The 12 members of the jury and their six alternates sat rapt with attention. For 45 minutes they listened to the lead prosecutor lay out the case against former President Donald Trump.
Matthew Colangelo delivered all the drama of a B-movie plot as he took them on a wild ride from a shady Trump Tower ‘catch and kill’ meeting to the extraordinary image of President Trump paying a loyal fixer by signing checks inside the White House, with a cast that included muckraking journalists, a now-disbarred lawyer who recorded his phone calls and a porn star.
Only one person inside courtroom 1530 looked unimpressed: The star of the show.
Trump leaned back in his chair, shoulders slumped at times. He did not look once at the jury as the case against him was laid out.
You did not need to be a body language expert to read ‘nothing to see here’ in his posture.
Donald Trump showed almost no reaction as he listened to prosecutors deliver their opening statement. He ignored the lurid detail and simply shook his head when prosecutor Matthew Colangelo urged the jury to listen to the evidence and find the defendant guilty
Trump sits between his lead defense attorney Todd Blanche (left) and Emil Bove on Monday
He came to life only as Colangelo reached his conclusion.
‘Tune out the noise,’ the prosecutor implored the jury (having showered the courtroom with all manner of salacious nuggets and shiny titbits) and find the defendant guilty of 34 counts of business fraud.
At that, Trump slowly shook his head from side to side.
With the jury sworn in, Monday was the first day proper of Trump’s criminal trial, the first time a former president has sat in court to hear the full case against him.
The prosecution holds that the matter is about more than falsified business records, ledger entries and checks. The alleged crimes were committed to stop damaging information about an affair with porn star Stormy Daniels reaching the public ahead of the 2016 election–in other words that it amounts to election interference.
Trump has denied the charges. And his lawyers, in their opening statement, said there was no crime in signing a bunch of checks, nor was there even a crime in working to win an election.
‘I have a spoiler alert,’ said lead lawyer Todd Blanche. ‘There’s nothing wrong with trying to influence an election. It’s called democracy.’
The case was long considered the weakest of the four facing Trump. It may now be the most pivotal as the only one to be heard before November’s election.
The courtroom filled Monday morning with six rows of reporters adding a crackle of anticipation to proceedings despite the scratched wooden benches and tired beige floor tiles. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow was among the journalists clutching a coveted yellow ticket.
Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo kept the jury’s attention with an extraordinary tale of election interference that took in locations including Trump Tower and the White House
Afterwards, Trump spoke to journalists in the court hallway to say the trial was going ‘very well’
Trump, his head slightly bowed, led in his retinue of lawyers, taking up their places at the front of the court a little before 9:30am. Campaign aides Jason Miller and Karoline Leavitt sat at the back of the room.
First, there were scheduling and legal questions to be settled before the jurors could take their seats.
One juror had pre-curtain qualms about taking part in such a high-profile case and needed to be quietly spoken to behind the scenes. Another had an emergency dental appointment in the afternoon, necessitating an early end to the day’s proceedings.
Then there were the legal questions. Most notably, if Trump were to take the stand, could he be cross-examined about some of the other cases against him.
Judge Juan M. Merchan read his ruling, saying that he could be quizzed about some cases but not others.
And as Merchan ruled that prosecutors could ask him about recent civil business fraud trial, after which he was banned from being a director of New York companies for three years, Trump again made his feelings clear, shaking his head.
Then the jury was brought in, filling the 18 seats in the jury box. A bespectacled young woman looked nervously at the assembled ranks of Press.
It was Colangelo’s stage then, setting out how the case was built on a conspiracy.
Courtroom 1530 was filled with journalists, occupying most of the scratched benches
David Pecker, the media boss who took the stand later in the day. He was the owner of National Enquirer and allegedly joined a ‘catch and kill’ scheme to help Trump’s 2016 campaign
Key witness Michael Cohen who is Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer
‘Donald Trump orchestrated a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 election,’ he said. ‘Then he covered up that criminal conspiracy by lying in his New York business records by lying over and over again.’
The jurors sat intently focused on his words as Colangelo described how the stage was set by a meeting at Trump Tower soon after Trump came down its famous golden escalator to declare his candidacy in June 2015.
