Jury selection in Donald Trump's hush money trial faces a pivotal stretch as the former president returns to court

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

50% : Trump would almost certainly appeal any conviction.
41% : Jury selection in the hush money trial of Donald Trump enters a pivotal and potentially final stretch Thursday as lawyers look to round out the panel of New Yorkers that will decide the first-ever criminal case against a former president.
38% : "The process has moved swifter than expected, prompting Trump when leaving the courthouse on Tuesday to complain to reporters that the judge, Juan Merchan, was "rushing" the trial.
37% : Prosecutors say Trump obscured the true nature of the payments in internal records when his company reimbursed Cohen, who pleaded guilty to federal charges in 2018 and is expected to be a star witness for the prosecution.
36% : Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
34% : Trump has denied having a sexual encounter with Daniels, and his lawyers argue the payments to Cohen were legitimate legal expenses.
33% : "To that end, at least some of the jurors selected acknowledged having their own opinions about Trump.
28% : Inside the court, there's broad acknowledgment of the futility in trying to find jurors without knowledge of Trump, with a prosecutor this week saying that lawyers were not looking for people who had been "living under a rock for the past eight years.
25% : The hush money case is one of four criminal prosecutions Trump is confronting as he vies to reclaim the White House, but it's possible that it will be the sole case to reach trial before November's presidential election.
21% : The case centers on a $130,000 payment that Trump's lawyer and personal fixer, Michael Cohen, made shortly before the 2016 election to porn actor Stormy Daniels to prevent her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump from becoming public in the race's final days.
20% : Appeals and other legal wrangling have caused delays in cases charging Trump with plotting to overturn the 2020 election results and with illegally hoarding classified documents.

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