Veteran courtroom artist Christine Cornell has described Donald Trump’s very physical response to Judge Juan Merchan’s chiding of the former president during his hush money trial.
Trump “was beside himself” when a potential juror was revealed to have filmed celebrations that occurred when President Joe Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 election, Cornell told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Tuesday.
Trump began muttering and Merchan “scolded him, which I thought was great,” she recalled.
The presumptive Republican nominee “tilted his head back and shut his eyes when the judge said that,” added Cornell, who said she “loved” the moment.
Cornell elsewhere in the interview described selected jurors looking as if they’d been “hit by a ton of bricks.”
A “unique” aspect of the trial,” she added, was how many potential jurors returned on the second day to tell Merchan they’d “slept on it” and decided they wouldn’t be able to be fair in the case, when the usual excuses to avoid jury service centred around work and family commitments.
Watch the full interview here: