“Regardless of how you feel about Trump, the right to a fair trial is important,” dismissed juror Kara McGee tells Inside Edition.
As the jury selection process for former President Donald Trump's hush money trial enters its second day, picking the jurors has proven difficult. Two prospective jurors who were among the first to be dismissed tell Inside Edition it is hard to stay objective when it comes to Trump.
An accountant who grew up in Dallas and now lives in New York says he was dismissed from the trial because he is a Republican from Texas. He declined to share his name.
“I try to be impartial, but at the end of the day, we got to be genuine and candid about the fact that I did grow up in a Republican state,” he tells Inside Edition. “You can take a boy out of Texas but you can’t take Texas out of the boy.”
He says he had a moment with Trump as he left.
“When I was dismissed, he gave me a thumbs up,” he says.
The accountant says being on the jury is not how he planned to make history.
“People will know, you can’t hide that, they will know you convicted him, or you could have hung the jury,” he says.
Kara McGee, 29, was also dismissed. She works in cyber security and asked to be excused because she says she needs to focus on her job.
“Regardless of how you feel about Donald Trump, the right to a fair trial is really important,” McGee tells Inside Edition.
She says she would have liked to be on the jury.
“When I got jury summons, my mom said, ‘I think that’s when the Trump trial is,’” McGee says. “I said, ‘Oh wow that would be cool.’”
The pool of prospective jurors includes a bookseller, a lawyer, a retail worker and an oncology nurse. They are all facing scrutiny from the judge, Trump’s attorney and the prosecutors. Jury selection could take up to two weeks.
“Both sides have to be thinking about who they want to get rid of most, not who they really want because you can’t control that,” Renato Stabile, jury consultant of Dubin Research and Consulting, tells Inside Edition. “If the other side is doing their job, they’re gonna get rid of your best jurors.”
One potential juror was dismissed after admitting he followed an anti-Trump group on social media.
Trump seemed to be impressed by one potential juror who said he read Trump’s autobiography, “The Art of the Deal.” The former president responded with a chuckle and an approving nod.
Trump was mocked by late-night comics on Monday for appearing to be falling asleep during the first day of jury selection. Trump’s campaign denies that he dozed off in court.
“This is 100% fake news coming from ‘journalists’ who weren’t even in the courtroom,” his campaign said.
Frustrated with being stuck in the courtroom, Trump lashed out at the judge for not immediately allowing him to take off to attend his son Barron’s high school graduation on May 15.
“It really depends on if we are on time and where we are in the trial,” the judge told Trump.
“Looks like the judge will not let me go to the graduation of my son who has worked very very hard," Trump said outside court. "The judge is not going to let me escape this scam. It’s a scam trial.”
