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The same week that former President Donald Trump appeared in a Manhattan court room for the first time, ProPublica reported that for years Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has accepted luxury trips from Republican businessman Harlan Crow without disclosing them. At first glance, those two stories may seem to overlap little, beyond two leading figures on the right being caught up again in scandal. But both Trump and Thomas are under fire as much for their record keeping as their actions a sad sign of how ill-equipped our political system is to punish corruption.

Remarkably, amid the stories of lavish resorts, private jets and all-male retreats, the two most telling details about Thomass story arent even in ProPublicas reporting. The first is Thomass statement. While Crow affirmed his generosity to Justice Thomas and Ginni to ProPublica, Thomas himself declined comment. Only after a day-long firestorm did Thomas issue his own statement Friday, claiming that colleagues and others in the judiciaryadvised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable.

If the justice felt his actions were proper, then he would never have hid them or obscured why he hid them.

If Thomass claim that borrowing a private jet counts as hospitality stretches credulity, the second detail blows it up. This isnt the first expos of Crows generosity to the Thomases. Nearly 20 years ago, the Los Angeles Times reported that Thomas had accepted gifts and trips from Crow, including a bust of Frederick Douglass valued at $19,000. As that newspapers David G. Savage wrote Thursday, Thomas responded to that story, not by swearing off gifts, but by not disclosing those gifts. If the justice felt his actions were proper, then he would never have hid them or obscured why he hid them.

Which brings us to Donald Trump. The former president has turned shamelessness into brand I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, okay, and I wouldnt lose any voters, okay? But he allegedly hid a one-night stand with adult film actress Stormy Daniels and an alleged affair with Playboy playmate Karen McDougal.

The overly credulous argue that the alleged concealments were to preserve his marriage. But according to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Braggs statement of facts, McDougals non-disclosure agreement ended after the election, and Trump asked his then-lawyer Michael Cohen if they could delay the payment [to Daniels] until after the electionbecause at that point it would not matter if the story became public. Then as president, Trump allegedly disguised his reimbursement of Cohen to further bury the deception.

Why go to all this effort? Because most voters consider having affairs and purchasing peoples silence to win election as actions not befitting a president. The latter of those two actions is crucial: Braggs case doesnt exist because of hush money or because of any alleged affairs. It exists because he says Trump deceived voters to win an election.

Braggs statement of facts and Thomas failure to disclose Crows lavish spending on him suggest that Trump and Thomas knew their actions were unworthy of the offices one sought and the other held. But unfortunately, neither mans actions will lead to any accountability by themselves. Instead of charging Trump with cheating to win an election, and Thomas with receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in improper gifts, were left with allegations of falsifying business records and outrage over improper gift disclosures.

This problem of ethical violations being defined down into nonexistence runs wider than Thomas or Trump.

In Trumps case, the focus on his recordkeeping is partly the result of deliberate interference at the federal level. As legal writer Marcy Wheeler notes, after Cohen agreed to a guilty plea, the Trump Justice Department attempted to interfere in the Cohen investigation repeatedly. Then-Attorney General Bill Barr, for example, wanted the charges against Cohen dismissed even though hed already pleaded guilty. Over at the Federal Election Commission, Wheeler writes, the commissions general counsel recommended acting on complaints regarding Trumps payments to Cohen, but Republican Commissioners Sean Cooksey and Trey Trainorrefused to do so. By the time Trump left office, the federal government had its hands full with the Jan. 6 investigation and other matters.

As for Thomas, no interference was required because his actions though clearly unbecoming of a justice did not necessarily violate any actual rule. Even after years of trying to create an ethics code, the Supreme Court still has none. New guidelines from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts will require Thomas to disclose some of those gifts going forward. But, still, no rule prevents him from accepting such gifts, nor does any mechanism exist to mandate his recusal from any case involving groups linked to Crow.

This problem of ethical violations being defined down into nonexistence runs wider than Thomas or Trump. The Supreme Court has been limiting the scope of anti-corruption laws for years. The most noteworthy ruling came in 2016, when the court reversed former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnells 2014 conviction on public corruption charges for accepting $175,000 in loans and gifts from a businessman who wanted McDonnell to promote a nutritional supplement. The court declared that none of McDonnells actions, including holding events at the governors mansion, met the standard of an official act.

