A twelve person jury has finally been seated in Donald
Trump's hush money trial,
which is taking place here at New York County Criminal
Court.
The whole block in front of the courthouse has been
barricaded off and NYPD officers are standing guard.
The courtroom entrance is here on Center St.
and the press line stretches all the way down the
block.
I'm here with USA TODAY reporter Aisha Bagchi,
who has just been rows behind the former president.
The courtroom is very serious.
You see Trump sitting at his defense table on the
left side of the courtroom.
You have the prosecution on the other side,
the judge at the front.
He keeps a very tight ship in the courtroom.
He absolutely makes sure that he controls the courtroom.
And everyone is somber and serious.
They know that this is a criminal trial.
We also see the jurors in the case.
They look very serious. They're not tipping their hats one
way or the other about anything that they're thinking.
Many of them are taking notes.
So far, Trump has seemed really different inside the courtroom
at his criminal trial from how he looked at two
previous civil trials He had also in New York City.
And I don't know if that has to do with
his different legal team.
We see different lawyers representing him in this case.
Then we're with him in the courtroom and his civil
cases.
Maybe they've given him different advice.
We also know the stakes are different here for Donald
Trump.
It's a criminal trial. So he really is facing a
threat of being incarcerated.
And maybe that has played into why we see Donald
Trump behaving differently in this courtroom.