Donald Trump made history Monday as the first former president to stand trial on criminal charges as his hush money case got underway with jury selection.
He has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records as part of an alleged effort to cover up a hush-money payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the lead up the 2016 presidential election.
The charges stem from a $130,000 payment Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, made to Daniels to keep her from going public with an allegation that she and Trump had had an affair. Trump then reimbursed Cohen by falsely logging the expenses as legal fees in company records.
This live blog is no longer being updated. Scroll down to see how the day in court unfolded.
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Done for the day
By NBC Staff
The judge is wrapping up for the day after about 10 potential jurors were able to read their survey responses — underscoring just how long the selection process may take. The first half of the day was spent handling motion arguments.
Court adjourned for the day at 4:40 p.m. ET
Juror questionnaire asks about news habits
The Associated Press
A randomly selected group of 18 prospective jurors in Donald Trump's hush money trial on Monday afternoon began sifting through a litany of preselected questions, touching on their educational backgrounds, news habits, hobbies and ability to be neutral.
Both of the first two prospective jurors said they lived in midtown Manhattan, had never attended a Trump rally and felt they could be impartial.
On a question about whether she had any strong beliefs about the former president, the first respondent paused briefly, then said, “No.”
As the jurors ticked through the list of questions, Trump held a stapled stack of papers close to his face, appearing to follow along with the answers.
Opinions about Trump
By NBC Staff
Merchan dismissed a prospective juror this afternoon after she responded "Yes" to a question on the jury selection questionnaire about whether she had opinions about Trump.
Potential jurors excused
By NBC Staff
More than half of the 96 potential jurors who were initially in the courtroom have been excused after Merchan asked whether those in the pool feel they cannot be impartial and fair or cannot serve for some other reason.
Of those who were excused, more than two dozen were white women, according to a pool report from inside the courtroom.
Jury selection begins
The Associated Press
Jury selection in Donald Trump 's historic hush money trial finally got underway Monday afternoon after hours of pretrial arguments, including a request from prosecutors to fine Trump over social media posts they say violated a gag order.
The process involves selecting 12 jurors, plus six alternates. Trump’s notoriety would make that a near-herculean task in any year, but the process is especially challenging now — unfolding as Trump vies to reclaim the White House during a hotly contested presidential election year and in the city where he grew up.
Courtroom sketches released
Courtroom sketches were released following Trump's appearance in court Monday morning.
Judge puts his foot down on Trump's team's efforts to delay trial process
By Jennifer Peltz | The Associated Press
The afternoon began with a squabble over the Trump team’s planned exhibits at trial. Noting that the judge issued an order in February telling the lawyers to comply immediately with state laws on notifying their adversaries in advance of some evidence, prosecutors asked the judge to give the defense 24 hours to follow through and bar anything that wasn’t identified by then.
Trump’s lawyers asked for another day, saying they have been working through hundreds of thousands of pages of material they got only in recent months from a related federal investigation.
Merchan put his foot down at 24 hours, noting that the defense team has had weeks to go through the material and had filed many requests and appeals meanwhile.
“The way you choose to use your time is your business,” the judge said.
Judge delays ruling on potential gag order
By NBC Staff
Judge Merchan announced that he would not issue a ruling today on the prosecutors' request to hold Trump in contempt of court for violating a gag order.
He said he will hold a hearing next week on April 21 to give the defense an opportunity to respond.
The gag order bars Trump from commenting publicly about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and jurors.
Trial is back in session
Trump has returned to the courtroom following a lunch break.
A timeline of the hush money case
Could Trump go to jail?
By The Associated Press
Trump is facing 34 counts of falsifying business records — a felony charge that’s punishable by up to four years in prison. But there’s no guarantee that Trump would actually serve time behind bars if he’s convicted, with the sentence ultimately up to the judge.
New York court records and newspaper archives suggest that defendants convicted only of felony falsifying business records seldom get prison time unless they are also charged with more serious felonies. It’s also hard to know to what extent the logistical and political complications of jailing a former president might play a role at sentencing.