Thomas joined in that decision, of course, but so did every single one of his colleagues including the liberal justices. That legal experts on both sides of the aisle agreed with the ruling, in defiance of common sense, only highlights the breadth of the problem. It seems obvious to the justices, wrote Slates Dahlia Lithwick during the cases oral arguments, that public corruption and ethics rules are adorable, antiquated, and unenforceable becauseeverybody does it. Indeed, subsequent Congresses, under both parties, have declined to replace the now-neutered official act standard with something more stringent. Other seemingly basic anti-corruption efforts, such as a ban on members of Congress trading stocks, have also languished.

Any accountability is better than no accountability. Demands for Thomass impeachment and resignation from Democrats such as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Ted Lieu, D-Calif., are welcome. So are calls for investigations from senators such as Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin.

But even impeachment is only a start. It would be far better if, instead of relying on record-keeping violations, our political system developed stronger laws reflecting a common-sense standard of corruption. But too many people in power Republicans mostly, but many Democrats as well dont want it that way. They shelter in the shades of grey.

Oh, and the prosecutor who convicted McDonnell only to see that conviction thrown out? That would be Jack Smith, now in charge of the federal investigations of Trump. We can only hope that past isnt prologue.

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Donald Trump, Clarence Thomas and America's corruption creep - MSNBC

Trump lawyer James Trusty said Sunday that there are no more classified documents at former President Donald Trumps Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.

In an interview on Meet the Press, Trusty was asked by NBC News' Chuck Todd whether he can be certain there are no classified documents or copies of documents at Mar-a-Lago following reports that Trump's legal team turned over additional materials, as well as a laptop, to investigators.

Yeah, sure," Trusty responded. "And I can tell you the leak about what happened with this additional document or several documents that were found in the thumb drive is absurd."

Sources had told CNN this year that a Trump aide made copies of classified documents his lawyers discovered in December in boxes at Mar-a-Lago before the documents were handed over to the Justice Department.

Its been the same mischaracterization that the media has run with to suggest that President Trump is just sitting on a mountain of documents. Its not true at all," Trusty said.

Trusty, a former Justice Department colleague of special counsel Jack Smith, whom Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed to investigate Trumps handling of classified documents, slammed the Justice Department for what he called a "campaign of leaks."

Last week, The Washington Post, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that the Justice Department and the FBI have gathered new evidence that suggests possible obstruction by Trump in the documents case.

Theres been a campaign of leaks from DOJ unlike anything Ive ever seen, Trusty said. I was a prosecutor for 27 years. I spent 17 at this Department of Justice. I dont recognize it anymore."

The FBI recovered a trove of top secret and other highly classified documents when itsearched Mar-a-Lagoin Florida in August. After the incident, classified materials were also found in the possession of President Joe Biden, as well as former Vice President Mike Pence.

Garland has appointed separate special counsels to investigate theTrumpandBidendocuments. He has not appointed a special counsel to review the Pence documents.

Former Trump Attorney General William Barr said Sunday he thinks investigators "probably have some very good evidence in the probe into the former presidents handling of classified documents.

He had no claim to those documents, especially the classified documents, Barr said in an interview on ABC News This Week. They belonged to the government. And so I think he was jerking the government around, and they subpoenaed it. And they tried to jawbone him into delivering documents.

But the government is investigating the extent to which games were played and there was obstruction in keeping documents from them. And I think thats a serious potential case," Barr added.

A federal judge ruled last month that Smith's office had presented sufficient evidence to establish that Trump committed a crime through his attorneys in the classified documents probe, according to a source briefed on the proceedings.

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell of Washington was not ruling on whether Trump was guilty of a crime, only about whether his attorney could be compelled to testify.

As a result, Howell ruled in favor of applying the crime fraud exception, which would allow prosecutors to sidestep protections afforded to Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran through attorney-client privilege. Howell also ordered Corcoran to testify before the federal grand jury.

Trump has denied wrongdoing in the case of the classified documents, having claimed last year that he can declassify materials by thinking about it.

Summer Concepcion is a politics reporter for NBC News.

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Trump lawyer says there are no more classified docs at Mar-a-Lago - NBC News

Today we do not access information in a strictly corporeal world, but the sketch artist does. In the courtroom, all devices must be turned off. The roles of each participant are specified and then ordered into the architecture: Individuals fit into the space, the space does not change to fit the individual. The sketch artist must rely on their own faculties to sense, communicate, and maneuver within the space. In high-profile trials, the rules are even more intense. Visitors to the courtroom are instructed to not move around, warned several times about technology, and told when and how they can enter and exit. You are watched closely, and every sound you make feels like you have incriminated yourself.

