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Trump can rant and rave, but he can’t dismiss the jury

Donald Trump and his friends can—and have—claimed that both the DA and the judge in the New York hush money case are political enemies. They can say that Michael Cohen is a liar. They can say that Joe Biden stage managed the whole thing. Plenty of MAGA fans will believe this stuff, and plenty of them are melting down on Fox News right now.

But there's one thing they can't dismiss so easily: the jury. The original jury pool contained upwards of 200 people. The vast majority were excused, either by the judge or by the lawyers for the two sides. After rejecting 95% of them in a herculean effort to be fair, 12 jurors remained, none of them Trump lovers or Trump haters. They were all ordinary people, and they quickly and unanimously convicted Trump on all charges.

There's no way to pretend the jurors were political enemies, or liars, or personally chosen by Joe Biden. And yet every single one of them believed Trump was guilty. Every single one.

27 thoughts on “Trump can rant and rave, but he can’t dismiss the jury

  1. Dana Decker

    Even before the verdict came in, there was talk in MAGA-land about not being able to get a fair trial in liberal New York (or variants thereof). That dissing of New Yorkers as a whole will probably be the major talking point. I'd be surprised if the jury itself will come under major attack*.

    *major attack from elected or high-ranking GOP. It will always be sordid in the lower reaches of MAGA-land.

  2. ah_clem

    The defense only needed one out of twelve to hang the jury. That's a passing grade of about eight percent.

    They failed to even make that low bar.

  3. drickard1967

    "There's no way to pretend the jurors were political enemies, or liars, or personally chosen by Joe Biden."
    Oh, you sweet summer child, Kevin. That (and more) is exactly what Trump will be saying, and the meatbots in his cult will obediently repeat it.

    1. Austin

      Yeah I mean what the hell is Kevin smoking when he posts stuff like this? It’s obvious that Trumpworld will argue the jury was biased because it is full of liberal New Yorkers, some of whom were not even white Real Americans, and all of whom were influenced by the foreign born judge.

  4. J. Frank Parnell

    If Trump was innocent, why didn't he testify? I know, the jury was not allowed to consider this, but you and I can. As the right wing is so fond of saying: "if you can't do the time, don't do the crime".

    1. pjcamp1905

      Furthermore, if Michael Cohen was on retainer, there must be a retainer agreement spelling out his responsibilities. If Trump produced that, the case would have gone away. Pretty clearly, it doesn't exist.

  5. jte21

    Facts the cases notwithstanding, I still think that if Trump had tried -- just a little -- to not come off as such a petulant, entitled, "I'm the fucking president, rules don't apply to me" asshole in front of the judge and (especially) the jury, things would not have gone nearly as badly as they did in the E. Jean Carrol case and this one today. Liberal or conservative, nearly everybody hates the smug, rich dick who thinks (or acts like) the rules don't apply to him.

      1. jte21

        Pretty much. The "I'm an invincible asshole" shtick works in the business world (for a while at least -- we'll see how much longer Elon Musk is around). It's a less effective strategy in front of a judge and jury.

    1. MrAl

      That is of course true. But Trump, being a delusional narcissist, cannot help himself. There is a school Trump defenders, such as Andrew McCarthy and many others, who lament that Trump would be better off if he just . . . stopped acting like Trump. But look how far it got him. Why would he change now. In any event, he cannot change.

    2. kennethalmquist

      The jurors didn’t see Trump’s ravings outside the courthouse, and Trump didn’t testify. So I doubt that the jury’s impressions of Trump had much effect on the verdict.

      I wouldn’t be surprised if the defense strategy of denying everything was dictated by Trump, and that strategy may have backfired. In particular, Stormy Daniels’ testimony probably made Trump look aweful to the jury, so stipulating that Trump and Stormy had sex might have worked better for the defense than forcing the prosecution to prove that the sex happened.

  6. pjcamp1905

    And yet, Trump made that argument in the middle of the trial. He can't get a fair trial anywhere in New York because everyone there hates Trump.

    And why does he refer to himself in the third person? Shades of Bob Dole.

    1. jte21

      New York -- the city where he made his bones and that knows him best also hates his fucking guts. I wonder why that might be...

  7. MrAl

    "There's no way to pretend the jurors were political enemies, or liars". But Kevin, of course there is. Maybe you missing an adverb here, such as "reasonably" or "undelusionally." Most Trump supporters will 100% believe this, IMO.

  8. bbleh

    He can and he will, and indeed he and others already have. And even if it wasn't the NEW YORK CITY jury, they were bamboozled by the CORRUPT JUDGE and the JOE BIDEN PROSECUTOR and and and.

    For a cult, the leader can do no wrong. They are deeply personally invested; to admit he did wrong is to admit they themselves are wrong.

    The only question is, for how many voters (come November) will it make enough of a difference that they will switch from voting for him to (most likely) not voting for anyone for President. That's what's going to make the difference. The rest is silly noise.

  9. kenalovell

    But there's one thing they can't dismiss so easily: the jury.

    I would have thought that by now, Kevin would have stopped making posts that assume Trump and his followers will show some minimal deference to the norms of rational argumentation. They don't. They lie by habit and by inclination, even when it's not strictly necessary. They live in a make-believe world where any inconvenient intrusions from reality are effortlessly batted away.

    Trump did it in this case before the verdict was even handed down. "Mother Teresa" could not have beaten the charges, he claimed after listening to the judge's summing up. So he has a double-barreled argument why the jury was not a factor: it was drawn from a district where everyone hates him, and the instructions it got from the "corrupt judge" left it no alternative but to find him guilty.

    Trump dreams up stuff like that in his sleep. He's been doing it for so long it's second nature.

  10. cmayo

    What country do you live in? Of course there are ways they'll pretend that those weren't 12 ordinary people. I'm sure they've been doing it since last year.

  11. D_Ohrk_E1

    This comes as a shock to the MAGA who were sure one male juror was definitely on their side and would end in a hung jury.

  12. Bluto_Blutarski

    It is one of the interesting contradictions of American life that some people will go to extraordinary lengths to get out of jury duty, but once they are chosen to serve, they almost all take their civic duty and the rule of law seriously. That's something to celebrate, whatever happens next.

  13. martinmc

    "There's no way to pretend the jurors were political enemies, or liars, or personally chosen by Joe Biden. "

    Just watch them.

  14. Boronx

    It's also worth pointing out that allowing for breaks, the jury only needed on average about 15 minutes per charge.

    That's about enough time to find out that no juror had any misgivings at all about deciding for guilty.

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