we have one of the jurors
who has now been dismissed.
She arrived at jury duty
just yesterday, was dismissed today.
Her name is Kara McGee.
I want to turn to her right now.
Kara, thank you for joining us.
Everyone is so eager to understand
what it was like to even be called
for jury duty today.
When did you realize that
this was the Trump trial?
So definitely not
when I first got the jury letter
that that was kind of the standard.
Open your mailbox like, oh,
I have to take off work in two weeks.
I'm but, you know, so when I,
I texted my mom and said, oh,
my God, you're in junior high.
And she said, Starting what day?
And I said, April 15th, tax Day.
And she said,
I think that's when the Trump
trial starts.
So I was wondering
if I would be on that or
on some other case at the same time,
you know, in the building,
because I assume there's
a lot more going on.
And then yesterday, when I got here
and we were put into a jury holding room
and it seemed like there were
500 people waiting to get put into
two separate holding rooms.
I had the thought of like,
this is probably a trial
because I don't think they call
quite this many jurors for anything else.
So.
So what was everyone doing
when they realized,
like you at that point,
that you were likely a part of the Trump
jury trial
pool of people
or people talking amongst themselves?
Was it a kind of a buzz in the air
and you could
feel that
people were starting to realize it,
but people weren't
talking amongst themselves
nearly as much as I expected?
Weirdly enough, I think everyone
had a sense of kind of uncertainty over
what the protocols
were in this situation,
and so no one really felt
like they should mention it.
I'm sure there were
some jurors
who just didn't know
that this was happening.
Right now
or didn't realize
that this was what they were calling for.
You could definitely see people
kind of looking around like,
do other people
also get the sense that this is But
not not really talking about it
when you walked in the courtroom
and you saw him,
is that when you first
learned that for sure
this was a Trump trial?
And how did it feel to see him
so in the initial jury holding room?
One of the
I guess, employees of the court
had mentioned something about it
being an unusual day.
And I,
I kind of wondered, like,
does that mean we're
definitely on this case
or just because
this case is also in the building?
So, yeah,
it was when when we walked into the courtroom
and saw him
that it was that
I was sure that it was
definitely this case.
Did you make eye contact with you? Yes.
Yeah. What was that like?
It's, you know, it's someone
who you've seen as this larger than life
public figure for a decade
or so at this point.
And for for people
who have followed his business career
and for longer than that, I didn't.
But
and then you get in there and it's
it's fascinating because you get these
two very contrasting kind of
senses at the same time,
which is on the one hand, it's this
very, like
massive sense of gravitas and importance,
because you
you know, that
this is history in the making.
And whatever the outcome of this is,
everything
going forward will be affected by it.
And at the same time, you
you walk into the courtroom
and you see Trump sitting there.
I had never seen him in person before.
You see him sitting there and it's like,
oh, it's just a guy.
He's he's just a dude.
Why were you dismissed?
I was dismissed
because so in the jury questionnaire
that you answer the questions
to allowed,
there's one question
at the end that says,
is there anything else
that might affect your ability
to serve
that you haven't mentioned,
other than all of the questions
that they asked of?
And I said the nature of my job
would make it very difficult
for me to be here from 9 to 5
for at least six weeks
and probably longer.
It's not really something
that I can entirely do,
you know, by myself in the hours from
five to whenever after viewing it.
Was that the reason you thought
that they would dismiss you?
Was it clear to you why? I believe so.
It was
it was right after that question
that they tell you
why they dismissed you at all.
No, but if other jurors
that were dismissed
due to an answer to a specific question,
it was always right
after that question where the judge asked
two legal teams
if there were objections
to dismissing the juror.
So I assume it was not
prior questions, but
I can't be sure of that.