Entering the court, through security, and into the courtroom, I am flanked on both sides by hallways lined with officers and members of the Secret Service. They all ask to see my green pass; I go through two rounds of metal detection and bag searches. I was running late because of a logistical issue with my official placement in the court, so by the time I arrived, all authorized press and sketch artists were already seated. An officer led me down the center aisle and into the jury box, where five sketch artists were at work furiously drawing the architecture of the courtroom and the profiles of the state attorneys. When I finally sat down, a bundle of adrenaline was delivered, my hands and legs vibrated joyfully, my shocked body celebrating the return to being the center of attention; this is a physical performance.

In this new chapter in American history, The People of New York v. Donald Trump, the shift in power is Shakespearean. Stormy Daniels, a porn star, has lubricated the stagnant wheels of justice, bringing the former president to his knees. A man who only a few years earlier held the highest office in the land, arguably the world, is now a criminal defendant. Last Tuesday, April 4,Trump walked down the aisle slowly, haloed by a blur of officers, secret servicemen, and attorneys.

Despite this drastic repositioning of power, Donald Trumps strides are measured, walking confidently while wearing an expression of military stoicism expertly stolen from the generals he envies and the duties he infamously dodged decades earlier. In this moment, I am convinced firsthand of his deep and genuinely pathological confidence.

Like a disgraced bride, he looks from side to side at those observing him from their seats.

In this metaphor the groom is the judge, walking in after everyone is seated upon the bailiffs announcement all rise, including Donald Trump. Judge Merchans bench is raised and positioned to face the entire court, casting a shadow over the 45th president.

Trump hunches involuntarily in his seat, facing the judge.His groom hovers over him, holding an invisible thread to Trumps tongue, momentarily canning his chronic platitudes.

Like Dorothy saw Oz, I see Donald Trump. Stripped of his arsenal, there was no livestream to perform in front of, no phone to echo his belligerence. Restrained to the park outside the courthouse, the sounds of his protesting base are abstracted but still audible from the 15th floor. I study Trumps colors and grab pens and pencils in shades of blue, orange, red, and yellow. His face is tan with bright white raccoon rings around his puffy eyes. The glazed marbles turn slowly in their sockets without the rest of his head. His hair is as thin as phyllo in varying shades of yellow and sand and is perfectly blown out into one thin layer placed stiffly over the surface of his head. His lips are small and pursed sourly, casting a shadow over his chin. His eyebrows are up wrinkling and reddening the center of his powdered forehead. He hardly moves or speaks, but when asked how he pleads, he leans forward and utters the words not guilty, instantly memorializing an unprecedented moment in our nations history.

Upon leaving the courtroom, Trump regains a more recognizable form, insults flare from his recently zip-locked lips. He attacks the judge and his family, sowing doubts about his professionalism by accusing his daughter of receiving money from the Biden campaign. Trumps mania presents itself in desperate fear-mongering tactics and violent calls to action for his disenfranchised base to save the country with him, hidden away but still standing firmly at the helm.

Sketching this trial as it happened afforded me the right to gather as much nuance as I pleased. Where a photograph signals a moment, a live drawing bulges to contain it. Interpretations of Trumps presence in court claim he appeared diminished, weak, and defeated. He did not. As someone I had only witnessed through a screen, Trump was dangerously flat and comprehensible, living in my mind as a gaudy symbol of opportunistic hate, taking up space in a nightmarish realm of the surreal. But he was unfortunately very real and magnetic. Calm as a seasoned crook, a compelling source of immeasurable mayhem, he released an uncanny, sociopathic remorselessness into the air we both shared, patiently waiting to leave and do whatever the fuck he wants to for now.

Link:
The People of New York v. Donald Trump - Hyperallergic

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. When he wrapped up remarks following his arraignment Tuesday with a familiar promise to Make America Great Again, former President Donald Trump pushed into the adoring crowd at his Mar-a-Lago club ignoring Secret Service instructions to take a pre-cleared path and made his way to a private patio dinner with his daughter Tiffany, her husband Michael Boulos and longtime conservative operative Sergio Gor.

While they ate, surrounded by aides and friends at nearby tables, Trump listened to a playlist he had curated himself. Songs included Justice for All, his version of the national anthem with the J6 choir of inmates awaiting trial for their roles in the insurrection, Luciano Pavarotti and James Brown singing Its a Mans World, and selections from Sinead OConnor and Phantom of the Opera.

