The Facebook page of the New York State Unified Court System is being inundated with comments—many of which are from trolls claiming their cousin was on former President Donald Trump’s criminal hush money jury.
“Juror #8 married ‘my cousin vinny,’” joked one person.
“My cousin secretly married trump and was paid to vote not guilty,” wrote someone else.
“I too have a cousin who is a juror and said they would convict Trump,” wrote another person.
The cousin comments come in response to Judge Juan Merchan notifying the parties in Trump’s case that someone by the name of “Michael Anderson” posted on the court’s Facebook page on May 29—the day before Trump’s guilty verdict was decided—that his “cousin is a juror and says Trump is getting convicted.”
“Thank you folks for all your hard work!!!!” the comment added.
The Facebook comment raised by Merchan was immediately cited by Trump’s supporters as grounds for a mistrial.
“We knew these jurors would not be able to avoid telling their friends and relatives that [they] were going to get Trump,” wrote one conservative on X. “It’s time for a mistrial ‘with prejudice’ and no retrial!”
“This is BIG TROUBLE,” wrote another right-wing commentator.
But the legitimacy of the original comment that prompted Merchan’s letter is dubious, with the account writing in a separate post that he is a “professional shitposter,” not to mention he posted the same comment a separate time on May 20.
The revelation about Michael Anderson’s apparent “shitpost” has drawn a flood of comments on the court system’s Facebook page—most of whom commented to denounce Trump being found guilty on 34 counts related to hush money payments made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in the lead-up to the 2016 election.
“Nobody trusts the justice system anymore. Politically motivated,” wrote one person.
“To call what this court does ‘justice’ is itself a grave injustice,” responded someone else.
But one person appeared to make a claim similar to Michael Anderson’s post—though the comment this time denounced the jury’s decision.
“What’s most troubling here is I’m friends with one of the jurors who told me he was forced to vote guilty,” the person, whose profile describes him as based in Louisiana wrote. “In addition to that he stated they were not to discuss the case until instructed to do so but they did so despite the order and the verdict was reached before the trial ended. How does this happen??? He is afraid for his life and scared to say something.”
Like Michael Anderson’s, the aforementioned comment appears baseless.
Guess you can’t believe everything you read on the internet.
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