As with all such things the reality is in the middle somewhere. I wouldn’t start celebrating yet, but also jury nulification is not inevitable. He’ll probably get convicted but a lot could go wrong, and always keep in mind this is the weakest of the cases against him.
On the other hand the prosecution is very skilled and experienced and one of things they are very skilled at is choosing which jurors to get rid of in voi dire. Its all well amateurs such as us pointing to this or that juror as a bit dodgy but they decided not to keep those jurors in the jury and they know what they are doing
Voir dire is/was probably a high wire act with complex calculus, but …
If Trump gets convicted, and we/they can point to a jury that was NOT all “pointy-headed, NYT-reading, NPR listening Manhattan liberals,” that will have a bit of heft.
Would that save the inevitable MAGA meltdown? Of course not. But that’s just never going to be our audience for changing minds.
“You can’t reason a person out of a belief that they didn’t use reason to hold in the first place.”
I know I’m engaging in yet more baseless speculation here, but I’d put my faith in the fact that (a) prosecutors in this case know what they’re doing, and (b) this sort of juror, if these allegations are true, is likely not the sharpest knife in drawer, and even if they’re inclined to side with Trump, could likely be swayed by the smarter professionals on the jury. Having one or two jurors inclined to believe that Trump is innocent is not necessarily the end of the story.
Having that faith is pretty much the best any of us can do that weren’t present to witness the voir dire process. The prosecution team undoubtedly has centuries of collective experience among them picking juries. At the same time there’s the old lawyer’s adage that while you can’t win a case during the jury selection phase of a trial, you can certainly lose one.
At some point, those of us who desire a return to the days when the government actually functioned in a relatively non-partisan fashion have to decide to trust the institutions of government to do that functioning. If even we lose “faith” in the system, then the system will be well and truly dead.
The judge is destroying Trump’s attorney right now. He keeps asking for specific examples of some of the assertions and the lawyer isn’t able to do so. The judge wants Trump to testify under oath that he didn’t think he was violating anything.
I’m not sure what the point of that would be. Trump could testify truthfully that he didn’t think. Full stop. Is it a defense if you’re too stupid to understand the gag order?
This doesn’t mean a ton regarding this particular juror, but:
On another message board, there is a contingent of members who are both (a) demonstrably liberal, and (b) believe Twitter is one of the best places from which to get news because of the wide breadth of voices and because of the immediacy. They commonly say things like “Sure, you have to apply critical thinking to the sources, but it’s not hard to curate a reasonable spectrum of voices to keep you informed.”
Some of these same board members also make it a point to visit conservative media sites to “report from behind enemy lines”. I can see someone of this mindset using Truth Social this way.
It allows the Judge to directly question Mr. Trump - and then the Judge can determine Mr. Trump’s credibility directly - otherwise all he has to go on is the attorney’s statements about Mr. Trump’s ‘intentions’ - which I believe you would call hearsay.
At that point, I would imagine that the judge could “suggest” that in future Trump check in with his lawyers if he’s confused. Then, if he violates the gag order without his lawyer’s OK, punish Trump, if he violates WITH his lawyer’s OK, then punish his lawyer.
Wouldn’t you punish Trump and his lawyer? “My lawyer said it was okay” only goes so far as a defense, much in the same way that if your accountant fucks up your tax returns you’re still liable.