It was a serene end to one of the most tumultuous days in American political history one that started with the first booking of a former president on criminal charges in New York and transitioned to the same man, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination, delivering a speech rebuking state and federal prosecutors from his campaigns base of operations in Palm Beach, Fla.

What Mar-a-Lago provided was a soothing retreat full of Trumps favorite things: a crowd of friends and family, a quiet dinner on the patio and a 500-song Spotify list that allows him to play disc jockey. If Trumps mood was mostly reserved that day from his arrival at the courthouse where he declined to speak to reporters, through a jab-filled but sedately delivered speech, all the way to the end-of-night dinner its a mood his team will be trying to sustain over the coming months as he tries to survive the twin crucibles of an election and criminal jeopardy.

The relative calm in the midst of chaos Tuesday belied Trumps well-earned reputation for failing to control his impulses and for whipping his supporters into frenzies in times of crisis most notably the one that ended in the Jan. 6 insurrection. But it also revealed the extent to which the smaller, more insular, lower-drama team around him this time has already helped him keep focus and avoided riling him up unnecessarily.

Thats not to say it will be easy or that it will succeed. Trump is still Trump. He continues to push the unfounded claims of a stolen 2020 election, shared a photo of himself holding a baseball bat next to the head of the Manhattan district attorney and has championed the people incarcerated for the Jan. 6 riot on the U.S. Capitol.

His teams discipline promises to be put under severe duress as he simultaneously runs a presidential campaign and defends himself against charges in New York and investigations at the federal level and in Georgia.

Ive never seen a more professional operation around Trump. Ive also never seen a Trump-world operation with so little infighting, said one longtime operative in his orbit. All of the key people are genuine pros.

Indeed, the biggest difference, according to interviews with half a dozen people working on his campaign or with direct knowledge of its operations, is the type of operatives Trump is surrounded by right now. Gone from the inner circle are figures who sought their own publicity like campaign chiefs Corey Lewandowski, Steve Bannon and Brad Parscale. So are the sycophants who believed the best way to curry favor with Trump was to execute on his most outlandish ideas, like Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell.

We have less people who try to ingratiate themselves with him by going the extreme route, said one person involved in the campaign who credited Susie Wiles, the co-manager of the operation, with keeping the crazies out. Everything seems to be less dramatic not drama-free, but less dramatic.

On Friday, the campaign quickly put out a fire lit when the New York Times reported that Trump had instructed aides to hire Laura Loomer, a prominent Trump supporter with a long history of making anti-Muslim comments. Trump allies, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, reacted angrily to the news, and by the end of the day a campaign official confirmed to NBC News that Loomer would not be brought into the fold.

No one in proximity to Trump is under the illusion that he will barnstorm across the country for the next year and a half in anything resembling an ordinary campaign; nor would they want him to lose the rawness that connects him to millions of voters. But, for now, Trump insiders are pleased with what they see as a more-disciplined operation that helps the candidate channel his political instincts.

That group includes Wiles, co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita, strategist and public-relations veteran Jason Miller, longtime adviser Boris Epshteyn and a set of trusted hands who manage various aspects of security and logistics for his public appearances.

They are charged with helping Trump navigate the political side of the ledger while a three-member team of lawyers Todd Blanche, Susan Necheles and Joe Tacopina defends him against the charges in New York, along with allegations that he incited the Jan. 6 riot, mishandled classified material and tried to overturn his defeat in Georgia in the 2020 election.

Though noticeably more sedate thanhis fans are accustomed to in his speeches, Trump ripped the judge in the New York case, Juan Merchan, during his speech at Mar-a-Lago Tuesday night. He called the jurist, who appears to have donated $15 to Joe Bidens campaign in 2020, a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family.

For any other politician or defendant that remark alone would constitute a radical breach of decorum, political savvy and legal strategy. For Trump, an avid golfer, it was par for the course at a time when his legal troubles have solidified his support among the GOP primary electorate.

A Trump aide said they do not plan to attempt to significantly rein in the former president when it comes to these attacks, in part because they appear to recognize the benefits in them. While his harsh words for judges and prosecutors are always a concern for the lawyers, the aide said the campaign team was less worried.

We see the criticism as mild and factual. Its not just coming from a place of anger, the aide said, pointing to Trump highlighting the work Merchans daughters firm did for Vice President Kamala Harris short-lived 2020 presidential campaign. As far as we are concerned, I would say there are minimal concerns because he behaved appropriately.

