Person rushed away on stretcher after fire extinguished outside Trump hush money trial
A jury of 12 people and six alternates was seated on Friday in former President Donald Trump’s hush money criminal trial.
Emergency crews rushed away a person on a stretcher after fire was extinguished outside the Manhattan courthouse where jury selection was taking place in the criminal case.
No other details were immediately available from police.
The completion of the jury selection process tees up the first-ever criminal trial of a former U.S. president for opening statements and weeks of testimony in a case charging Trump with falsifying business records to suppress stories about his sex life emerging in the final days of the 2016 election.
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The jury includes a sales professional, a software engineer, an English teacher and multiple lawyers.
The process had initially folded at a fairly rapid pace, with seven jurors seated by the end of Tuesday. But two jurors were dismissed on Thursday, one after expressing concerns about her ability to be impartial and the other amid questions about whether he had provided accurate answers about his past during the selection process.
The hush money case is the first of Trump’s four indictments to reach trial.
At the heart of the allegations is a $130,000 payment made to porn actor Stormy Daniels by Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer, to prevent her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump from becoming public in the final days of the 2016 race.
Prosecutors say Trump obscured the true nature of such payments in internal business documents. Trump has said none of the alleged sexual encounters occurred. He has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.