United States | Burlesque hour

Donald Trump’s first criminal trial will be both momentous and tawdry

But will it even matter?

Photograph: Getty Images
|New York

Manhattanites once rolled their eyes at Donald Trump. Then they came to revile him. Soon 12 will decide if he is a felon. Jury selection in his first criminal trial, expected to last up to eight weeks in a shabby courtroom, has sped along; prosecutors will set out their case in a matter of days. One prospective juror confessed that the weight of the task at hand had kept her up at night: “This is, like, a big deal in the grand scheme of things.”

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This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “Do I look guilty to you?”

From the April 20th 2024 edition

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