As part of a preview of the Monday beginning of Donald Trump's hush-money trial, CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen explained the prosecutors in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office did themselves an enormous favor by getting two attorneys seated on the jury.
Early Monday morning, Judge Juan Merchan will convene the historic trial where the former president faces 34 felony counts that amount to alleged election interference for paying adult film star Stormy Daniels to remain quiet about their affair before the 2016 presidential election.
According to Eisen, the largest obstacle facing prosecutors will be "building the bridge" that will allow jurors to see criminal intent in Trump's payments to Daniels with regard to the election.
ALSO READ: A neuroscientist reveals how Trump and Biden's cognitive impairments are different
That, he wrote, is where the two attorneys — juror number three, who works in corporate law, and juror number seven who is a civil litigator — will come into play.
Pointing to three angles prosecutors need to take in their opening arguments, Eisen suggested a key one will be enlisting those two attorneys as allies who will help guide the other ten jurors.
In his column for CNN, he wrote, "... the prosecutor must build a bridge for the jury into Trump’s brain in order to find the criminal intent required to convict on felony document falsification," before adding, "Since Trump either will deny criminal intent on the stand or won’t testify at all, the prosecution will need to explain to the jury that the way to get there is through other witnesses and through documents."
That is where the two attorneys on the jury will come in handy, with Eisen recommending, "It’s also notable that the jury has two lawyers on it – the DA will be particularly focused on talking to those two jurors so they can educate the non-lawyer jurors on how this works."
You can read more here.
