New York Judge Juan Merchan blocked in a new order the release of jurors’ names beyond the defendant and his legal team in a quickly upcoming criminal trial against ex-President Donald Trump. (Prosecutors’ side also gets the details.) The Trump trial — the first amid his four criminal cases to start — will cover allegations from New York City prosecutors of the falsification of business records in connection to hush money from before the 2016 elections.
The press and public will still have access to Trump’s trial proceedings, which kick off with jury selection on March 25.
Prosecutors asked for the protective move from the judge, though Trump’s team agreed to the general framework. They asked that eventual jurors not be specifically notified of the judge’s latest directives, limiting what the former president’s team deemed a risk of prejudice against Trump heading into trial. (The judge agreed to this.)
Still awaiting a final decision from the judge is prosecutors’ related request for a partial gag order on Trump, which would mirror restrictions on his public remarks imposed amid two other cases so far. Those include his New York fraud case from state Attorney General Letitia James and the federal criminal case alleging attempted election interference after the 2020 race. After the latter went largely on hold amid Trump’s appeals claiming he holds wide-ranging legal protections by virtue of his presidential term that supposedly should shut down the process, the gag order was staying in effect, blocking potential attacks by Trump on witnesses in association with their testimony and other targets.
In putting the trial on track for this month, Merchan rebuffed earlier complaints from the Trump team about supposed impediments from trial prep to the ex-president’s ongoing campaign. Trump, meanwhile, continues trying to credit the current president for the bulk of current proceedings that he’s facing, though there is no evidence linking Biden to the progression of any of this.
