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At a glance, it was a fairly representative docket at Manhattans Criminal Courthouse, on Centre Street. DefendantD., male, thirty-four, charged with menacing and aggravated harassment. DefendantB., female, thirty-four, criminal obstruction of breathing or blood circulation. DefendantH., female, twenty-two, assault in the second degree. DefendantP., male, forty, sexual abuse in the first. D.W.I. Petit larceny. Criminal mischief. Theft of services. A grocery deliveryman alleged to have kicked someone in the back, for unknown reasons: released on his own recognizance. Tara Sukhu, the arraignment supervisor with the Legal Aid Society, said, over the phone, Its been pretty quiet. So far, so good.

Outside the seventeen-story building, it was anything but quiet. Helicopters hovered. Whistles and clanging persisted amid sign-waving and costume-flaunting behind police barricades: a parade with nowhere to go. Representative George Santos, no stranger to masquerades, fled the scene quickly, declaring it unbearable. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene brought a megaphone but soon retreated to her S.U.V., where she invoked the famous scofflaws Jesus and Mandela. The unsealing of an unprecedented indictment was imminent: From approximately June 2015 to November 2016, the Defendant was a candidate for the office of President of the United States. On January20, 2017, he became President. That would be DefendantT., male, seventy-six, charged with falsifying business records in the first degree.

Setting aside the politics (good or bad for 24?) and the optics (observers likened the Palm Beach airport stakeout to the pursuit of O.J.s white Bronco), the nature of Donald Trumps alleged crimes was old, if tawdry, news. Hush money, improperly classified. Or, in legalese, The purpose of the payment was to avoid negative attention to the defendants campaign by suppressing information about an allegedly sexual encounter between defendant and an adult-film actress. That was an Assistant District Attorney speaking, up in the rarefied air of the fifteenth floor, which had been reserved for the days most prominently accused, as a safety precaution. Unlike the other defendants, who stood, often cuffed, before a judge in Room 130, down near the metal detectors, the man from Mar-a-Lago was free to sit, fidget, and admire the starched cuffs of his lawyers shirts.

Tempting as it may have been to imagine a kind of upstairs-downstairs dichotomy, an eavesdropper with his eyes closed could have identified a fair amount of thematic convergence in the proceedings of Trumps arraignment and that of, say, a man with an outstanding warrant in Suffolk County who was said to have erupted in violence when a woman refused to show him the contents of her phone. A lot boils down to logistics.

Upstairs: I am just stating the obvious that having President Trump in this courtroom today is extraordinarily burdensome.

Downstairs: He simply could not get to Long Island. He would be eager for supervised release.

Upstairs: I expect all other defendants to appear in court, even high-profile defendants.

Downstairs: There are trains and buses in Suffolk County, counsel. There is a bus that goes directly to the courthouse.

Upstairs: I was not suggesting President Trump does not want to be here.

Downstairs: Defendant has clear disregard of court orders.

Upstairs: This defendant has made... irresponsible social-media posts that target various individuals involved in this matter, and even their families.

Downstairs: You are to have no contact by phone, by text message, through social media, do you understand?

Upstairs: I never met Stormy Daniels. I never spoke to Stormy Daniels. Oops. Not Trump there, believe it or not, but Joseph Tacopina, a.k.a. Joey Taco, seated at Trumps left, and sounding less like a lawyer than like a guilty husband. He was denying that he had a prior association with the adult-film actress that could pose a conflict. The courthouse has a way of visiting indignities on all but the robed.

Trump, released on his own unmistakable recognizance, isnt due back at Centre Street until December. In the meantime, he faces looming investigations in Georgia and in Washington, involving more substantive concerns, like election interference and insurrection. Trial handicappers, left to pore over the D.A.s narrative account in the Statement of Facts, would do well to consider that, even with the briefest of arraignments, narratives can diverge. Take the case of a Defendant R., who arrived in handcuffs an hour after Trumps departure, with hair similarly aloft. According to the prosecutor, who asked that bail be set at ten thousand dollars, he was an incorrigible thief, a thirteen-time recidivist. He had even robbed one victim on three separate occasions! Enter the public defender: The amount of bail is extortionate for a client who is homeless and stealing paper towels. The repeat victim was a Target. Stay out of that store! the judge admonished, while declining to set bail. Uncuffed and releaseduntil next time.

See more here:
On the Docket with Donald Trump - The New Yorker