Including testimony from the first witness to take the stand against Trump.
Donald Trump’s long-awaited hush money trial is in full swing. On Monday, opening statements began and the first witness in the case has already taken the stand in Manhattan.
This comes after a week of jury selection — which was an especially painstaking process this time around, given the history-making nature of the circumstances: Trump is the first former president to face a criminal trial. He’s facing over 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels and others. As for Trump, he has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.
Over the next six weeks — or more — jurors will have to decide whether they’ll make Trump a convicted felon before this year’s November election. But out of his four indictments, this one is considered to carry the least serious of charges. If the former president is convicted, he’d face up to four years in prison, though it’s unclear if the judge would even consider putting him behind bars.
Since the trial is not being televised, here’s a quick peek at some of the major moments so far from the courtroom.
The jury has been selected after days of questioning
After three days of questioning, 12 jurors and six alternates were selected. They haven’t been identified by name because the judge ordered that the jurors’ identities be kept confidential.
But we do know that five of the jurors are women and seven of them are men. They also come from a variety of backgrounds — one works in education in Harlem while one woman works in the tech industry. Many of them are from other parts of the country and even the world, including Ohio, Oregon, California, and as far away as Ireland.
While jury selection is critical in any criminal trial, potential jurors were especially under the microscope this time around, given that Trump is not only a former president but also the GOP nominee. Jurors were grilled on their social media posts, personal lives, and political views to make sure that they didn’t have any bias that would prevent them from being impartial in the trial.
Opening statements
Each side was given time to lay out their case on Monday. Prosecutors told jurors that the illegal payments that Trump allegedly tried to cover up by falsifying business records were part of a larger conspiracy to influence the 2016 presidential election by trying to suppress negative information about himself.
“The defendant Donald Trump orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election,” prosecutor Matthew Colangelo told the courtroom. “Then he covered up that criminal conspiracy by lying in his New York business records over and over and over again.”
The former president’s attorney responded by saying that Trump was innocent and not involved in the 34 business records he’s been charged with falsifying. “I have a spoiler alert: There’s nothing wrong with trying to influence an election. It’s called democracy,” defense attorney Todd Blanche said.
The first key witness takes the stand
Prosecutors called former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker as their first witness. They allege that he was part of the former president’s “catch-and-kill” scheme to quash stories that could potentially hurt Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
During his testimony on Tuesday, he detailed the very first story he killed — it was from a Trump Tower doorman in 2015, who falsely claimed that the former president had a child with his housekeeper. Though Trump’s ex-lawyer Michael Cohen confirmed that it wasn’t true, Pecker said he still moved forward with buying the exclusive rights to the story for $30,000 so he could “lock it up” until the then-presidential candidate’s campaign was over. “This could be a very big story. I believe that it’s important that it should be removed from the market,” Pecker said he told Cohen at the time.
Pecker also described meeting Trump and his former attorney Cohen in August 2015 to discuss how the Enquirer could publish negative stories about opponents, including then-rival Ted Cruz, while burying negative stories about Trump.
Pecker is expected to testify later about his role in orchestrating nondisclosure agreements for negative stories about Trump and paying off former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who alleged she had an affair with Trump in the months before the 2016 election.
Be sure to stay tuned for other key moments in Trump’s hush money trial.
