Bill Brennan, a criminal defense attorney who has represented former President Donald Trump, told CNN Monday that an Irish woman who vented about her distaste for Trump was not a “dangerous juror.”
Jury selection for Trump’s hush money trial began on Monday, raising fears about juror bias against the likely Republican contender for 2024. Brennan told CNN’s Jake Tapper that a loud lady who expressed her “hate” for Trump was surely less “dangerous” to the jury pool than someone who was less vocal.
“We had a lady come forward as a potential juror. I’ve been selecting juries for almost 35 years. She appeared nice to me, a lady in her mid-40s of Irish descent. She talked with a brogue, worked in an Irish pub, and questions 29 and 30 of our questionnaire said, ‘Do you have any past — do you have any strong views about the former president, and if so, will they influence your capacity to be fair?'” Brennan stated.
“And she checked them, so I asked, ‘Well, ma’am, are they positive or negative feelings?'” And she responds, ‘Oh, I loathe that man,’ he added, imitating the woman’s Irish accent. “I guess it was late in the day, Jake, and I said, ‘Oh, come on, don’t sugarcoat things for me.'” Speak your mind. She says, “Oh, speak my mind?” “I hate him!”
Brennan was recalling a potential juror from his time defending Trump in a 2022 tax fraud case involving the Trump Organization. The Trump Organization was fined $1.6 million by New York Justice Juan Merchan, the same court who presided over the hush money case, in January 2023, according to The Associated Press.
“I was floored,” Brennan told Tapper. “I looked over at Judge Merchan, expecting him to meet my gaze and dismiss her, and he said, ‘Ah, well now, wait a minute.'”
“‘If I trained you on the law,'” Brennan recalls Merchan asking the loud woman, “could you set those feelings aside and be fair? And she said, like most people do when they see the judge in that dark robe, ‘Sure, judge.'”
“She was not the risky juror, Jake. Because she answered the questions. The juror who simply answers no questions, and you get a gut feeling, and you remark, if it’s a male juror, ‘Uh, sir, you appear to be the ideal juror on paper. Is there nothing about the former president that appeals to you? ‘No, alright, put me in; I’ll do fantastic.’ “And that is the juror I am concerned about,” Brennan remarked. “The juror who has some type of ulterior motive to get on that case to settle a score.”
Trump was charged with 34 state felony counts in New York after being accused of fabricating business documents to conceal an alleged “hush money” payment for an extramarital affair with pornographic actress Stormy Daniels.