Great. Just when the country’s faith in the judicial system is more questionable now than ever before, mid presidential campaign run, non other than Donald Trump’s name gets called among 177 other citizens to be a prospective juror in a civil case.
Although the record states that dating back as far as 2006, at least five other times The Donald had been called to jury duty those requests had somehow gotten lost in the mail; this time it didn’t and he took it upon himself to serve his civic duty.
But unlike the other 11 (who either bused it, took a train, all-day parked it or got dropped off and high-tailed it up the steps to the State Supreme Court in Lower Manhattan), Trump was chauffeured in by a stretch limo at approximately 9:07 a.m. to a horde of media, papz, and photogs.
From there, he did just as everyone else did:
- Discarded use of his cell phone, tablets and other electronic devices
- Went through the metal detectors
- Took the elevator to the fourth floor
- Headed to the Norman Goodman Jury Assemble Room
- Filled out a questionnaire while sitting and listening to a video by New York state’s chief judge Jonathan Lippman on the importance of jury duty
“People are surprised I agreed to do this. I’m not surprised. I think it’s the right thing to do,” said Trump. And although he spoke of the civic duty as more of a charitable act, he proceeded to go along with the day despite no cases being called on what the clerk referred to as a “slow week with no cases on the calendar.
I can only imagine how stupid and overzealous they looked as, I’ve seen starstruckedness in the flesh of authority figures, as reportedly, Trump was granted a moment of special treatment-complete with court officers blocking off the hallway as he stepped out to make a phone call. Other than that, the day went on without too much of a distraction although sources say some jurors (outside of the ones that learned he only keeps one slim, key versus a chain of dangling keys and likes Tic Tac because they are made in America) were not at all happy about Trump’s presence:
Janet Perr, a 58 year old art director who lives in TriBeCa stated
