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Supreme Court Hears January 6 Case; House Speaker Under Threat?; Jury Selection Continues in Trump Trial. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired April 16, 2024 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[11:00:00]

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Unless they want to send it back down, which is what I'm told by sources close to the case...

SHAN WU, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Right.

REID: ... there's a thought that maybe they want to send it back down...

JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: Wow.

REID: ... for further proceedings on a more narrow definition of immunity, which means more interesting constitutional questions, but also more delays.

ACOSTA: Right.

It also means probably no January 6 case before the election.

REID: That is...

(CROSSTALK)

REID: ... yes.

ACOSTA: ... I mean, for all intents and purposes.

All right, Paula, Shan, thank you so much.

Busy morning. Thanks very much for joining us this morning. I'm Jim Acosta. Our next hour of NEWSROOM with Wolf Blitzer starts right now. Have a great day, everybody.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Happening now, day two of jury selection in Donald Trump's criminal trial in New York after no jurors were seated on day one. We're live outside the courthouse.

Plus, oral arguments are under way right now at the United States Supreme Court with huge implications for hundreds of January 6 rioters, how this potentially could impact special counsel Jack Smith's case against Donald Trump as well. And a U.S. official tells CNN that Israel's response to Iran's attacks

will be -- quote -- "limited in scope." Details on what that could mean and when it could happen.

Hello. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington, and you're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BLITZER: We begin this hour in New York.

Potential jurors are packed into a Manhattan courtroom once again, as the search continues for 12 men and women, plus six alternates, to hear the historic criminal case against Donald Trump. He's accused of falsifying business documents to hide hush money paid to an adult film star over an alleged affair.

CNN anchor and chief legal analyst Laura Coates is live outside the courthouse in Lower Manhattan for us.

Laura, tell us what's going on.

LAURA COATES, CNN HOST: Thanks, Wolf. And good morning.

It's another historic day, day two of jury selection of the very first time that an American president, a former president, has been charged criminally and now will sit for a trial that he long tried to avoid. We're now in day two of jury selection.

I'm here now with correspondents Kara Scannell and Kristen Holmes.

Kara, to you first. Catch us up in what's been happening right now, because we are in day two. The motion practice largely ended yesterday...

(CROSSTALK)

COATES: ... although there were some things. Now you have jurors who are answering questions.

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We're in the heart of this jury selection process here, and they're still trying to get to the point where they fill the jury box with enough that they could really drill down into their questions.

So, what we have seen today is, you know, yesterday, we got up to nine in that box. Now, today, through some of the questioning, just going through the regular questionnaire, we're finding that some of the jurors are saying, hey, now, I can't be fair and impartial. Others are saying they have been excused because they have a scheduling conflict.

I mean, one juror said that she works for a cybersecurity firm, thought that her job would take up most of her ability to focus...

COATES: Interesting.

SCANNELL: ... but then also said that she did at one point in the past subscribe to some social media posts that were anti-Trump.

So this is part of the process. We're also learning about some of these jurors and who they are. I mean, there's a bookseller who's sitting in the jury right now. There's also a prosecutor in the Bronx district attorney's office who's still in the jury. Now, these people could end up getting excused at some point.

COATES: Mm-hmm.

SCANNELL: But we just kind of get a sense of who's in there now. And that includes a lawyer, prosecutor, a bookseller, an oncology nurse, really kind of a cross section of Manhattan.

COATES: It's interesting, because people might think, well, you're in the box right now, that they are going to be the people who are doing it.

But, really, they're going to be filtered into the courtroom. Those are going to sit into the actual jury box as we come to know it, right, and then, as you're being asked questions, will come in and out, depending on what questions you actually answer, to indicate bias or not.

So, right now, we have got people in the box, but no one officially a juror on this case.

Kristen, when you look at this -- and, of course, there's was one juror who was excused already for having a pro-Trump bias, it seemed. That must be very frustrating for the Trump team.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, of course, because they didn't even know if they were going to get anyone that was pro- Trump. They have been very concerned about the political makeup of Manhattan, worried that they were not going to get anyone who could sympathetic to Donald Trump.

