Happy Tax Return Deadline Day to all who celebrate!
Such an empathetic guy, that Jim Acosta!
As NewsBusters has documented, Acosta is a hard-left "journalist" and a Trump antagonist to the bitter end. On today's CNN This Morning, Acosta expressed a touching concern for the prosecutors in Trump's hush money trial.
In particular, Acosta fretted over the tough job the prosecutors face in selecting jurors. After all, he said, it would take only one juror refusing to vote for conviction to cause a hung jury and thus a mistrial.
True. But that possibility is something prosecutors face in every trial in every locale across the country. And if there's one place in all America where that could be the least likely to happen, it's the site of this trial—the liberal hotbed of Manhattan!
As CNN legal analyst Elie Honig pointed out:
"It's gonna be a challenge both ways. First of all, from Trump's perspective, this is not a great jury pool for him, right? This is Manhattan-only. No Bronx, no Brooklyn, no Queens, no Staten Island. Manhattan only. A borough, a county where Donald Trump got 12% of the vote in 2020. So he's worried about that."
Exactly. Biden carried Manhattan by 87% to 12%. It's a dream jury pool for prosecutors. In contrast, how would you like to be a Trump defense lawyer trying to get 12 impartial jurors in Manhattan's seething, anti-Trump political environment?
Naturally, Acosta's solicitous concern was only extended to the prosecution!
Note: Honig, a former assistant US attorney, has a history of diverging at times from CNN's liberal line. For example we've noted him arguing that the charges against him in this case are either misdemeanors akin to a shoplifting crime, or the lowest level of felony, which wouldn't result in prison time. On another occasion, Honig ripped into Stacey Abrams when she claimed that Fani Willis's investigation of Trump was "meticulous and very thoughtful."
Here's the transcript.
CNN This Morning
4/15/24
6:06 am EDTJIM ACOSTA: Guys, busy morning, busy day.
Elie, we got a look last week at the jury questionnaire. How are they looking to root out the candidates? I mean, this is gonna be a challenge, I mean, for these prosecutors. It just takes one person to, to grind this to a halt.
ELIE HONIG: It's gonna be a challenge both ways. First of all, from Trump's perspective, this is not a great jury pool for him, right? This is Manhattan only. No Bronx, no Brooklyn, no Queens, no Staten Island. Manhattan only. A borough, a county where Donald Trump got 12% of the vote in 2020. So he's worried about that.
But you're right, prosecutors—I've been in this situation—are terrified about one lone juror sneaking through who could hang a jury. You need all 12 in order to convict.
The questionnaire is really interesting, because what the questionnaire is trying to do is get at is, first of all, which way do you lean. It doesn't come out and just ask it. I kinda wish it did, just say like, did you vote for A or B or are you Republican or Democrat?
But there's all these other proxies for that. Have you ever participated in political activity for or against Trump? Have you ever contributed? That kind of thing.
But it asks a couple of important questions. It says, wherever what you lean, can you still be impartial in this case? Now, some people are going to say, I can't be impartial. I just lean too strongly. That's it. And they're going to be out. But then there's gonna be a lot of people who say, I do have feelings, but I can put those aside and still be impartial. And that's where the instinct kicks in. That's where the judge is going to have to ask, do I believe this person? And more importantly, the parties, who have a limited number, ten each, ten strikes each. They're going to have to make the decision, do we use one of those ten precious strikes to remove this particular person? It's a guessing game.
