A dismissed prospective juror in Donald Trump's trial described her face-to-face encounter with the former president as he stands trial for allegedly falsifying business records to help cover up an extramarital affair shortly before his first election.
Kara McGee, who believes she was dismissed after notifying the court that serving on the jury would present a work hardship, told CNN that her mother tipped her off to the possibility that she might be called to sit on the Trump case after she received a jury summons two weeks ago, but she wasn't certain until she arrived Monday in court.
"I was wondering if I would be on that or on some other case at the same time in the building, because I assume there's a lot more going on, and then yesterday when I got here and we were put into a jury holding room," McGee said, "there were 500-ish people waiting to get put into two separate holding rooms.
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"I had the thought of, like, this is probably Trump because I don't think they call that many jurors for anything else."
McGee got the sense that other prospective jurors realized they might end up on the Trump case, but she said the room remained largely quiet.
"You could feel that people were starting to realize it, but people weren't talking amongst themselves nearly as much as I expected, weirdly enough," she said. "I think everyone had a sense of kind of uncertainty over what the protocols were in this situation, and so no one really felt like they should mention it.
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"I'm sure there were some jurors who just didn't know that this was happening right now or didn't realize that this was what they were called for. You could definitely see people looking around, like, we also get the sense that this is, but not, not really talking about it."
"One of the, I guess, employees of the court had mentioned something about it being an unusual day and I kind of wondered, like, does that mean we're definitely on this case or just because this case is also in the building," McGee added. "So, yeah, it was when we walked into the courtroom and saw him that I was sure that it was definitely this case."
McGee described the scene inside the courtroom as slightly surreal, especially when the former president made eye contact with her.
"Yes, odd, it's like someone who you've seen as this larger-than-life public figure for a decade or so at this point, and for, for people who had followed his business career, I'm sure longer than that," McGee said.
"I didn't, but then you get in there and it's fascinating because you get these two very contrasting kind of senses at the same time, which is on the one hand, it's this like massive sense of gravitas and importance because you know that this is history in the making, and whatever the outcome of this is everything going forward will be effected by it."
"At the same time, you walk into the courtroom and you see Trump's sitting there," McGee added. "I had never seen him in person before. You see him sitting there and it's like, oh, it's just a guy he's – he's just a dude."
Watch the CNN video below or at this link.
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