The three other criminal cases Trump is facing could lead to more lengthy prison sentences if he is convicted. In the 2020 election interference case in Washington, for example, the most serious counts call for up to 20 years behind bars.
A look at the judge who is overseeing Trump’s hush money trial
By Jennifer Peltz | The Associated Press
Born in Colombia, Judge Juan Merchan emigrated as a 6-year-old and grew up in New York. He worked his way through college, graduated from Hofstra University’s law school, and was a state lawyer and Manhattan prosecutor before being appointed a family court judge in 2006. Three years later, he was assigned to a felony trial court, which New York calls a state Supreme Court.
He has presided over cases alleging murder, rape and many other crimes: a multimillion-dollar investment fraud, a clubland stabbing, stolen laptops, harassment. The spotlight on Merchan grew white-hot in the last three years as he took on cases involving Trump’s company, its former longtime finance chief Allen Weisselberg and, eventually, Trump himself.
If some might see Merchan’s familiarity with the Trump Organization case as preparation for the hush money trial, the ex-president and his lawyers see a problem.
During long trials, Manhattan judges often reserve a day each week for other cases. Merchan is keeping Wednesdays for mental health court, which he has overseen since its 2011 start, and a similar veterans’ docket he took on in 2019.
Police investigate bomb threats at DA Alvin Bragg’s house and New York library
The Associated Press
Police say they are investigating a bomb threat at the home of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg from Monday morning. A police spokesperson says a 911 caller reported the threat shortly before 9 a.m.
Another bomb threat made to the New York Public Library’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building was unfounded and there was no disruption to service, a library spokesperson said.
Court breaks for lunch
The court has now adjourned until 1:30 p.m. ET.
Prosecutors ask judge to fine Trump $3,000 over social media posts
By NBC Staff
Prosecutor's have asked Merchan to fine Trump for violating a gag order by sharing certain social media posts over the weekend. They refer to three specific posts and request a levy of $1,000 each, as well as telling Trump to take them down.
“The defendant has demonstrated his willingness to flout the order. He’s attacked witnesses in the case,” said Christopher Conroy, one of the trial prosecutors.
One of Trump’s lawyers, Todd Blanche, maintained that the three posts referenced “do not violate the gag order.” He said Trump is just responding to to the witnesses’ own public statements.
“It’s not as if President Trump is going out and targeting individuals, he is responding to salacious, repeated vehement attacks by these witnesses.”
Judge pivots to discussing trial, noting the waiting jurors
By NBC News
Judge Merchan cuts off yet another tangential debate about procedures for filing motions, saying there are 500 jurors waiting and he isn't "interested in getting into this minutia."
He pivots to discuss the trial itself and the rules of engagement inside his courtroom. The judge is going over the instructions for questioning potential jurors, known as the voir dire process. He said that he will allow 30 minutes for the first round of questioning and 20 minutes for any subsequent rounds.
Two hours in, jury selection has yet to begin
By The Associated Press
Judge Merchan is still considering pretrial motions before potential jurors come in. While it's not uncommon for judges to consider motions before a trial, in this case, Trump’s defense attorneys have pushed for a string of delays.
Prosecution tells judge Trump violated gag order
Will the public learn the identities of the jurors?
The judge has ordered that the jurors’ names be kept secret, an unusual but not unprecedented step in trials where there is a potential that jurors might wind up being harassed or threatened during or after the trial.
There is nothing to stop jurors from voluntarily talking about their experiences after the trial is over. While it is pending, they aren't supposed to talk about it to anyone.
Court takes a brief recess
The court is taking a 10 minute break. They are expected to continue arguments over pretrial motions when court returns.
