The judge presiding over former President Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial in New York has ordered that the identities of the jurors will be concealed from the general public, amid credible fears that they could be subject to tampering, reported Law360's Frank G. Runyeon Thursday.
"The names of the jurors in Donald Trump's hush money case will be kept secret," wrote Runyeon. However, he added, Judge Juan Merchan ruled that Trump, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and the attorneys for both sides will still know their identities and addresses.
Among the "remarkable" findings underyling this decision, Runyeon noted, is that Merchan wrote, "The Court further finds good cause ... 'that there is a likelihood of bribery, jury tampering, or of physical injury or harassment of jurors,'" and that the former president has "an extensive history of publicly and repeatedly attacking trial jurors and grand jurors."
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Bragg has charged Trump with bookkeeping fraud, alleging a criminal scheme to shield from the government and the public the true purpose of payments that were allegedly to buy the silence of adult film star Stormy Daniels, concealing an affair between them to prevent voters from knowing about it going into the 2016 presidential election.
The fraud has been charged as felonies, which means Bragg is alleging it was done in service of concealing other criminal acts.
This trial is currently scheduled to begin on March 25, which would make it the first of the former president's four criminal cases to be heard in court. The other three are currently tied up in various motions and challenges, including an ethics hearing in Georgia and a Supreme Court case involving presidential immunity, that have put their trial dates up in the air, and in some cases made it difficult to schedule them prior to the 2024 election at all.
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