's a challenge for cause in almost every situation on the other hand if you say I I think he's basically being treated fairly he's being treated like everybody else um that's the answer that that uh the prosecution is certainly looking for as you know uh president Trump has argued that the judge Juan masan uh cannot be fair because um his daughter uh works with Democratic party candidates um and he attacks her uh online uh which led to masan expanding the partial gag order he didn't say you can't attack me the judge but he did say can't attack family members right and Trump has repeated this and his lawyers have repeated this over and over again by virtue of Judge maran's daughter's employment uh he should be recus himself but judge Maran is an extremely meticulous jurist he sought judicial eics opinions on this long ago uh he was told there is no conflict of interest his daughter doesn't live underneath his roof and moreover judge Maran sat on the Trump organization case so he knows the people he knows the players he knows the lawyer uh and he knows how to run a trump trial just not necessarily one with Donald Trump present but a trump trial nonetheless can you talk about now what exactly happens what rights the lawyers have um they've got 10 peremptory challenges per side what exactly does that mean a peremptory challenge is a challenge you can use for almost any reason that you want to strike a jury you can't do it on the basis of of a protected class race religion national origin but you can use it because I don't like the fact that this juror wore a suit today to sit on jury service that shows a little too much respect for this process that we're denigrating I want to get rid of that individual but there's only 10 of them and those are used very very quickly on the other hand you have unlimited challenges for cause and most of the argument around jury selection is going to be challenges for cause but what judge Maran has done they're calling a thousand jurors to sit in jury service unprecedented number so anybody who at the outset after Maran judge Maran explains the situation he's going to ask for a show of hands anybody who says they can't be fair and impartial for any and he's not going to question them individually you raise your hand you're out of here so even if 90 out of a 100 potential jurors say I can't be fair that's fine then you have you have 10 bring in the next 100 and and you'll have a jury okay they're all though from Manhattan now Trump says he can't get a fair trial here in his home City talk about that number one he doesn't want a fair trial no defendant wants a fair trial every defendant wants a jury that's uh predisposed to acquit them that's just sort of baked into the whole process uh he certainly can get a a fair trial uh in the sense that you get rid of all the jurors who have strong feelings one way or the other about his his guilt or or his innocence remember this doesn't this is not a referendum on Trump as president which would be I think a harder case in Manhattan it doesn't matter whether you liked his president presidency or like most manhattanites loathed it these actions the activities accused of engaging in they took place before he became president the crime was committed before he became president of the United States so it doesn't involve Great questions of presidential power and authority it's it's just regular old Garden variety fraud with a porn star or a sex worker uh added in to to add some spice to it and of course attorney Michael con so let's talk about um what exactly he's being charged with I mean this if you were giving hush money to someone that would not be a crime totally legal totally legal of course Trump is going simply to argue he just didn't want to hurt his family so he wanted to this person to remain quiet about their Affair uh but this has to do with the election explain that one of the crimes the underlying crimes uh that that the money was designed to conceal was Federal Election Finance law uh that Michael con was basically um making an expenditure this was a campaign expenditure and Trump covered it up uh because he didn't want the American people to know that he was paying off a porn star just prior to the election and the timing of that payment is significant having taken place just before the election Michael con is going to testify what it was for there's going to be conversations uh that Trump had with other people that make reference to stormmy Daniels and the election and I don't know that Trump is going to be arguing anything be because Trump would have to testify to make that argument and of course he says he will of course he but he has said that even in the civil cases he always says he's going to do this or he has done that and maybe when the time the trial is over he will have said he testified even though he didn't but it's unlikely frankly from a criminal defense perspective uh uh it's unlikely that he's going to get on that witness stand we're not going to see any of this no there was a brief period of time a couple of years in the 1990s where we had cameras in the New York State courtrooms most people thought it was a fantastic success uh and it helped legitimize the system the amadu most famously the amadu Dio trial for those who remember was televised live everybody could see what happened uh the powers that be decided that should not be renewed um except for uh uh pre-trial performances as it were uh so we're not going to see the trial can someone convicted of a felony run become president absolutely there's no bar to becoming president of the United States if you're convicted of a felon however you cannot own a firearm so at least if he gets elected he won't be able to have a gun he'll have the United States military but not a gun and you have to be born in the United States yes I want to thank you very much for being with us uh Ron Kuby longtime criminal defense and civil rights lawyer here in New York um that does it for today's show democracy Now is currently accepting applications for our digital Fellowship you can learn more and apply at democracy now.org democracy Now is produced with Renee Fels Mike Burke DEA Guster Shar ofd do kadus Messiah rhs nine shik Maria terasa Tammy War enough Trina nura Sam alov Tam Mar audio Robbie Karen hany massud Hannah Ellas executive director is Julie Crosby special thanks to Becca Stelly John Rand Paul po Mike de Philippa Miguel Nera Hugh Gran Dennis moan David prud Dennis mic Matt El I'm Amy Goodman thanks so much for joining us

Channel: Democracy Now!

Views: 94,513

Keywords: Democracy Now, Amy Goodman, News, Politics, democracynow, Independent Media, Breaking News, World News

Id: x-7gZs9tnVA

Length: 12min 53sec (773 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 15 2024