Trump has watched his political fortunes rise in recent weeks, but one aide on his 2020 campaign said the political operations turnaround was first evident in a February visit to East Palestine, Ohio, the site of a major train derailment that released toxic chemicals into the air.

That felt like that was the first thing they did that was OK, theyve got their s--- together the operative said.

Trump railed against President Joe Biden at a rally with Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, in a 10-minute speech and made several stops in town to meet with residents. Last month, he held rallies in Davenport, Iowa, and Waco, Texas, and one adviser said his calendar will soon fill out with big events in early primary states.

His next scheduled public appearance is April 14 at the National Rifle Associations conference in Indianapolis, where several potential rivals for the GOP nomination are expected to speak.

Trump insiders say he has been encouraged by Republicans rallying around him in the face of the charges against him.

He is pumped, the adviser said. He loves this moment. Its a moment of vindication in his eyes.

That sentiment may become more acute now that the anxiety of the arraignment is behind him.

On his flight to New York Monday, Trump and his aides discussed the logistics of his court appearance for about 25 minutes and then watched Fox News, according to a person who was present.

It was for sure a surreal moment, the person said. We were stressed to some degree, of course, but there was no anger, and nothing totally out of the ordinary.

Trump was virtually silent when he arrived at the courthouse to be finger-printed and sit for the arraignment hearing.

It was a sober moment, according to an adviser. He did not really say two words. I think he knew it was not the right moment to do that. He let everyone else do the talking.

The morning after the arraignment and his speech at Mar-a-Lago, Trump posted a note of gratitude to the officials inside and outside the courthouse on his Truth Social media platform.

The great patriots inside and outside of the Courthouse on Tuesday were unbelievably nice, in fact, they couldnt have been nicer, Trump wrote. Court attendants, Police Officers, and others were all very professional, and represented New York City sooo well.

That courtroom setting, and the legal system more broadly, are things Trump and his team will have to become more accustomed to as they try and pull off a historic political high-wire act: returning to the White House facing criminal charges and a handful of separate serious state and federal investigations.

His advisers are confident his indictment will provide a short term political boost, and early public polling has backed that assertion it could at least with Republicans. But the person fretted over the long term uncertainty of the historic moment. We just dont know, they said of whether the weight of high profile legal woes and ongoing investigations will eventually bog down his political aspirations.

No one has ever done this before, the person said. We just dont know whats going to happen here.

Matt Dixon is a senior national politics reporter for NBC News, based in Florida.

Jonathan Allen is asenior national politics reporter for NBC News, based in Washington.

Originally posted here:
How a tight circle of aides is trying to keep Trump out of trouble - NBC News

On Monday afternoon, Donald Trumps son Eric posted a tweet to his four million followers. Watching the plane... from the plane, he wrote, attaching a P.O.V. image from inside his fathers private jet, where a shiny-wood-panelled television was showing footage (from Fox News, natch) of the Trump-branded plane he was sitting on, readying for takeoff at the Palm Beach International Airport. Given the circumstances of the trip, Eric Trumps tweet felt a bit too Look, Dad, were on TV-gleeful, but he wasnt wrong to acknowledge the spectacle, which was only just beginning. This was a big day not just for the Trump family but for the entire nation: the first time in history that an American President had been called to face criminal charges. Trumps passage from Mar-a-Lago to Manhattan, an antiheros journey that traversed our countrys Eastern corridor, was feverishly followed by major news organizations and meticulously documented on the three Ts of social media: Twitter, Truth Social, and TikTok.

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Eric Trumps words also captured something else about his fathers indictment, which, despite its historic and political significance, also felt notable for its hall-of-mirrors-like quality. This may be Bidens America, but once again we were in Trump-land, a place that has long been defined by its seemingly endless simulacra: the constant loop of memes and clips and posts that come ever closer to replacing actual events as they are happening, making us into observers instead of conscious actors in a shared reality. In a sense, we were all watching the plane from the plane. And its hard to imagine that Trump wasnt at least a tiny bit thrilled by this return to the media spotlight, much like a fired reality-TV star who has been invited to make a guest appearance on a later season of a show. Rolling Stone reported that, although Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan District Attorney, offered Trump the possibility of a private arraignment on Zoom, the former President nonetheless chose a high-profile midday surrender to the court. As Warren Beatty once said, of his onetime girlfriend Madonna, She doesnt want to live off-camera.

