Daily Herald opinion: And now, the jury

That panel, and no one else, will decide validity of the charges against Trump

As he exited the courthouse on the fourth day of jury selection in his New York City criminal trial, former President Donald J. Trump trumpeted the familiar line that "this is a very unfair trial," then waved a sheaf of photocopies from what he said were newspaper clippings concurring with him.

The latter claim was typical Trump bombast, offering neither actual text nor context for the material he was referring to and ignoring the irony of touting supposed support from institutions he famously considers "enemies of the people." The former was surely no surprise to anyone, considering how the ex-president has made themes of political persecution the centerpiece of his comeback run for the office.

Both are elements of a strategy that will play out through the length of this trial and beyond. And, it's a strategy that, especially insofar as it applies to the fairness of the justice system, Americans should persistently resist as his trial gets under way Monday.

It should go without saying, but apparently does not where Trump's most avid defenders are concerned, that claims of any sort by this defendant or any other should be backed up with actual, reliable evidence. Waving papers aloft and claiming to accurately report their meaning and intent has distinctly McCarthyan correlations that we would have thought the nation had long put behind us. And, particularly, declaring the support of the press as evidence of the corruption of the justice system specifically misses the point of the exercise.

Political partisans may have opinions about the propriety of the charges against the former president. Newspapers may spill ink and broadcasters fill the airwaves with praise or condemnations of the proceedings. But none of that matters.

What matters will be the opinion of the 12 people who eventually enter a jury room to discuss the evidence put before them.

They are 12 men and women who have been chosen jointly by Trump’s attorneys and the prosecutors. Both sides have had opportunities to dismiss jurors they feared would hurt their chances of victory. The jurors will consider a raft of evidence and study the intent of the law Trump is accused of breaking. And they will decide.

Complaints against the system and accusations of bias are commonplace in jury trials, whether they be from small-time grifters accused of thievery or from reputed gangsters nabbed for failing to honestly report their income taxes.

But they are irrelevant to the proceedings and either a crass insult to the system or a failure to understand it.

To be sure, the justice system may have its flaws. There are plenty of examples of its successes and its failures. And it may be open to misuse, politically and otherwise. But in the end, it is being applied to Donald Trump just as it has been applied to millions of defendants – both the innocent and the guilty – throughout our history. Accusers make a claim and show their evidence. Defendants deny it and offer cause to doubt it.

Then a jury of 12 carefully vetted and chosen men and women pass judgment.

They will decide whether the case was purely political and whether it was proven. And they will not need to wave an armload of paper-clipped photocopies to justify their opinion.