But to your point about whether or not these jurors are going to eventually sit on the actual jury, I mean, we just saw one man who's not been ruled out. He answered all the questions, but he said that his main news intake was MSNBC and Huffington Post. That might be something that Donald Trump's team takes issue with.

They are going to go through each part of this questionnaire really with a fine-tooth comb to try and make sure that these people are not people who would necessarily want to rule against Donald Trump because of their political beliefs or because of what kind of news information that they take in.

Again, when we talk about overarching, what are they trying to get out of this, there's not a lot of optimism, once again, that they are going to win this outright, but they are still trying to get at least one sympathetic juror to Donald Trump to try and aim for this potential hung jury.

COATES: Remember the monotony of the jury selection process. I mean, this is going to take some time. And we already saw some of the color in the courtroom, with Trump, his eyes closed periodically, watching each juror as they're walking from the well of the courtroom up into this jury box, trying to, I'm sure, establish some sort of rapport from across the room or understand who this person is.

[11:05:07]

This is going to be a very long process for him to try to endure, but also him trying to endure it and be quiet, according to the gag order. That might be a challenge. We already know there's motions happening right now, continuing, about whether he has in fact violated it.

Why is there now a Tuesday hearing next week for that, as opposed to dealing with it right now?

SCANNELL: Well, the judge is giving them time to put together their legal arguments, because jury selection is taking up a lot of the lawyers' time. And even though Trump does have a big legal team, this is an important issue.

And his lead attorneys are very focused right now on jury selection. So, the judge is giving them some time. There's no court tomorrow. They'd have the weekend, but in order to build up their case of why Trump shouldn't be held in contempt for violating that gag order, because a lot of the focus of today is to select this jury.

Like we have been talking about, this is the most important decision in this case for Donald Trump right now, is to feel that he has a jury that he can be comfortable with. You know, he sat through jury selection in the civil case, the E. Jean Carroll defamation case. That took a lot -- that was a lot quicker, different judge, different process.

It was just one day, but Trump was very actively involved. He was leaning to look at the jurors as they were talking. As we have seen today and yesterday, he's following along at times in the questionnaire. It does get tedious in there. You're going through this. But you're also getting to know who these people are and trying to see how they react to him.

If someone is acting hesitant or not willing to look around, that can give his team some clues that maybe this is someone they need to probe further on. But there's so much that you can glean just from being in the room and witnessing this. And that is why the judge is telling Trump he has to be here, and that is why we're seeing Trump at times seeming to pay a lot of attention.

COATES: It's interesting too, because you're an unnatural environment, in many respects, even for the prosecution and defense, when you have the presence of, say, a former president, that it might throw off someone's body language.

They may act unnaturally, in a way that make you think you know what they're thinking, and they're not in fact thinking these very things.

Also, I want you to -- if you have any questions about the trial by the way out there, I know many of you do as you're leaning into all this historic coverage, just go to CNN.com/Trumptrialquestions. Just type in your question there. And then we will reach out to have you call in on my show tonight, "LAURA COATES LIVE," at 11:00 p.m. to answer your questions -- Wolf, let's go back to you.

BLITZER: I will be watching, for sure, Laura. Thank you, and thank the team as well in New York.

For some more analysis, I want to bring in CNN senior political analyst Gloria Borger, along with David Urban. David is a Republican strategist and was a Trump campaign senior adviser.

Gloria, Trump spoke outside the court this morning, slamming the judge, slamming the trial. And he also had this to say about the criminal charges that have been leveled against him. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (R) AND CURRENT U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I was paying a lawyer, and marked it down as a legal expense, some accountant. I didn't know. Marked it down as a legal expense.

That's exactly what it was. And you get indicted over that?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: He says, some accountant marked it down as a legal expense.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I'm not -- yes, I'm not quite sure what he's -- I'm not quite sure what he's talking about.

I mean, some accountant. Who was the accountant? I mean, we know that it was payments to Stormy Daniels. It wasn't expense. It wasn't -- it wasn't to Michael Cohen for his work. It was -- Michael Cohen was the intermediary on this.

