Juror dismissed from hush money trial said seeing Trump in person was ‘jarring’

A juror who was dismissed from the New York hush money trial said seeing former President Trump in person Tuesday was a “jarring” experience.

A juror, identified as Kara McGee, spoke to MSNBC on Tuesday after she was dismissed from the former president’s hush money trial, which kicked off Monday.

McGee, who was released from jury selection because of scheduling conflicts with her job, explained that she was seated about 20 to 30 feet from Trump.

“It was odd. It was such an interesting experience because it’s … I had never seen him in person before, you know. And when you see someone blown up so larger than life on the media for so many years — to see them in person is very jarring,” she told MSNBC.

“And you get the sense that it’s like, ‘Oh, this is just another guy.’ And also he sees me talking about him, which is bizarre,” she added.

McGee also told MSNBC that she said in the courtroom that she would have no problem being fair and impartial to Trump.

She said that she made eye contact with Trump before she read off the questionnaire and when she stood up to leave. She said that the eye contact added a level of nervousness while she was sitting in the courtroom.

“It made the whole thing feel more real in a way because, I guess — when you’re on any jury, it’s, you have elements of that person’s future in your hands. So whether it was Trump or whether it was some stranger off the street in Manhattan who I’d never heard of before. If you commit to sitting on the jury, you can change that person’s life forever,” she said.

No jurors were selected for the trial after Monday’s court session. Potential jurors returned to the courtroom Tuesday, where Trump’s lawyers continue to grill them.

Jurors are typically anonymous to the public and the press.

A juror in the courtroom Tuesday who matched McGee’s description said she has worked in cybersecurity for two years, noting that it was “difficult” to take a few days off from work.

“I feel a sense of duty with my job, and I would worry about how thinking about that would affect how present I was for the case,” she said in court.

Trump faces 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with his reimbursements to his then-fixer, Michael Cohen, for paying porn actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 ahead of the 2016 election. The payment was to get her to stay quiet about an alleged affair Trump had with her in 2006.

Zach Schonfeld contributed.

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