Trump hush money trial excuses dozens of potential jurors over impartiality: Live

Donald Trump is the first American president to face a criminal trial now that the New York “hush money” case against him has finally begun.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee for 2024 stands accused by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg of falsifying his business records, a felony in New York state, in order to allegedly conceal a secret payment made to the adult film actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign to ensure her silence over an extramarital affair she alleges she had with the businessman a decade earlier.

Mr Trump denies the affair and any wrongdoing in the case after being hit with 34 felony charges by Mr Bragg a little over a year ago.

Io Dodds explains how Stormy Daniels and the hush money paid to her before the 2016 election landed her in the middle of a political firestorm that could take down a former president.

Donald Trump has lashed out at President Joe Biden in a Truth Social video accusing the president of being a “criminal” after he failed to delay an imminent criminal trial in Manhattan.

The former president faces 88 felony counts across four state and federal prosecutions as he campaigns for a return to the White House. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him.

According to court reporters present in the courtroom on Monday, Mr Trump appeared at times to be struggling to keep his eyes open, with some going so far as to claim that he had actually fallen asleep.

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In a typical presidential election year, candidates will spend the 11 months leading up to election day shaking hands and kissing babies at rallies as the primaries unfold.

Instead, the ex-president will be forced to juggle his campaign for the White House while also defending himself in federal and state courts in four different cases that have hearings and trial dates scattered throughout 2024.

Alex Woodward profiles the Manhattan District Attorney who could seal Donald Trump’s fate…

Former president Donald Trump’s legal team has used various defences for — and attempts to delay — the hush money case in which he is accused of 34 counts of falsifying business records.

With day one of this historic moment at a close, let’s go back to the beginning, and look at the major milestones of the Trump-Stormy relationship:

You can tell a lot about a person by the company they keep, but what about the people who come out to protest at their criminal trial?

Back then, there was palpable shock and outrage among the gathered protesters that a former president could be arrested and charged with a crime. Although that was no great mass either, that day in March last year seemed to attract not just hardcore followers, but a smattering of relatively middle-of-the-road folks concerned about the implications of such an event.

Today, however, the crowd had thinned to a handful of true believers and true characters — those who don’t leave their house without a giant flag, a bullhorn, and an offensive T-shirt they made themselves.

It’s not only that the crowds are getting smaller, it’s that they are getting significantly weirder.