The jury in former President Donald Trump’s hush-money criminal trial scheduled for New York will be closed to the public, but their names will be revealed to Trump and his defense team.
The judge overseeing the trial, the first criminal trial in U.S. presidential history, issued the secrecy order Thursday at the request of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, headed by Chief Justice Alvin Bragg.
Manhattan Judge Juan Manuel Merchan decided to keep the names of jurors and prospective jurors anonymous in the trial, which is scheduled to begin March 25 after jury selection.
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Stormy Daniels (left) and former President Donald Trump (right). President Trump is accused of falsifying internal records kept by the company to conceal payments to former lawyer Michael Cohen. (Philip Farawan/Getty Images/Photo: Seth Wenigpour/Getty Images)
The judge’s order said Trump has an “extensive history of repeatedly attacking jurors and grand jurors in public” and “has committed bribery, jury tampering, or physical injury to jurors.” There is a possibility of harassment.”
Trump disclosed payments to former lawyer Michael Cohen, who paid pornographic actor Stormy Daniels $130,000 as part of an effort to bury his claims during Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. He has been accused in the hush money case of falsifying internal records kept by the company in order to conceal his identity. d There was extramarital sex.
Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner, has been indicted in New York on 34 counts of falsifying business records, a felony punishable by up to four years in prison, although there is no guarantee a conviction will result in a prison sentence. . Barring a last-minute delay, this will be the first of his four criminal cases to go to trial.
President Trump has denied the charges and described the incident as a political witch hunt. He also denied any relationship with Daniels.
Marchan said only Trump’s lawyers and prosecutors would have access to jurors’ home and work addresses.
New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg is investigating former President Donald Trump for allegedly paying hush money to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. (Shane Bevell/NCAA Photo via Getty Images/Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
It stops short of having completely anonymous jurors, as was the case in President Trump’s two recent federal civil trials involving author E. Jean Carroll.
In those trials, neither Trump nor his lawyers knew the names of the jurors.
Prosecutors last week asked that the names of jurors and prospective jurors not be released, citing Trump’s “extensive history of attacking jurors in other trials.”
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Mr. Trump’s lawyers agreed not to release the names of the jurors to the public, but said they had different reasons. They took issue with the prosecution’s characterization of his previous comments about the jury, citing “highly prejudicial media attention related to this case.”
Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York will indict Trump in connection with the payments to Stormy Daniels, even though Cohen claimed in 2019 that he implicated Trump as part of a plea deal. refused. The Federal Election Commission also abandoned its investigation into the issue in 2021.
The payments to Mr. Daniels were first disclosed in a Wall Street Journal report in January 2018, and Mr. Cohen and Mr. Daniels’ lawyers were advised not to speak publicly about their alleged sexual encounters with Mr. Trump. It was reported that he had signed a non-disclosure agreement to do so.
President Trump details payments to former lawyer Michael Cohen (pictured) who paid $130,000 to porn actor Stormy Daniels as part of an effort to cover up the lawsuit during Trump’s 2016 campaign. He has been accused in a hush money case of falsifying internal records kept by the company in order to conceal his identity. He had extramarital sexual contacts. (AP Photo/Stephen Jeremiah)
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But in March 2018, Daniels changed her story. In an interview with CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” Daniels claimed that she had one unprotected sexual encounter with President Trump.
At the time, President Trump said he had no knowledge of the payments to Daniels.
When asked in April 2018 why Mr. Cohen made the payment, Mr. Trump replied, “You have to ask Michael Cohen — Michael is my lawyer.”
FOX News’ Brooke Singman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
