"The alternate reality Trump lives in is crumbling" with first criminal trial: ex federal prosecutor
With
a jury now impaneled, Donald Trump’s hush-money trial can finally begin in earnest. The outcome of the trial will impact not just Trump’s freedom but the outcome of the 2024 election and the future of the country’s democracy.
Per New York state law, no cameras are allowed inside the courtroom.
The courtroom sketch artists have depicted defendant Trump as bored, sullen, hostile, occasionally happy, and with a look of contempt and disgust on his face. When sleeping in court, Trump looks very tired and drained of energy, his mouth open and his head fighting against gravity.
Trump is reportedly quite upset at how he is being drawn, Rolling Stone reports. “Trump has also privately asked people close to him if they agree that the courtroom sketch-artist must be out to get him," sources told the outlet.
Trump’s attorneys, meanwhile, are still trying to stop their client’s first criminal trial by filing appeals for a change of venue because of supposed “bias” against their client, a claim the court has rejected.
Trump, for his part, has repeatedly violated his gag orders by threatening the judges, prosecutors, district attorneys, witnesses, jury members, and other people who are trying to enforce the rule of law. Judge Juan Merchan has mostly been successful in trying to discipline the impudent former president, at one point commanding him to sit down in court like he was a disobedient dog.
In an attempt to better understand what is likely to happen next in Trump’s first criminal trial such as how the prosecution and defense are going to proceed and what the larger strategy may be behind Trump’s acting out in court (Trump is likely attempting to get thrown in prison as a way of rallying his followers as a fake martyr), I recently spoke with Kenneth McCallion. He is a former Justice Department prosecutor who also worked for the New York attorney general's office as a prosecutor on Trump-related racketeering cases.
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