Inside a courtroom situated between Tribeca and Chinatown on Monday morning, former president donald trumpWashington lawyers have sparred with the district attorney’s office over procedures for a hush money case that could send a former commander in chief to prison for the first time in American history.
Judge Juan Merchan informed the lawyers that he was getting a little irritated with the “minutiae.” With a pool of 500 potential jurors waiting, he wanted to begin the process of choosing 12.
The judge also handed Trump his “Parker warnings,” including that he could be held in contempt if he was absent without leave at any point during the trial. Trump, showing little emotion, said he understood.
Outside, in a sunny park across the street, peculiarity reigned over pedantry.
A handful of pro-Trump protesters — some wearing costumes, others carrying signs, one temporarily lowering the top of her dinosaur-themed swimsuit before writhing on the ground in performative ecstasy — threw their support behind the former president and presumptive candidate. republican.
The presence of high-profile onlookers accentuated the carnival nature of the gathering: The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper, former Republican gubernatorial candidate Andre Giuliani and filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi, daughter of the former speaker of the House Nancy PelosiD-California.
“I never miss a freak show,” said Pelosi, a longtime resident of nearby Greenwich Village.
The unlikely tandem of Klepper and Giuliani provided a clear window into a series of truths about this trial: The charges are at once the least consequential of the set pending against Trump and as fundamental to democracy as the question of whether special treatment – whether targeted or protection – can be avoided in the case of such a powerful figure.
Sensing an opportunity, Giuliani, son of the former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, agreed to speak on camera with Klepper, a master of man-on-the-street interviews that leave interviewees looking foolish. After all, the bargaining chip in Trump’s dominance is defending the big guy in tough television interviews.
But the younger Giuliani, a former Trump White House official, was sufficiently concerned about the outcome — and sufficiently aware of the art of video editing — that he asked an associate to make his own recording of the full interview.
Additional cameras rarely provide additional protection and this case was no exception. Pelosi couldn’t help but watch the scene unfold.
Klepper wasn’t interested in the high-stakes trial inside. Many Democrats are more concerned about the other charges Trump faces — he has been indicted in federal and Georgia courts over efforts to overturn the 2020 election and in another federal court over allegations that he illegally withheld confidential documents.
What Klepper wanted to know — with Andrew Giuliani playing his father’s surrogate — was whether Trump’s rhetoric would lead to violence. The former president recently said in a fundraising email that “all hell” would break loose at his trial. Before the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, Trump told his supporters “if you don’t fight like hell, you won’t have a country anymore.”
Andrew Giuliani noted that the crowd outside the courthouse was decidedly peaceful. So he went further.
“I was also in Washington, D.C., on January 6th,” said Andrew Giuliani. “I was with President Trump. I remember him talking about protesting peacefully.”
This was the moment Klepper had been waiting for.
“Some people were talking about peaceful protests,” Klepper said. “Some people also on January 6 were talking about ‘trial by combat.’ Do you know anyone who was talking about this?”
It was Rudy Giuliani who called for “trial by combat” at Trump’s rally before the ransacking of the Capitol. His son refused to identify him. The interview got more, well, combative after that.
“Oh, funny man,” said Andrew Giuliani dismissively, “let’s put a brain in there.”
Almost lost in the exchange was the message that Andrew Giuliani wanted to convey: that Democrats are trying to take Trump “off the campaign trail,” which amounts to “the death of our constitutional republic.”
Like most satire, Klepper’s interview was revealing.
It served as a reminder that the hush money trial has far less to do with whether Trump is fit to serve as president than it does with the election interference and classified documents cases — though it carries with it the serious potential consequence of a major-candidate of the party being convicted of a crime during the long presidential campaign.
Trump’s critics argue that his push to silence pornographic actress Stormy Daniels amounts to an illegal benefit to his own 2016 campaign. He should not be above the law, they say, just as his allies argue that he was unfairly targeted for political purposes.
The sudden on-camera exchange between Andrew Giuliani and Klepper, two figures deeply engaged in American politics, also reflected and highlighted the degree to which the right and left talk to each other.
Neither suggested the trial is important because it will determine whether Trump committed crimes.
Klepper tried to avoid this issue. Andrew Giuliani used the trial as a counterpoint to the argument that Trump is being persecuted.
It may be easy to forget, among spectators, that the jurors will make a decision as simple and prosaic as that a man broke the law by falsifying documents and as consequential as that a former president, and current candidate, should be held accountable.
Republican strategist Matthew Bartlett, who was not present at the trial, said the political landscape may not change based on the outcome.
“Ultimately, I’m not sure this judgment on a 2016 transaction will have an overriding effect on what voters want for politics and a vision for the country’s future,” he said.
Outside, the first day of the trial looked like a Ringling Brothers production. Inside the courthouse on the other side of Center Street, the solemn nature of the work ahead was evident.
When the first group of 96 potential jurors passed through the metal detectors and entered the courtroom around 2:30 p.m., filling every available seat, Trump craned his neck to get a look. He later stood up and turned to acknowledge them when he was named as a defendant.
At times during the long process, the former president suggested disinterest or exhaustion by closing his eyes.
Most of the jurors sat silent and expressionless. Merchan has emphasized his desire to protect their identities from the public, going so far as to warn rival legal teams not to reproduce lists of their names. More than half of them were fired when they raised their hands to say they could not be impartial in this trial.
A dismissed prospective juror was heard in a hallway saying, “I just couldn’t do it.”
Finding 12 adults with no specific feelings toward Donald J. Trump and willing to go through a multi-week trial is no easy task. That process will continue in Merchan’s court. For the rest of the world, the “horror show” takes place outside.
This article was originally published in NBCNews. with