His faithful fixer Michael Cohen was there, along with David Pecker, then owner of National Enquirer.
There they agreed that Pecker’s stable of tabloid magazines and army of reporters would become the ‘eyes and ears,’ of the campaign, alleged Colangelo, sniffing out any hint of scandal, before killing off negative stories, publishing hit pieces on opponents and running cover stories that would boost Trump.
It may have been dotted with legalese, but the opening statement was delivered with the sort of lurid detail guaranteed to keep his audience engrossed.
The pivotal moment, he said, came just after the infamous release of the Access Hollywood tape, when Trump was caught on a hot mic describing how his celebrity status allowed him to have his way with women.
Colangelo read the whole, awkward transcript, finishing with: ‘Grab ’em by the p****, you can do anything,’ only his words were not asterisked in court.
Trump sat motionless, staring ahead.
It was then, only a month before the election, and with Trump’s backers withdrawing endorsements, said Colangelo, that Stormy Daniels began to get traction with an old tale of an affair with the Republican candidate.
Trump and Stormy Daniels, the adult movie star at the center of the case
‘So at Trump’s direction … Cohen negotiated a deal … to prevent American voters learning about the affair before the election.’
She was paid $130,000 for her silence by Cohen, who was then reimbursed the following year, via the doctored business records, according to prosecutors.
This was not a case of a politician trying to avoid negative headlines,
‘No politician likes bad press,’ he said, adding that evidence at trial would show this was not just a case of political spin. ‘ This was a planned, coordinated … conspiracy to get Trump elected by silencing people with something bad to say about him.
‘It was election fraud, pure and simple.’
He even managed to weave the White House into the tale, describing how it was not until the following year, and with Trump now in office, that he signed the checks to repay Cohen.
The tale may have been a blockbuster, but it was set out in decidedly drab settings on the 15th floor of the courthouse.
Trump occasionally closed his eyes as the prosecution outlined their case
The day ended early for the Passover holiday and to allow a juror to go the dentist
A notice board displayed peeling reminders of what to do in the event of an ‘active shooter.’ And bundles of cables routed along the wall showed how modern speakers and video screens had been installed years after the decor had been updated
Quite what Natalie Harp’s glamorous assistant Natalie Harp made of it is anyone’s guess. She is more normally pictured riding Trump’s golf cart in Palm Beach, carrying his mobile phone, rather than sitting in the second row at Manhattan criminal court
The attire of the jury also gave things away. Several took their seats wearing T-shirts only to appear after a recess in hoodies and jackets in a sign of the drafty conditions.
When it came time for the defense to deliver its opening statement, lead lawyer Todd Blanche began by explaining Trump’s special status.
He said the defense team would refer to their client as ‘President Trump’ out of respect. ‘He earned that title,’ he said, as the defendant turned his body to the right to watch him.
But Blanche continued: ‘He’s a man. He’s a husband. He’s a father. He’s a person just like you and just like me.’
None of Trump’s family was with him in court, just lawyers and campaign aides.
Blanche then set about discrediting two of the key witnesses, Daniels and Cohen, with arguments that triggered moments of drama.
Twelve jurors were seated in the Trump hush money trial by the end of last week
‘I expect that you will learn that when Daniels threatened to go public with her false claim about a sexual encounter, it was almost an effort to extort President Trump,’ he said.
That brought an objection from prosecutors, which Judge Merchan upheld, before another objection saw him call both sides up to his bench for a talking to.
The same happened again moments later when the defense suggested twice that Cohen (who was sentenced to three years in prison for various counts of tax fraud, campaign finance violations and lying to Congress) had lied.
‘He has a goal—an obsession—with getting Trump,’ said Blanche.
The defense strategy was clear: Discredit Cohen and Daniels, while arguing that there is nothing sinister or even unusual in politicians trying to kill negative stories. Take all that away, and the 34 charges against Trump have no place in a court of law.
‘The 34 counts, ladies and gentlemen, are really just pieces of paper,’ is how Blanche put it. There is nothing illegal in signing checks.
