NEW YORK (NEWSnet/AP) — The hush-money trial of Donald Trump got underway Monday with the process of selecting a jury to hear the case charging the former president with falsifying business records to suppress stories about his sex life.

The day ended without any jurors being seated. The selection process was scheduled to resume Tuesday.

The day began with hours of pretrial arguments — including over a potential fine for Trump — before moving into the start of jury selection. The first members of the jury pool — 96 in all — were summoned into the courtroom, where the parties will decide who among them might be picked to decide the legal fate of the former, and potentially future, American president.

Only about a third of the 96 people in the first panel of potential jurors remained after the judge excused some members of the jury pool. More than half of the group was excused after telling the judge they could not be fair and impartial. At least nine more prospective jurors were excused after raising their hands when Merchan asked if they could not serve for any other reason.

Earlier Monday, the judge denied a defense request to recuse from the case after Trump’s lawyers claimed he had a conflict of interest. He also said prosecutors could not play for the jury the 2005 “Access Hollywood” recording in which Trump was captured discussing grabbing women sexually without their permission. However, prosecutors will be allowed to question witnesses about the recording, which became public in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign.

Prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney’s office also asked for Merchan to fine Trump $3,000 over social media posts they said violated the judge’s gag order barring him from attacking witnesses.

Merchan did not rule on the request immediately, instead setting a hearing for next week.

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.

It is also the first of four criminal cases pending against Trump where the trial date has arrived.

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