Look, I think, every day, in every way, Donald Trump is trying to exert some control over this process, which he has no control over. And the only way he can do that is by claiming, before he goes into court and as he exits court, that he's innocent.

And, otherwise, he has to sit there all day and try and figure out who's going to be on the jury and basically say nothing.

BLITZER: Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: And among other things, David, Trump continues to repeat his totally baseless claim that the Biden White House orchestrated this case.

DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Right.

BLITZER: Is this an effective general election campaign message? URBAN: I think overall, right, writ large, that's the -- kind of the

theme here, the lawfare theme of trying to keep Trump off the ballot via court maneuvers.

I think what would be more effective perhaps in this case is an argument about the district attorney here, because this is a state level brought by the district attorney in this case, Alvin Bragg. And maybe the former president should have said something to the fact that, in 2022, Alvin Bragg downgraded 52 percent of felony cases to misdemeanors, and, in my case, he elevated a misdemeanor claim to a felony.

That would probably have been a good argument to make, because that's actually factually true and people can kind of stir on that and debate that. What...

BORGER: He's not doing that, though.

(CROSSTALK)

URBAN: Yes, he's not doing that.

BORGER: Yes.

URBAN: And then to your point about whether this is -- and to further explain, this is -- Michael Cohen paid this payment out. It got logged in a book as a legal payment, and I'm being tried as a criminal here because it got logged as a legal payment versus a business expense.

And if you really just laid those out for the American people, I think you would be doing much better off, because an AP/NORC poll came out today and said, one in three Americans believe -- only one in three Americans believe that Trump did something wrong here.

[11:10:10]

This is a bad trial for lots of reasons. I remember sitting back when Alvin Bragg brought this case, and everyone kind of wrung their hands and said, oh, we have all these January 6 cases, these serious cases that need to be heard and, they're not going to get heard. And, instead, this terrible case is going to get heard.

And one -- one person is all that's needed to have a not guilty or a hung jury here...

BORGER: Well...

URBAN: ... and then Donald Trump will emerge jubilant from this courtroom.

BORGER: Well, I think that's what they're looking for, right?

I mean, they're drawing from a dark blue pool there in Manhattan. And what they're looking for is that one person -- maybe it was the person who was eliminated.

URBAN: That they just struck.

(LAUGHTER)

BORGER: Yes, who -- who could be on Donald Trump's side and could hold out, because, of course, the jury verdict has to be unanimous.

And so what his attorneys are looking for is that one independent person who might be able to stand up to a jury who wanted to convict Donald Trump. And that's -- that's not easy. A lot of this is playing with smoke and mirrors and trying to figure out who this person is.

URBAN: Yes.

BLITZER: That's why that jury selection process that is under way right now...

BORGER: It's difficult.

BLITZER: ... day two, is so, so sensitive and so important...

URBAN: Yes.

BLITZER: .. to see if they can get fair and impartial jurors together.

URBAN: And, Wolf, can you imagine sitting there as a juror, a potential juror, looking across, 10 feet away is the former president of the United States?

It's got to be a surreal experience for the jurors, who, when they get their number pulled and they show up at the courthouse, they don't exactly know what they're going to be in. And then they find out they're in this trial. It's -- some of them, I'm sure, want to participate, and some, I'm sure, don't want to participate...

BORGER: Right.

URBAN: ... for all the -- all the reasons to go along with it. This will either haunt you, right, as -- for the rest of your life if you don't want to be in this jury. Some people want to serve and will do it. So it's very weighty.

And, to your point, Gloria, this is beyond a reasonable doubt. This is a big lift. It's not like the E. Jean Carroll case, which is a civil case...

BORGER: That's right.

URBAN: ... mere preponderance of the evidence. This is beyond a reason about, much higher standard. It's going to be much tougher to prove.

BORGER: And it's -- look, this is intimidating.

I mean, you're saying, the president is there. The president wants to be there at every sidebar, former president. URBAN: Yes.

BORGER: He's going to be looking at every person. They're answering very personal questions. Did you read Michael Cohen's books? What news do you consume? I mean, on and on.

