Recent news headlines and viral posts shared online claim a juror in former President Donald Trump’s New York hush money trial discussed the guilty verdict before it was announced.
Some people suggested that this would be grounds for a mistrial since jurors agree not to discuss the case outside of court.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) reposted a report from right-leaning news outlet Newsmax about a juror allegedly leaking the verdict in Trump’s trial. The report says the New York Supreme Court notified Judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw Trump’s case, that someone identifying themselves as a juror’s cousin “posted to the court’s Facebook page that Trump was going to be found guilty.”
“The fix was in from the beginning. If true, this is even further proof President Trump never had a chance of being innocent,” Greene wrote in response to the report.
The title of a YouTube video with more than 750,000 views that was shared on June 7 also reads: “MISTRIAL: New York Jury LEAKED Trump Verdict BEFORE Conviction! Judge PANICS, Free Trump.”
Multiple VERIFY readers, including Brad and Donna, asked us to look into the claims that a juror leaked the verdict to their cousin before it was announced.
THE SOURCES
X post from Jacqueline Sweet, an independent investigative journalist
X post from Eric Uebelacker, a New York City Courts reporter for Courthouse News
WHAT WE FOUND
The posts and news reports stem from a letter that New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, who oversaw Trump’s case, sent to the former president’s attorneys and New York prosecutors on June 7, 2024. That letter flagged a comment from a Facebook user who claimed his cousin was a juror on Trump’s trial and revealed the former president would be convicted.
But it’s unclear whether the person who posted on Facebook is actually related to one of the jurors and evidence shared by journalists casts doubt on the user’s claim about knowing the verdict ahead of it being announced.
Here’s what we can VERIFY about Merchan’s letter, the Facebook comment and the user who posted it.
Judge Merchan’s letter
In his letter dated June 7, Merchan said the court “became aware of a comment that was posted on the Unified Court System’s public Facebook page.”
According to the letter, a user identified as “Michael Anderson” posted the following Facebook comment on an unrelated post that was shared on May 29:
"My cousin is a juror and says Trump is getting convicted. Thank you folks for all your hard work!!!!”
Merchan’s letter did not confirm the exact date the comment was posted but said it was “labeled as one week old” as of June 7.
VERIFY was unable to independently confirm the comment because the New York Unified Court System appears to have deleted the original post from its Facebook page.
Who is “Michael Anderson” and is he really a juror’s cousin?
We can’t VERIFY who “Michael Anderson” is or if he’s related to a juror on Trump’s hush money trial.
The jurors in Trump’s trial were kept anonymous to the public, so no one apart from Trump himself, his defense lawyers, prosecutors, jury consultants and legal staff members knows their names.
But multiple journalists have uncovered reasons to doubt that the Facebook user’s claims about his cousin being a juror and revealing the guilty verdict are legitimate.
Screenshots shared by independent investigative journalist Jacqueline Sweet purportedly show the original Facebook comment posted by “Michael Anderson.”
That same user identified themselves in their bio and a post on their page as a “professional s - - - - poster,” or someone who posts deliberately absurd, provocative or offensive content online, screenshots shared by Sweet and Courthouse News reporter Erik Uebelacker show.
The Washington Post also confirmed the user’s post about being a “professional s - - - - poster,” and reported that he is an “active user in a Facebook group for Trump supporters who routinely post anti-Biden and pro-Trump memes.”
VERIFY searched for the “Michael Anderson” Facebook profile but it appears to have been deleted from the social media platform.
The New York State Unified Court System didn’t reply to VERIFY’s request for comment. But court officials told the Washington Post they had an obligation to make both sides aware of the deleted message, despite the uncertainty of the post’s credibility.
“As appropriate, the Court informed the parties once it learned of this online content,” a court spokesperson told The Post.
Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance, who is a law professor at the University of Alabama as well as a legal analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, said in a post on X that Merchan was “smart to advise the parties and hold a hearing on the record to resolve this.”
“If it's someone posting with no basis for it as it appears, the record will be clear (his bio says "professional s***poster") & if there's something to it, good to get it out & do justice,” Vance wrote.
The VERIFY team works to separate fact from fiction so that you can understand what is true and false. Please consider subscribing to our daily newsletter, text alerts and our YouTube channel. You can also follow us on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. Learn More »
