This just came out of the blue from the Washington Post. The transcript of Tuesday’s hush money trial indicates that Justice Juan Merchan had a sidebar with Todd Blanche wherein he told the lawyer to get his client under control. Donald Trump was “shaking his head” and “cursing audibly” when Stormy Daniels was on the stand and that amounts to witness intimidation. Sweet Jesus. This man is begging to see the inside of a jail cell.
“I understand that your client is upset at this point,” Merchan said to the defense attorney, according to the transcript, “but he is cursing audibly and he is shaking his head visually and that’s contemptuous. It has the potential to intimidate the witness and the jury can see that.”
Blanche assured the judge he would speak to Trump.
“I am speaking to you here at the bench because I don’t want to embarrass him,” Merchan said. “You need to speak to him. I won’t tolerate that.”
The exchange punctuated a day of rage — sometimes whispered from the defense table, sometimes declared loudly by Daniels from the witness stand.
Here are a few other tidbits. This is interesting stuff. I wonder if a lot of the reporters present didn’t catch this level of detail or simply didn’t want to go out on a limb before the transcript was released.
“That’s when I had that moment when I felt like the room spun in full motion. And I felt the blood leave my hands and my feet, almost like if you stand up too fast,” she testified. Trump “stood up between me and the door, not in a threatening manner,” though she said she felt an imbalance of power, particularly with Trump’s security guard outside.
“I think I blacked out,” Daniels said, adding that there were many details she didn’t remember but insisting that she wasn’t drugged or drunk.
Daniels has been criticized for implying that the sex was not consensual. I think it’s clear that the sex was technically consensual but it was not enthusiastic. I do think it’s intriguing that it’s now being reported that Trump was muttering audibly enough for the judge to hear at the front of the court and if the judge heard, I wonder what the jury heard?
This is not a good look for Donald Trump, who would have the world believe he’s some kind of a he-man who woos all women with his charisma and charm. Not on this occasion, in any event. But this is the new abnormal of American politics, all of America glued to the dalliances of this immoral trust fund baby. This is who we are in 2024. And if you’re an 18 year old, like Trump’s youngest son, things have been this way since you were nine.
I’m imagining a thought experiment in which I had a conversation with political observers from decades past. “Well, Americans elected a television personality to the nation’s highest office,” I’d say, “and after he was thrown out of office for being a corrupt and incompetent failure, he was accused of several dozen felonies, including falsifying business records related to the hush-money payments he made to a porn star he allegedly had sex with while cheating on his third wife.”
“Oh,” I’d add, “and this is barely in the top 10 of the biggest scandals surrounding the former president.”
It’s at this point that I’d wait for the inevitable questions about whether social conservatives and evangelicals consider the defendant one of the biggest villains in modern American life, leading me to explain, “Actually, they revere him with borderline-religious reverence.”
The New York Times had an interesting report the other day on Trump’s youngest supporters, many of whom will be voting in their first elections this year, who don’t quite remember what American politics was like before.
The presumptive GOP nominee, the article noted, represents “the normal politics of their childhood.”
For these young adults, folly has become normal. They’ve grown accustomed to a toxic and debased political environment in which absurdities are the background noise of their civic lives, to the point that they’re not even recognized as ludicrous.
But the trouble is, it’s not just young adults. Too much of the political world has simply become acclimated to truly ridiculous circumstances — such as those unfolding today in a Manhattan courtroom. Many have gotten so used to Trumpified politics that it becomes easy to lose sight of the fact that we’re confronted, on a daily basis, with insanity that would’ve been unthinkable in the recent past.
It’s worth pausing from time to time to realize not only that American politics hasn’t always been like this, but also that it doesn’t have to remain this way. Breaking free of a bizarre timeline is a matter of will. It can start with realizing that the broader context surrounding Trump’s trial reflects political madness.
This is the plain fact of the matter. That we are even here discussing this, shows how crazy everything has gotten.
WTF? Don’t want to “embarrass him”? Why the hell not? Obviously threatening punishment and even fining hasn’t stopped this sh*t. Why not TRY embarrassing his dumb ass. Maybe if he looks the fool often enough he’ll keep his f*cking mouth shut and his damned fingers off of his f*cking phone.
Getting real f*cking tired of all the pussy footing around this fat-assed moron. The m.f. BROKE THE F*CKING LAW-when he threatened witnesses, ESPECIALLY witnesses, so throw his mother-f*cking ass in jail and leave him there until the conclusion of his trial. Bet that shuts that disgusting pie hole of his in a heartbeat.
Nowhere in U.S. law is it ever written these laws apply to everyone but the wealthy, famous, etc. In fact, law enforcement is having the law brought to bear on them. Government officials in performing their duties are the exception and even then there are LIMITS. Laws apply equally to everyone and it is about f*cking time this country applied the law equally. If Joe Blow the Rag-man is punished by being placed in a jail cell for threatening witnesses (and remember, the mango moron has threatened witnesses-plural), then regardless of whatever the f*ck status you hold for whatever weak-assed reason you hold that status YOUR ASS GOES TO JAIL.
“Daniels has been criticized for implying that the sex was not consensual. I think it’s clear that the sex was technically consensual but it was not enthusiastic.”
Stormy stated she “felt an imbalance of power.” THAT IS NOT CONSENT. And, laws on consent demand that BOTH parties be agreeable to the situation AT ALL TIMES. “No means no,” after all. If a battered woman agrees to have sex to keep her abusive partner from beating her, is that “consent?” That’s COERCION.
It’s going to backfire on him. After all the mumbling and swearing the jury is going to expect him to challenge her testimony by testifying. If he doesn’t take the stand they’re going to conclude he’s either a coward or guilty, or quite possibly both.
He is definitely both!
“FOR THESE YOUNG ADULTS, FOLLY HAS BECOME NORMAL. THEY’VE GROWN ACCUSTOMED TO A TOXIC AND DEBASED POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT IN WHICH ABSURDITIES ARE THE BACKGROUND NOISE OF THEIR CIVIC LIVES, TO THE POINT THAT THEY’RE NOT EVEN RECOGNIZED AS LUDICROUS.”
Folly has been normal for a long time, Kennedy with Marylyn, other kennedy and chappaquiddick, Johnson and Vietnam, Nixon, Ford’s wife has a treatment center named after her. Reagan, astrologists, divorced. Bush I, handsy, Clinton, Bush II Cocaine, now trump. We have long known our presidents are fallible people going back to Washington and Jefferson. Stuff was covered up in the past, but most of them have serious issues. wake up young people, we have lived with this for a long time. I left out Carter, Obama and Biden, because they the three that haven’t really had any real scandals other than Billy Beer, Tan suits and a biting dog. mis dos centavos