NEW YORK (NEWSnet/AP) — Donald Trump arrived Monday at a New York court for the start of jury selection and pretrial motions in his hush-money criminal charges trial.

The day began with Judge Juan M. Merchan ruling on a number of procedural motions as Trump sat hunched over in his seat and stared into a monitor directly in front of him on the defense table while evidence was shown. About 500 people have been called as prospective jurors who will eventually be seated in a panel of 12 with six alternates; dueling groups of protestors are outside the court building.

Among the requests today was that prosecutors have asked the judge to fine Trump $3,000 over social media posts made about the case.

“The defendant has demonstrated his willingness to flout the order. He’s attacked witnesses in the case,” said Christopher Conroy, one of the trial prosecutors.

In response, one of Trump’s lawyers, Todd Blanche, maintained that the three posts referenced “do not violate the gag order.” He said Trump is just responding to to the witnesses’ own public statements.

“It’s not as if President Trump is going out and targeting individuals, he is responding to salacious, repeated vehement attacks by these witnesses.”

The court then adjourned until early in the afternoon; at which point the judge said he will hold a hearing April 24 on the social media post fine request.

The criminal charges center on $130,000 in payments that Trump’s company made to his then-lawyer, Michael Cohen. He had paid that sum on Trump’s behalf to keep porn actor Stormy Daniels from going public, a month before the election, with her claims of a sexual encounter with the married mogul a decade earlier.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records that arose from an alleged effort to keep salacious — and, he says, bogus — stories about his sex life from emerging during his 2016 campaign.

Trump's attorneys lost a bid to get the hush-money case dismissed and have since repeatedly sought to delay it, prompting a flurry of last-minute appeals court hearings last week.

Trump, a former president, is also the leading candidate in the Republican party for the November election cycle. It is also the first of four criminal cases pending against Trump where the trial date has arrived.

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