Judge denies request to include 'Access Hollywood' tape, E. Jean Carroll deposition
Judge to allow prosecution to enter evidence about National Enquirer coverage on Trump
By Lisa Rubin and Summer Concepcion | NBC News
The National Enquirer helped boost Trump’s 2016 candidacy by identifying and suppressing negative stories — a practice known as “catch and kill.”
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass discussed the admissibility of an August 2015 meeting at Trump Tower between lawyer Michael Cohen and ex-National Enquirer publisher David Pecker to discuss the tabloid’s role in helping his presidential run.
Steinglass asked for permission to admit certain exhibits, including articles in the Enquirer with positive headlines on Trump that were shown to him before publication so that he could suggest changes and/or approve them. Negative stories about Trump’s primary opponents in the 2016 presidential election cycle — particularly Ben Carson, and Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida — were also reviewed by Trump and were designed to have maximum damaging impact.
Steinglass argued that the “whole point of the meeting” was for the Enquirer to distort what information the public got about Trump: to suppress negative stories about Trump, accentuate positive ones, and exaggerate his rivals’ weaknesses. The resulting headlines, Steinglass argued, cannot prejudice Trump when they were designed to help him.
Merchan ruled that he will allow the exhibits Steinglass outlined under a state law allowing evidence of alleged prior bad acts
Judge lays out the schedule of the trial
By Lisa Rubin and Rebecca Shabad | NBC News
The judge said there will be no trial on any Wednesdays or on April 29. But if the trial starts to run long, he said he reserves the right to convene trial on Wednesday afternoons.
There will also be no trial on any day that conflicts with the religious observance of any juror, he said,
At most, that would mean April 22 and 23 for Passover as well as April 29 and 30, but that will not be true to accommodate the lawyers alone. He is willing to curtail trial on April 22 and April 23 by 2 p.m. to allow counsel to make it to their holiday observances by sundown, which is roughly at 7:43 pm ET.
If everything is going according to schedule, he said he will adjourn for Barron Trump’s high school graduation and that of one of the defense lawyers’ children on May 17 and June 3, respectively. But he said he's reserving judgment on that now.
What the case about exactly?
By Michael R. Sisak and Eric Tucker | The Associated Press
The former president is accused of falsifying internal Trump Organization records as part of a scheme to bury damaging stories that he feared could hurt his 2016 campaign, particularly as Trump’s reputation was suffering at the time from comments he had made about women.
The allegations focus on payoffs to two women, porn actor Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal, who said they had extramarital sexual encounters with Trump years earlier, as well as to a Trump Tower doorman who claimed to have a story about a child he alleged Trump had out of wedlock. Trump says none of these supposed sexual encounters occurred.
Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, paid Daniels $130,000 and arranged for the publisher of the National Enquirer supermarket tabloid to pay McDougal $150,000 in a journalistically dubious practice known as “catch-and-kill” in which a publication pays for exclusive rights to someone’s story with no intention of publishing it, either as a favor to a celebrity subject or to gain leverage over the person.
Prosecutors say Trump’s company reimbursed Cohen and paid him bonuses and extra payments, all of which were falsely logged in Trump Organization records as legal expenses. Cohen has separately pleaded guilty to violating federal campaign finance law in connection with the payments.
Judge denies a request from the defense team to recuse himself from case
By NBC News
Judge Juan M. Merchan started the day's proceedings by discussing a motion filed by Trump's team calling for the judge to recuse himself from the case. Merchan denied that request.
Merchan says that the defense motion to recuse "does not reasonably or logically" explain how an interview he gave to a publication violates the law or the defendant's rights.
"There is no basis for recusal," Merchan said.
The judge also said Trump has made attacks on social media, which he said the court has said is in violation of the gag order.
How will the jury get picked?
By The Associated Press
Judge Juan M. Merchan will begin by bringing a large group of potential jurors into his courtroom. He will then give a brief outline of the case and introduce the defendant, Trump, to the jury. The judge will then ask the potential jurors a critical question: Can they serve and be fair and impartial? Those who cannot will be asked to raise their hand. For this trial, jurors who indicate they cannot serve or be fair will be dismissed.
