Saturday, January 13, 2024

Keeping Expectations Low

Unfair! Also: surprise? Steamrolled? Trump ranted (quelle horreuers! Quelle surprise!) for the time allotted and stormed out of the room. After proving he doesn’t understand the least thing of what has happened since this suit was filed.

And you think that’s because Engoron blinked?

There was no jury to prejudice, and nothing Trump said or was going to say had any effect on the outcome. Correction: it could have. Trump’s rant could be cited in the final judgment, and it’s on the record, so it can be reviewed by the Appellate Division.
The court stared more or less impassively as Trump rambled on. When told the allotted time was up, Trump stormed out, content that he’d gotten his mic drop and won another news cycle. He then held a news conference and whined some more. 
But his little stunt won’t help him with the court as it deliberates on the $370 million fine requested by the AG. If anything, it will be cited as evidence of Trump’s continuing refusal to take responsibility for his crimes and likelihood of repeating them if allowed to retain control of his real estate holdings. And if so, that will be some very expensive trolling.
Yeah, there’s nothing in there that redounds to Trump’s credit, except  maybe to MAGAheads. Of course, the mic drop wasn’t in front of cameras, and there weren’t any cameras in the courthouse or outside it. Trump had to travel, and call his own press conference for the C-SPAN cameras. So! Much! Winning!

Those e-mail exchanges don’t help Trump a bit.
Justice Engoron This is very unfair, your Honor. You are not allowing President Trump, who has been wrongfully demeaned and belittled by an out of control, politically motivated Attorney General, to speak about the things that must be spoken about.
That’s not Trump; that’s his lawyer.  ETTD, and he seems to be contagious, to boot.

Personally, I think Engoron handled Trump very well. And Trump, being little more than a petulant child at this point, proved incapable of behaving like an adult in public. Which won’t help his appeal in New York, or his second trial for libel against Ms. Carroll.

I wouldn’t expect anything similar to Trump’s outburst in any case involving a jury. For one thing, Trump spoke only when spoken to. I doubt any judge in a jury trial will give Trump that opening. Well, maybe from Cannon in Florida; but otherwise… This is how Trump is his own worst enemy. He’s boxing himself in. Consider his new strategy of being the President when he told the courts in 2020 he was acting as a candidate. As Cheney said in Politico, the courts have already noticed this, too. Even without this foreknowledge, I don’t expect Trump to burst spontaneously into speech in the next trial. In fact, I think Carroll’s lawyer is trolling Trump this time, perhaps hoping Trump will blow a blood vessel in court and be bodily removed from the trial. Juries tend to side with the court enforcing order in the courtroom, and aren’t usually impressed with angry de. Especially angry, 77 year old defendants, behaving like unruly children.

But honestly, the spectacle of a former president being hauled out of court would be priceless. It would also teach a few more judges what to expect from Trump.
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