“History Was Happening”: Potential Juror Who Was Excused From Trump Trial Talks About Tense Courtroom Scene — Update
16.04.2024 - 16:03
/ deadline.com
UPDATE: Kara McGee, a jury pool candidate who was excused on Tuesday morning, told reporters outside the courthouse on Tuesday that she was disappointed to not be able to serve because of scheduling conflicts with her cybersecurity job.
“I don’t approve of what he did as a president,” McGee said, but added that the right to a fair trial was important enough to her that she could have put her feelings aside and judged the case impartially.
“We all have prior opinions about the defendant,” she added.
McGee described the mood among jury candidates in the courtroom on Monday and Tuesday as tense as they took turns answering a 42-item juror questionnaire covering jobs, hobbies, family life, political activities and feelings about the case. “People did seem nervous … like no one wanted to talk to each other,” she said
She said the gravity of the occasion was palpable: “You walked in and you felt like history was happening.”
She added that her first thought on walking into the courtroom on Monday and seeing the former president was, “Oh, he looks exactly like he does on TV,” she said.
Video via Sean Piccoli.
PREVIOUSLY: Donald Trump again blasted the judge in his hush money trial, before entering the courtroom this morning for what is a long slog through jury selection.
In what is likely to be a routine moment for each day’s proceedings, the former president stopped in the courthouse hallway to make brief remarks to reporters, seizing on the media’s need for visuals given the restrictions on cameras in the courtroom itself.
Trump called Judge Juan Merchan a “Trump hating judge” who should be recused from the case, although efforts to remove the judge have so far been rejected. Trump also again claimed that the case,