For better or for worse (likely the latter), Trumps thirst for being watched has always been matched by our perhaps even greater thirst for watching. And so I was predictably sucked in, first by the aerial shots of Trumps motorcade making its way from his Mar-a-Lago estate to the airport in West Palm Beach, reminiscent, in speed and scale, of the O. J. Simpson white Bronco chase, and, in aesthetic, of a funeral procession, with its long line of black S.U.V.s. Then there was the Trump planes takeoff, paired with a CNN anchors solemn narration. As the former Presidents red-white-and-blue jet rose into the air, the anchor described Trumps return to New York as a homecoming unlike what he ever would have imagined or wanted, while still being one that hes doing and one that he is trying to make the most ofa phrasing that led me to imagine the former President squeezing in some shopping and lunch with the girls in SoHo after his visit to the Lower Manhattan courthouse. Meanwhile, outside Trump Tower, in midtown, where another motorcade would eventually drop Trump off for an overnight stay at his triplex, before picking him up again on Tuesday afternoon to take him to his arraignment, there seemed to be more press and lookie-loos than either MAGA supporters or #resistance liberals.

Were used to seeing the hubbub surrounding former Presidents, and in that respect Trumps arraignment, an event of pomp and bad circumstance, felt like Opposite Day. Armed with all the motorcades and private jets and Secret Service men in the world, he was returning to New York not to attend a state funeral, stump for a party mate, or open a Presidential library (as if) but to turn himself in to law enforcement. Then again, this was all perfectly in line with Trumps wild-and-woolly Opposite Day Presidential tenure, of which I was keenly reminded by the absolute freak show that awaited him at the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse on Tuesday.

George Santos outside the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse.

Though the press might still have outnumbered the protesters, there were plenty of demonstrators on both sides. The MAGA bunch was, predictably, more colorful. Reporters spotted a man wearing American-flag shortalls with no shirt; a guy in an I Love Jesus beanie carrying a placard identifying Braggs Jews (the onetime Trump henchman Michael Cohen, who testified against his former boss in front of the New York grand jury, among them); and a woman in a QAnon T-shirt and a jacket painted with the figure of Trump as an American-flag-waving toreador. There was a Trump impersonator with one of the worst wigs Ive ever seen, and a skirmish between a MAGA-hat-wearing bleached blonde and a gray-haired anti-Trump protester who looked like an extra from Portlandia. And then there were, of course, representatives George Santos and Marjorie Taylor Greene, perhaps the true dregs of the current G.O.P. (After she was driven away by protesters blaring whistles as she tried to speak into a megaphone, Greene gave an interview in which she compared Trumps plight to those of Nelson Mandela and Jesus Christ.) All the while, Trump was posting on Truth Social. Heading to Lower Manhattan, the Courthouse. Seems so SURREAL WOW, they are going to ARREST ME. Cant believe this is happening in America. MAGA!, he wrote, with a curious self-alienation, as if he, too, was not actually experiencing this predicament but watching it on TV (which, come to think of it, he probably was).

There were plenty of demonstrators on both sides, and the MAGA bunch was, predictably, more colorful.

Once Trump arrived at the courthouse, the footage became relatively sparse. Cable-news stations broadcast aerial videos of the former President exiting his car accompanied by security detail. No cameras were allowed in the courtroom, but five photographers were allowed to take still images of Trump entering and leaving, and social media pored over the same few shots of the former President, taken before and after he pleaded not guilty to thirty-four felony counts of falsifying business documents, in connection with a larger catch-and-kill scheme. According to my colleague Eric Lach, who was in the courtroom for the arraignment, Trump seemed, for once, cut down to size, as the judge informed him of the charges against him. The glum mug Trump showed in the pictures I sawa mute grimace unleavened by a regulation toothy grin or a double thumbs-up signsuggested as much. Even his hair seemed deflated. His suit collar was stained. (Derek Guy, a menswear guru on Twitter, noted that these may have been oil-based stains from cosmetics.) And yet, by the time he was back at Mar-a-Lago, to which he hightailed it in the Trump plane immediately after his moment in court, he seemed revived, making a speech in which he, predictably, decried Braggs case against him as a persecution. Making his way to the lectern as Lee Greenwoods God Bless the U.S.A. played, Trump smiled, waved, shook hands, and mugged for the many iPhones held aloft to capture him. Back where he belonged, he was ready, once again, to face the cameras.

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Donald Trumps Unhinged Reality Show Gets Another Season - The New Yorker