Trump finally faces a judge in the Manhattan Criminal Courts Building: NAJ screen shot

By Glynn Wilson –

WASHINGTON, D.C. — All over the country and the world, people who doubted that Donald Trump would ever be held accountable under the law for any of his crimes against humanity and the Constitution of the United States celebrated on social media.

Meanwhile most of the press and media covering the short, anti-climactic arraignment of the former president in New York — on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree for covering up three sex scandals — focused on two words spoken by Trump, when he pleaded “Not guilty.”

“Everyone stands equal under the law” District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the first prosecutor with the chutzpa to level formal charges against Trump, said after the arraignment at a press conference. “No amount of money and no amount of power changes that enduring principle.”

In a short arraignment hearing before Judge Juan M. Merchan in the Manhattan Criminal Courts Building, a team of prosecutors accused Trump of covering up three sex scandals during the 2016 presidential campaign, and unveiled 34 felony charges of falsifying business records to pay hush money and hide those affairs from the American public before the vote on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016, Election Day.

Each felony carries a maximum of four years in prison for each count, amounting to a threat of 136 years in state prison, although no one expects Trump to face that much time, if any. He could be fined and sentenced to probation, according to some of the reporting on the ground in New York.

Trump was indicted last week by a grand jury on charges connected to a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels and two others, becoming the first former American president to face criminal charges.

While in custody, Trump was fingerprinted like any felony defendant, but special accommodations were made for the former president: He spent only a short time in custody, and he was not handcuffed and did not have his mug shot taken.

This opens “a perilous chapter in the long public life of the real estate mogul (and reality TV star) who rose to the presidency and now faces the embarrassing prospect of a criminal trial,” according to New York Times coverage of the day.

Trump surrendered to the Manhattan district attorney’s office on Tuesday afternoon and later appeared before the judge, where he entered a not guilty plea — “a surreal scene for a man who once occupied the Oval Office and is mounting a third run for the White House,” as the Times reported it.

“In a remarkable spectacle playing out before a divided nation, Mr. Trump’s 11-vehicle motorcade arrived just before 1:30 at the district attorney’s office, part of the towering Manhattan Criminal Courts Building. Mr. Trump was visibly angry as he walked down the hallway toward the courtroom. He was accompanied by his legal adviser, Boris Epshteyn, and the lawyers handling this case, Todd W. Blanche, Susan R. Necheles and Joseph Tacopina. Mr. Trump declined to speak before or after the hearing, and immediately left to fly back to his home in Florida.”

Speaking outside the courthouse after the arraignment, Blanche said the former president was upset over the charges but determined to prevail.

“He’s frustrated. He’s upset,” he said. “But I will tell you what. He is motivated. It’s not going to slow him down.”

Amid fears of protests and Trump-inspired threats, the events at the courthouse were highly choreographed by the Secret Service, the New York City Police Department, court security and the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which has been investigating Trump for nearly five years, the Times reported. As helicopters circled overhead, the streets outside the courthouse were crammed with the press corps and hundreds of demonstrators, with supporters and critics of the former president assembling at a nearby park, where they screamed at each other from across metal barricades placed to keep the peace.

Inside the courthouse, prosecutors accused the former president of orchestrating a broad scheme to influence the 2016 presidential election by purchasing damaging stories about him to keep his sex life under wraps.

Along with the indictment, which is focused on the payoff to Story Daniels, the prosecutors filed a so-called statement of facts, common in complex white-collar cases. It provides something of a road map for what the prosecutors could reveal at trial. Based on evidence presented to the grand jury, it details two other hush-money deals involving the National Enquirer, which has longstanding ties to Trump.

The first deal involved the tabloid paying $30,000 to a former Trump Tower doorman who claimed to know that Trump fathered a child out of wedlock. The publication later determined the claim was untrue.

The National Enquirer then made another payment to Karen McDougal, Playboy’s playmate of the year in 1998, who wanted to sell her story of an affair with Trump during the 2016 campaign. She reached a $150,000 agreement with the Enquirer, which bought the rights to her story to suppress it — a practice known as “catch and kill.”

Donald Trump seen with Karen McDougal, Playboy’s playmate of the year in 1998: Google

The final payoff involved a $130,000 deal between Trump’s fixer, Michael Cohen, and Daniels in the final days of the campaign. The payment, which Cohen said he made at Trump’s direction, ensured that Daniels would not go public with her story of a sexual liaison with Trump.

While serving as president and commander in chief in the White House, Trump reimbursed Cohen in a series of monthly payments, constituting fraud. In internal records, Trump’s company falsely classified the repayment to Cohen as legal expenses, citing a retainer agreement. Yet there were no such expenses, the prosecutors say, and the retainer agreement was fiction.

The case marks the beginning of Trump’s journey, finally, through the criminal justice system. He faces three other criminal investigations related to accusations of undermining the election in Georgia and mishandling classified government documents, as well as engaging in a seditious conspiracy to incite an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021 to halt the peaceful transfer of power and stop the certification of the results of the 2020 election, an election Trump lost by millions of popular votes and substantial electoral votes.

Of course Trump has denied all wrongdoing — as well as any sexual encounter with Story Daniels — and has lashed out at Bragg with threatening and at times racist language, calling the district attorney, who is Black, an “animal” and summoning his followers to “PROTEST” his arrest, as the Times reported it. His rhetoric has been reminiscent of his posts and statements about the 2020 election in the run-up to the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Justice Merchan failed to issue a gag order in the case, as some had expected.

“Certainly the court would not impose a gag order,” he said.

“I don’t share your view that certain language and certain rhetoric is justified by frustration,” the judge cautioned Trump and his lawyers.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the far-right Georgia Republican who is closely aligned with Trump, joined a rally at the park across from the courthouse. Speaking through a megaphone, she denounced the Democratic Party, though her words were often drowned out by protesters — and counterprotesters — blowing whistles and chanting. After speaking for about five minutes, she was ushered out of the park by the police.

A sampling of the reaction on Facebook

A picture worth a thousand words on how many Americans feel about Trump, as posted and shared on Facebook: NAJ screen shot

“He’s prison bound on a train from Hell,” said Douglas Nimtz, one of my friends, fans and followers on Facebook.

The meme “Happy Indictment Day!” was going around all day.

“When Trump runs back to Mar-a-Lago he will do so as a criminal defendant,” posted Samual Campos.

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