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GELFAND’S WORLD - As recently as yesterday evening, people were speculating about how Donald Trump would try to gain one more postponement of his criminal trial. Some suggested that he would feign illness and perhaps be brought into the court in a wheelchair. Others suggested that one of his lawyers would claim to be ill, or that Trump would fire all of his lawyers and ask for another six months to prepare. In fact, the Trump defense spent last week throwing out a flurry of motions in the attempt to delay things, all to no avail.
American justice 1, cynics 0, at least as of Monday morning.
There is still time for the equation to reverse itself -- if for instance the U.S. Supreme Court should issue a stay against the prosecution -- but the current situation suggests that the criminal justice system will continue on its own inertia, being the juggernaut that it is.
So today, the trial started. That, in and of itself, is the story. As the pundits and television announcers keep reminding us, it is the first time that an American president has been tried on criminal counts. But there is one other story, which is still a bit premature but would go something like this: "The triumph of justice, at last."
The story of Donald Trump is that he has spent a lifetime pushing the boundaries and, often enough, going well beyond them. The stories of how he cheated his contractors in real estate developments have been told again and again. His blunt force use of the office of the presidency to make money at his hotels and golf courses was clear and offensive. That's his story and his life.
But being president is something that draws attention, and criminal acts performed by a presidential candidate (or a president) should have consequences. It's the old line about chickens coming home to roost.
The story for Monday, April 15, 2024 is, I think, Trump's demeanor as he approached the doors of the courthouse. Here was a man who walked with an air of exhaustion, who had an expression of misery and depression, and whose makeup is starting to look old on him.
Is he already defeated? Time will tell, but viewers noticed that before entering the courtroom, he was barely able to dust off the same old lines where he blames some mysterious conspiracy executed by Joe Biden. (You know, the same Joe Biden who cannot otherwise function.) Perhaps Trump is just now starting to come to some level of compromise with the demands of being a criminal defendant. Up until now, he has treated it as a political game, but on Monday morning he was in court because the law demanded it of him, and he did not interrupt the court because the consequences of doing so begin to be real upon the start of a criminal trial.
Observers suggested that he seemed to have dozed during part of the proceedings, only to wake briefly when his attorney handed him a note. One wag even suggested that Trump's lawyers have made sure he is sedated, because otherwise he would act out rather than play the part of the criminal defendant.
Others pointed out that his latest look, interpreted by many as an attempt to intimidate, is that downward facing scowl that he showed while being booked down in Georgia so many months ago. If so, it isn't working very well.
As for the rest of us, we are told that gloating does not become people of breeding, but there seems to be a lot of gloating going on today. We'll see whether it lasts as the trial plays out.
One other thought which I'm borrowing from a long-ago criminal trial. The prosecutor was summing up his case to the jury, and brought up the idea that the defendant is presumed innocent. Yes, he explained, the defendant enjoys the presumption of innocence at the start of the trial, but the accumulation of evidence over the course of the trial can extinguish that presumption. By the end of the trial, the jury has the right (and obligation) to consider the evidence and determine guilt.
Donald Trump has, in effect, been arguing that he enjoys the presumption of innocence. That is the sum total of all his protestations that the prosecutors and the Democrats are out to get him. He has been ignoring the second part of the principle, that the people of New York get to present their case against him, and the jury gets to consider the evidence -- to weigh the facts and testimony against him vs whatever evidence he can offer in his own defense.
In challenging the right of the state of New York to try him for his alleged offenses, Donald Trump is challenging the very existence of the criminal justice system. It's likely to be an interesting month or two, a historical moment in which we will see whether the system continues to function, in spite of the worst efforts of a spoiled, dishonest man.
(Bob Gelfand writes on science, culture, and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected].)