And so I think it's -- it's a difficult process for these people too.

URBAN: Yes, for the jurors.

BORGER: Yes.

BLITZER: I give these potential jurors a lot of credit for willing to go through all of that as well.

URBAN: Yes.

BORGER: Exactly. Exactly.

(CROSSTALK)

URBAN: Yes, absolutely.

BLITZER: All right, David, thank you very much.

URBAN: Thanks, Wolf.

BLITZER: Gloria, stick around. We have got some breaking news we're following. I want to get your reaction.

Happening now up on Capitol Hill, the House speaker, Mike Johnson, facing new threats from within his own party, Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie indicating that he will back Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's efforts to oust Johnson from his position.

CNN's chief congressional correspondent, Manu Raju, is up on Capitol Hill.

Manu, tell us about this latest threat to the speaker's job and how Johnson is responding.

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this is a serious threat, because if all Democrats voted to oust Mike Johnson, he could only afford to lose two Republican defections.

In fact, he can't afford to lose two Republican defections after a congressman resigns this week. That would narrow his margin to just one vote by next week. And, already, two Republicans are now calling for his ouster, Thomas Massie joining Marjorie Taylor Greene, who initiated this call to push Mike Johnson out of the speakership.

This initially started with some of Mike Johnson's deal-cutting, including to keep the government open last month. It has intensified over his dealing with a key surveillance law.

And now, in the aftermath of Mike Johnson making his move on moving forward with aid to Ukraine, aid to Israel, aid to Taiwan, he's got a legislative strategy to try to essentially move all those issues out of the House by this week, after it stalled for more than two months in the Senate.

His approach differs from the Senate's, but is still not -- is still causing major angst among conservatives, right-wing conservatives, in particular, who do not want another dime going to -- to help Ukraine in its war against Russia.

Now, I caught up with Massie after a tense closed-door meeting in which Massie directly called on Mike Johnson to resign, and Johnson said he would not.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. THOMAS MASSIE (R-KY): There's only one person right now who can stop us from going into what happened last fall, and that's Mike Johnson.

He's cleaning the barn. That's obvious.

RAJU: You want him to resign? You want him to resign?

MASSIE: Yes. Yes, I asked him to resign.

RAJU: And what did he say? What did he say?

MASSIE: He said he would not. And then I said: "Well, you're the one who's going to put us into this."

Because the motion is going to get called, OK? Does anybody doubt that? The motion will get called. And then he's going to lose more votes than Kevin McCarthy. And I have told him this in private, like, weeks ago.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: And there are just so many questions, Wolf, still about how this will play out, one about the critical policy issues, the aid to Ukraine, to Israel, to Taiwan that has been stalled here in the House for more than two months now.

[11:15:05]

Will Mike Johnson have the votes to actually advance that? That is an open question. Mike Johnson's new plan has not been formally released yet, even as the speaker is trying to push it. And then what do those conservatives do? What do Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie do? Do they actually call for that vote?

They can do that, and they can force a vote within two legislative days. And then, what will Democrats do? Will they actually save Johnson? There are some members of the House Democratic Caucus who have told me that they, in fact, will save Mike Johnson, especially if he moves down the way they want him to move on Ukraine aid, in particular. So, a key moment here for the speaker and the Republican majority,

which has devolved into bitter infighting and chaos, now threatening the second speaker, after the first speaker, Kevin McCarthy, was ousted last fall in unprecedented fashion. Never before in American history has a speaker been kicked out by his own colleagues.

Could the second speaker happen to be kicked out now? That is an open question, as Mike Johnson's speakership now in peril -- Wolf.

BLITZER: A quick follow-up question, Manu.

Does congressman Massie want the speaker to resign because the speaker supports aid to Ukraine? Is that what this is all about?

RAJU: It is several issues. That is being one of them, his deal- cutting on keeping the government open another one of them, as well as moving forward on a key surveillance law.

Mike Johnson came out opposed to an amendment trying to go after the warrantless surveillance program that the FBI has conducted. National security hawks say it's essential for national security. On several of those issues, Johnson -- Massie says Johnson has betrayed the conservative cause. That is Massie's word.