Those who remain will be called in groups into the jury box, where they will be asked 42 questions, some with multiple parts.
The lawyers on each side will have a limited number of strikes they can use to exclude potential jurors who they don't like, without giving a reason. They can also argue that a particular juror should be excluded, but have to get the judge to agree to dismiss that person.
The process continues until 12 jurors and six alternates have been picked. More large groups of potential jurors can be brought into the courtroom, if needed.
Trump and his lawyers are now seated at the defense table
By NBC News
Hands folded, Donald Trump sits at the defense table as his lawyers settle in around him. Trump is wearing his signature red tie, white shirt and dark suit.
According to NBC News, Trump chatted animatedly with his attorney Todd Blanche, "as the latter slips him pages from a very thick three-holed binder."
As he walks into court, Trump tells the media the trial 'is an assault on America'
By NBC News
Speaking to reporters and cameras in the hallway, Trump said that the trial is "an assault on America" and just an attack on a "political opponent."
"Nothing like this has ever happened before," he said. "This is political persecution. ... It's a case that should have never been brought."
"This is an assault on America and that's why I'm very proud to be here," Trump added. "This is really an attack on a political opponent."
Trump supporters outside courthouse outnumbers by members of the media
Trump has arrived at the courthouse
By NBC Staff
Donald Trump arrived at a New York court at 9:02 a.m. for the start of jury selection in his hush money case, marking a singular moment in U.S. history.
Prospective jurors will have to answer some tough questions. Here's an example of some of them
By The Associated Press
“Do you have any political, moral, intellectual, or religious beliefs or opinions which might prevent you from following the court’s instructions on the law or which might slant your approach to this case?”
“Have you, a relative, or a close friend ever worked or volunteered for a Trump presidential campaign, the Trump presidential administration, or any other political entity affiliated with Mr. Trump?”
“Have you ever attended a rally or campaign event for Donald Trump?”
“Do you currently follow Donald Trump on any social media site or have you done so in the past?”
“Have you, a relative, or a close friend ever worked or volunteered for any anti-Trump group or organization?”
“Have you ever attended a rally or campaign event for any anti-Trump group or organization?”
“Do you currently follow any anti-Trump group or organization on any social media site, or have you done so in the past?”
Trump is en route to the courthouse
By NBC News
Donald Trump's motorcade has departed Trump Tower in Manhattan and is en route to the courthouse.
Here's who might testify
By The Associated Press
Trump has stated that he intends to testify at his own trial. “All I can do is tell the truth,” Trump said. “And the truth is, they have no case.”
For the prosecution, Cohen, a Trump loyalist turned critic, is expected to be a key prosecution witness, as he was the one who orchestrated the payoffs.
Before testifying in front of the grand jury that brought the indictment last year, Cohen said his goal was “to tell the truth” and insisted he is not seeking revenge but said Trump “needs to be held accountable for his dirty deeds.”
Cohen served prison time after pleading guilty in 2018 to federal charges, including campaign finance violations, for arranging the payouts to Daniels and McDougal.
Other expected witnesses include Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford. Daniels alleges that she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006 that she didn’t want, but didn’t say no to. Trump says it never happened.
Trump complains about gag order and blasts New York case as politically motivated
By NBC Staff
Donald Trump has spent his morning posting on his Truth Social platform, blasting the trial as "rigged" and complaining about the gag order he's been placed under.
“I want my VOICE back. This Crooked Judge has GAGGED me. Unconstitutional! The other side can talk about me, but I am not allowed to talk about them! Rigged Trial!” he posted.
How will jury selection work?
By The Associated Press
A group of regular citizens — Trump’s peers, in the eyes of the law — will be chosen to decide whether the former president of the United States is guilty of a crime.
The process of picking a jury could take days. Lawyers on both sides of the case will have limited opportunities to try and shape the panel in their favor, but the court's goal won't be to ensure that it has a partisan balance between Democrats and Republicans, or is made up of people oblivious to previous news coverage about the trial.
