A front row seat to history — most of the time
A gag order. The House Speaker turning up outside court. Angry denouncements of the judge overseeing the case.
Some of the most explosive moments in Donald Trump’s hushmoney trial have played out for most of the world to see — except for the people who are actually deciding his fate: the jury.
The 12-person panel is shown evidence and witness testimony so they can decide whether the former US President is guilty of a scheme to buy up and bury steamy stories in an effort to illegally influence the 2016 presidential election.
But it’s a highly curated experience; jurors are not getting the full picture seen by those who follow along each day.
They don’t even witness Trump enter or exit the courtroom. He’s already there by the time they are brought into the room, and he stays until they are dismissed.
This is by design.
Laws carefully govern how a criminal case is tried to ensure that a jury’s decision on guilt or innocence isn’t affected by fights over evidence or other legal sparring.
Jurors agree to a set of rules when they’re chosen for a trial. They can’t research the case. They must avoid all news about it.
They also agree not to discuss the case outside of court and not talk about it among themselves until deliberations, when all the evidence has been presented and they’re deciding whether the defendant should be convicted.
If they break any of these rules, they could be kicked off the panel and replaced with an alternate juror, or a mistrial could be declared.
So if they’re taking their civic duty seriously, the Trump jury has never heard the Republican presidential candidate criticise Judge Juan M Merchan as “totally conflicted”.
They don’t know that Trump has been threatened with jail time and fined US$10,000 ($16,300) for violating a gag order that bars him from talking about witnesses in the case, including the prosecution’s star witness, Michael Cohen.
They haven’t watched Cohen’s TikTok livestreams.
They didn’t see House Speaker Mike Johnson hold a press conference outside the courthouse this week, using his powerful position to show his party turning against the judicial system by declaring the Manhattan criminal trial illegitimate.
And they’re unaware of the hours of legal wrangling over what witnesses can be called to testify, and what they can say when they’re called.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records and denies any of the sexual encounters happened.