And that's why he's going down this route. But Ukraine is essentially what's pushing these members who oppose any more aid to Ukraine over the edge and are saying that they are willing to push out the speaker of the House. The question is, does he have the support, Wolf, to stay on?

BLITZER: All right, Manu Raju up on Capitol Hill, thanks for that breaking news.

And coming up a little bit later this hour, I will speak live with Congressman Jared Moskowitz about all of this. He's got unique views on what should happen to the speaker of the House.

And Gloria and David are still back with us.

Gloria, let me get your reaction first. This is a very sensitive moment for the speaker.

BORGER: Well, it is. I mean, his job is on the line, and we have been there before, obviously.

(LAUGHTER)

BORGER: I think my question is, and Manu referred to this, is, what do the Democrats do in this situation?

Do the Democrats decide that they're going to save Speaker Johnson? And if they do that, what do they want to get in return? Do they want a clean bill on aid for Ukraine, for example? What are they -- what are they going to ask for? They're not going to give it -- votes for free. And it's not that they have any love lost for Speaker Johnson, but they want to get this package through. BLITZER: I'm going to ask Congress -- Democratic Congressman Moskowitz about that in a few minutes.

BORGER: Right. Good. Find out for me.

BLITZER: But what do you think, David?

URBAN: Yes, it's very tough.

Look, he's in a no-win situation. Kevin McCarthy was in this exact same situation, when -- was doing the exact same thing that Speaker Johnson's doing, and he was ousted. So it is a tough spot. It's a no- win situation.

He's going to have to cut a deal with Democrats if he wants to survive, apparently. You have two votes. He can't afford to lose the two votes, or he will be ousted. So, stay tuned. It could be a tumultuous next few weeks.

BLITZER: And we will see what happens.

URBAN: Yes.

BLITZER: It's a very sensitive moment, indeed.

Guys, thank you very much.

After the break: the crucial case that could undermine potentially hundreds of January 6 cases. Arguments are under way right now in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Stay with us. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:23:10]

BLITZER: Happening now, the United States Supreme Court is hearing arguments in a case that potentially could affect the charges against hundreds of January 6 rioters.

It could also potentially impact the federal election subversion case against Donald Trump. At issue is a federal law that makes it a crime to obstruct an official proceeding. The court must now determine if that law can be used to prosecute people who stormed the U.S. Capitol, including this defendant, former Pennsylvania police officer Joseph Fischer.

Trump is not involved in this case, but he has been charged with the same criminal offense for plotting to subvert the 2020 election.

Joining us now is CNN's chief legal affairs correspondent, Paula Reid.

Paula, what have we heard so far from this morning's arguments?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, Wolf, before we get to the substance of the argument, the most important thing that I think we heard is the voice of Justice Clarence Thomas, because, yesterday, he did not attend the arguments, and the Supreme Court gave no explanation for his absence.

Usually, they provide some sort of explanation, and there is always, of course, the option to go remote. He is the most senior associate justice, and he did miss several arguments back in 2022 because of an infection.

And, of course, in any year, but especially a presidential election year, any mystery surrounding a justice raises a lot of alarms. So we saw him today on the bench, and he almost seemed to make a point of asking questions. He sounded like he was in good health.

But it was also interesting the content of his questions, because, as you know, there have been calls for Justice Thomas to recuse himself for cases related to January 6 because of his wife's efforts to subvert the election. He obviously did not recuse.

But if you heard his first couple questions, the first question he asked appeared sympathetic to the Justice Department. Then he asked another question on the other side, seeming to make two points, one, I'm here, I'm doing fine, and, also, I can be objective in this case.

[11:25:01]

Now, of course, at the heart of this case is a federal law that was passed in the wake of Enron as part of Sarbanes-Oxley, and it has to do with interfering with an official proceeding. And the question here that's been raised by Mr. Fischer, who has been charged under this law, is whether this law was intended to apply to something like January 6 and assaulting a police officer, or if it was meant to focus more on things like tampering evidence in an official investigation.