The idea is to get people who are willing to put their personal opinions aside and make a decision based on the evidence and the law.
This jury will be made up only of people who live in Manhattan, one of New York City's five boroughs. All English-speaking, U.S. citizens over age 18 who have not been convicted of a felony are eligible for jury duty in New York. Court officials identify potential jurors from lists of registered voters, taxpayers, driver’s license holders, public benefit recipients and other sources.
The pool of potential jurors for Trump's trial will have been chosen at random. People can volunteer for jury duty, but they can't pick what trial they serve on.
Will the trial be televised?
By The Associated Press
TV cameras won’t be in the courtroom to capture the historic first criminal trial of a former president.
Judge Juan M. Merchan has denied news organizations’ push to televise the proceedings, though he will briefly allow still photographers in the courtroom. New York is among the most restrictive states when it comes to electronic broadcasting of court proceedings, a nonprofit group found in 2022.
Merchan has allowed TV cameras in the hallway outside the courtroom.
Manhattan court must find a dozen jurors to hear first-ever criminal case against a former president
By Jennifer Peltz | The Associated Press
Of the 1.4 million adults who live in Manhattan, a dozen are soon to become the first Americans to sit in judgment of a former president charged with a crime.
Jury selection is set to start Former President Donald Trump's hush money case hush money case — the first trial among four criminal prosecutions of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. The proceedings present a historic challenge for the court, the lawyers and the everyday citizens who find themselves in the jury pool.
“There is no question that picking a jury in a case involving someone as familiar to everyone as former President Trump poses unique problems,” one of the trial prosecutors, Joshua Steinglass, said during a hearing.
Those problems include finding people who can be impartial about one of the most polarizing figures in American life and detecting any bias among prospective jurors without invading the privacy of the ballot box.
There's also the risk that people may try to game their way onto the jury to serve a personal agenda. Or they may be reluctant to decide a case against a politician who has used his social media megaphone to tear into court decisions that go against him and has tens of millions of fervent supporters.
Trump targets two likely witnesses ahead of his criminal trial, despite gag order
By Rebecca Picciotto,CNBC
Donald Trump on Saturday took aim at two likely witnesses in his upcoming New York hush money trial, testing the boundaries of a gag order that prohibits such public statements.
"Has Mark POMERANTZ been prosecuted for his terrible acts in and out of the D.A.'s Office. Has disgraced attorney and felon Michael Cohen been prosecuted for LYING?" the former president posted on Truth Social.
The social media post is the latest challenge to the limits of a gag order that forbids Trump from making public statements about likely witnesses and jurors.
Cohen previously worked as Trump's personal lawyer and is likely to be a key witness in the trial. In 2018, he pleaded guilty to charges related to hush money payments to two women in 2016, which he said were made "at the direction" of an unnamed 2016 presidential candidate. He is expected to name Trump at the upcoming trial.
Pomerantz is a former prosecutor who once led the Manhattan District Attorney Office's investigation into Trump's hush money payments before he resigned from the case in 2022.
Appeals court judge denies Trump's bid to delay hush money trial
By Adam Reiss, Lisa Rubin and Dareh Gregorian | NBC News
A state appeals court judge last week denied Donald Trump's bid for an emergency delay of his impending criminal trial in New York, NBC News reported.
The ruling by Justice Lizbeth González of the state Appellate Division came after attorneys for the former president argued the trial needed to be halted because "an impartial jury cannot be selected right now based on prejudicial pretrial publicity." The judge rejected the request in a one-line ruling late Monday afternoon with no explanation.
The ruling came just hours after Trump's attorneys filed an eleventh-hour attempt to delay the trial that centers on charges that Trump falsified business records related to hush-money payments.
The long-shot legal maneuver came exactly one week before the first criminal trial of a former president is scheduled to start.
