Former Trump defense attorney Bill Brennan said on Monday that he is worried about politically motivated people getting on the jury in former President Donald Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial.
Brennan made the remarks while speaking to Jake Tapper on CNN about what Trump’s legal team needs to do to ensure that the former president receives a fair trial.
“Well, I’ll tell ya Jake, when we were doing it, and Judge Merchan is a very serious man, he’s very smart,” Brennan said. “He’s extremely courteous. I mean, I’m not getting into people’s biases or prejudice, I’m not qualified to do that. I can tell you having spent several weeks with the man, he’s a gentleman and he gave us as much time as we needed.”
He then gave an example that highlighted the enormous difficulty that Trump’s team will have as they try to weed those with prejudices against Trump from becoming jurors.
Brennan said: “We had a lady come up as a prospective juror. I’ve been picking juries for about 35 years. She looked good to me, a lady in her mid-40s of Irish extraction. She spoke with a brogue, she worked in an Irish pub, and in our questionnaire, questions 29 and 30 said, “Do you have any former — do you have any strong feelings about the former president and if so, would they affect your ability to be fair?”
“And she checked them. So, I said, ‘Well, ma’am, would they be positive or negative feelings?’” he continued. “And she says, ‘Oh, I despise that man.’ And I said, I guess it was late in the day, and I said, ‘Oh, come on, don’t sugarcoat things for me. Speak your mind.’ She says, ‘Oh, speak me mind? I hate him!’”
Brennan said that he was “floored” by her comments and that Merchan did not immediately dismiss her from the jury selection process.
Read full story at The Daily Wire.
