As a registered voter in Palm Beach County, Florida, Bette Anne Starkey knows there’s a chance she could be picked to serve on a jury in the federal criminal case against former President Donald J. Trump. But even though he’s voted for Trump twice, he can’t really say how he would lean as a juror weighing the case.
Echoing the same Mr. Trump, Mrs. Starkey, an 81-year-old accountant, used the phrase “witch hunt” in an interview to describe the federal indictment against the former president, which accuses him of knowingly removing classified documents from the White House. . But he also has a hard time understanding why Mr. Trump simply did not return the documents when requested, part of his simmering irritation with the 45th president.
“I’m sick of hearing all his shenanigans,” she said.
His comments reflect the complicated feelings that Mr. Trump can stir these days even among Republicans who voted for him. But Ms. Starkey is also a reflection of the equally complicated and volatile politics of South Florida, Mr. Trump’s home turf and the pool of jurors it provides.
It is in diverse and densely populated South Florida that a jury of Mr. Trump to judge his innocence or guilt if the case ever goes to trial, although the exact trial location and jury pool have not been determined.
The case was filed in the West Palm Beach Judicial Division of the Southern District of Florida, meaning the jury can be selected from among registered voters in Palm Beach County, home to Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. Trump, where he has been living since he left. the white house Mr. Trump lost Palm Beach County to President Biden by nearly 13 percentage points in 2020.
But a panel of juries made up of voters in Miami-Dade County, south of Palm Beach, is also a possibility, especially if it is determined that the federal court in Miami, where Mr. Trump to make an initial appearance on Tuesday. , is better equipped to handle what will likely be one of the most high-profile criminal trials in American history.
Mr. Trump lost Miami-Dade by only about seven points in the last election, drawing strong support from Hispanic voters in particular; more than two-thirds of county residents identify as Hispanic, according to census data.
Both counties, however, have become more Republican in recent years, and Republican candidates have had significant gains in statewide races. Mr. Trump won Florida in both 2016 and 2020, and the state has twice elected Governor Ron DeSantis, currently Mr. Trump’s primary challenger. Trump for the Republican presidential nomination.
All of this should offer some comfort to members of Mr. Trump, who know it only takes one vote to result in a hung jury. And many South Floridians, like Americans elsewhere in the country, believe Mr. Trump is being unfairly treated by powerful forces on the political left.
George Cadman, 54, is a real estate agent and father of two who said he hasn’t followed the news closely in recent months. He said he had not heard of the federal charges against Mr. Trump, which makes him, in some ways, a good candidate for the jury.
But Cadman, who lives in south Miami-Dade County, also said he supported Trump “100 percent” and believed past investigations of Mr. Trump were politically motivated. Adding that he believes Russia’s 2016 election meddling and the Trump-Ukraine scandal were hoaxes, he said: “I would be very hesitant to make a decision on what I think about it,” he said, referring to the new case against him . Mr Trump
(In a later phone call, Mr. Cadman said that as much as he loved Mr. Trump, he planned to vote for President Biden in 2024 because rising property values had been good for his job as to real estate agent.)
Many of South Florida’s Cuban-Americans learned the hard way, during and after the Cuban Revolution, about the impact of politics even on apolitical lives. And for some of the conservatives among them, like Modesto Estrada, a retiree businessman who arrived in Miami 18 years ago, it is worth supporting Mr. Trump as a powerful brake on Democrats and the liberal policies that Mr. Estrada said they were “ruining the country” by discouraging people from working.
Mr. Estrada, 71, noted that Mr. Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence had also been found to have sensitive government documents in their possession. (Mr. Biden has so far returned the documents to authorities after discovering them, however, as has Mr. Pence.) Like many people interviewed, Mr. Estrada said it would be difficult for him to be an impartial juror in the case. .
“From my personal perspective, so far, they don’t have anything on him,” he said of Mr. trump “And nothing will happen to him. He won’t go to jail. The case will crack and that’s what I hope.”
In the same way that Mr. Estrada said his experience with a leftist dictatorship has colored his hope that Mr. Trump is declared innocent, Viviana Domínguez, 63, referred to her own experience in her native Argentina, which was ruled by a right-wing party. military dictatorship from 1976 to 1983, as he expressed his dislike for Mr. trump
Ms. Dominguez, an art curator who has lived in Miami for 13 years, called Mr. Trump a “disgrace,” adding: “I think he’s going to jail, but I don’t know if that’s wishful thinking.” .
He described the case for the documents and the still considerable support base of Mr. Trump in terms of a disturbing loosening of civic standards. “We saw all this in my own country, when the lies got bigger and bigger,” he said. “The margin of tolerance got wider and wider, so you never saw the limit. They would talk about morality and family, but they would be the most corrupt, the most obscene people out there. It’s like a state of madness.”
Roderick Clelland, a 78-year-old Vietnam veteran from West Palm Beach, Palm Beach County’s most populous city, said he was worried about the international implications of what he saw as Mr. Trump’s lax attitude toward sensitive national secrets.
“The whole world is watching us.” said Mr. Clelland. “And some of these documents about other countries, will they trust us? People have been locked up for less than that. So you can’t just break the law and get away with it. So I hope there’s a penalty “.
Mr. Clelland was careful to note that he did not hate Mr. trump “But I don’t like his behavior and his attitude,” he said.
Despite voting for Mr Trump twice, Ms Starkey, the accountant, said she has never been a big fan. But in both 2016 and 2020, he failed to support the more liberal candidate. These days, she’s thinking about voting for Nikki Haley, the former United Nations ambassador and Republican governor of South Carolina.
However, Starkey said that Mr. Trump seemed like a partisan move at a time when American politics lacks much of the bipartisan civility he fondly remembers from the past. It was one of the reasons, he said, that he would have a hard time if he were picked for an eventual jury in the case: “Are you confident you’re getting all the facts for and against?” she asked herself.
She said she was exasperated by the drama surrounding the accusation, and knew there were many others like her.
“I just want it to go away,” she said.