Now, so far the liberal justices, they seem very skeptical, united into their skepticism of this argument. And I believe -- we were still in questioning as I was listening before. I think that they have wrapped, but it's unclear exactly how this is going to go.

BLITZER: The lower courts are divided on this so far.

REID: Yes, exactly.

So, at the district court level, they agreed with Mr. Fischer, but when it went up to the Court of Appeals, the Court of Appeals sided with the government there, even though they had different reasoning. So, of course, it ends up at the Supreme Court, the final word.

A lot of questions about how this could impact former President Trump's case. It's not clear that it will, Wolf. He is charged -- obviously, he was not at the Capitol. He is charged with the same offense, but for different conduct related to January 6. We have to see how the justices decide to see if this could potentially have any impact on his case.

BLITZER: Potentially very significant, indeed. Paula, stay with us.

I want to also bring in some more experts to assess what's going on. Legal analysts Carrie Cordero and Steve Vladeck are both with us as well.

Steve, let me start with you. Help us better understand this obstruction law and what's at stake in this U.S. Supreme Court case.

STEVE VLADECK, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Sure, Wolf.

I mean, I think Paula really did a nice job of laying out the basics. There have been, gosh, multiple hundred convictions so far of defendants relating to Department -- to January 6. There are a number of other cases pending.

And this charge, this obstruction charge under Section 1512(c)(2) is one of the most common charges across all of those cases. So if the Supreme Court were to reverse the D.C. Circuit, if it were to narrow this statute, Wolf, that would require a whole bunch of certainly at least resentencings of defendants were convicted of multiple charges.

It might even require the Justice Department to abandon some of these cases. I think that's why, for the whole sort of body of January 6 cases, we're watching this so carefully.

But Paula is right. With regard to former President Trump, two of the four counts against him in the January 6 indictment are about this offense.

But, Wolf, as the special counsel has already said, there are pretty good arguments in former President Trump's case specifically that, even under the narrower view of the statute, the one that the dissenters in the lower courts would have adopted, President Trump would still be covered because he actually was involved in efforts not just to obstruct the January 6 proceeding, but to change the evidence, to falsify electors.

And so I think part of the interesting politics here is that this decision could have really big ramifications for the lower-level January 6 defendants, while perhaps not having the same ramifications for the most visible ones.

BLITZER: Let me get Carrie into this conversation.

Carrie, how do you see the Justice Department's use of this law, specifically this law to prosecute those individuals who stormed the U.S. Capitol?

CARRIE CORDERO, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, this was a really important provision of law that the Justice Department used in these prosecutions.

I thought one of the really interesting things that the solicitor general articulated this morning in the oral argument is, she explained that, in the over 1,000 people who have been charged in January 6-related crimes, it was approximately 350 that they used this particular provision of law.

And so she laid out for the justices what criteria the Justice Department applied, including the intent that the individuals had, the knowledge that they had about the proceeding that was going on in Congress itself, to be able to use this particular provision of law.

Of course, the defendant is arguing that it was an overbroad application of this provision of law.

BLITZER: We will see what the Supreme Court decides.

Guys, thank you very much, Carrie, Paula and Steve. Appreciate it very much.

Let's go back to New York City right now. That's where CNN's Laura Coates just spoke with a potential juror in Trump's hush money trial who was just dismissed.

What are they telling you up there in New York, Laura?

COATES: Well, thank you, Wolf.

In fact, we have one of the jurors who has now been dismissed. She arrived at jury duty just yesterday, was dismissed today. Her name is Kara McGee. I want to turn to her right now.

Kara, thank you for joining us.

Everyone is so eager to understand what it was like to even be called for jury duty today. When did you realize that this was the Trump trial?

KARA MCGEE, JUROR DISMISSED FROM TRUMP HUSH MONEY TRIAL: So, definitely not when I first got the jury letter. That was kind of the standard, open your mailbox, like, oh, I have to take off work in two weeks.

But -- so, when I -- I texted my mom and said, "Oh, I got jury duty," and she said, "Starting what day?"

And I said, "April 15, Tax Day."

And she said, "I think that's when the Trump trial starts."

So, I was wondering if I would be on that or on some other case at the same time.