Trump could testify in tax fraud trial of Trump organization. How to keep the jury unbiased.
Jury selection began Monday in the Manhattan district attorney’s prosecution of the Trump Organization for tax fraud.
Jury selection began Monday in the Manhattan district attorney’s prosecution of the Trump Organization for tax fraud. Allen Weisselberg, the company’s former chief financial officer, has already pleaded guilty to tax fraud charges himself.
Former President Donald Trump is not charged personally, but his family business faces charges of running a 15-year scheme to let executives avoid taxes by disguising part of their compensation. The first day of proceedings made clear that Trump and several of his children could be called as witnesses.
It would be folly to search for only those odd jurors who held no strong opinions about Trump’s character.
Finding impartial jurors is likely to be difficult in a case where many if not most New Yorkers will have followed the story in the news and have strong feelings about Trump. Most New Yorkers will also have heard that Letitia James, the state attorney general, has filed civil charges against the Trump Organization on similar counts of financial fraud. Add to the mix that the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection has subpoenaed Trump for his involvement in allegedly fomenting the attack.
While it’s a tall order to find the impartial jurors necessary to weigh the evidence in this case, it is not an insurmountable one. It would be a mistake to think that any jury would be irredeemably biased, so the outcome cannot be trusted, or that the methods used to screen out juries will allow for only the most ignorant to be involved.
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