Donald Trump will become the first former president to stand trial in a criminal case next week — and he’ll do so against the backdrop of a presidential campaign in which he’s the presumptive Republican nominee.
Jury selection begins Monday in New York City, and the trial is expected to last six to eight weeks.
Here’s a look at what you need to know and what’s expected to happen.
How long is jury selection expected to last?
Jury selection is expected to last one to two weeks. Starting Monday, prosecutors and lawyers for Trump will seek to whittle a pool of potentially hundreds of people to 12 jurors and six alternates. Each juror will answer 42 questions designed to discern whether they can be impartial about the polarizing former president. Questions include inquiries about what news sources they follow and whether they’ve ever attended any Trump rallies or protests. The jurors will be anonymous, meaning their identities will be withheld from the public because of security concerns.
A criminal trial involving Trump’s company before the same judge in 2022 took a week to select 12 jurors and five alternates.
What is Trump charged with?
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg charged Trump with 34 counts of first-degree falsifying business records, a low-level felony. Trump faces a maximum of four years behind bars if he’s convicted.
What is the prosecution alleging?
Prosecutors allege Trump “repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal criminal conduct that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election.”
At the heart of the case are allegations of various sex scandals that prosecutors say Trump tried to suppress with the help of his lawyer Michael Cohen and top executives in charge of the National Enquirer. In the final days of the election, Cohen paid $130,000 to one of the women, adult film star Stormy Daniels, to keep silent about her claim she’d had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006. Trump has denied the allegation.
