The former president of the United States is officially a defendant.
Ultimately, though, there was no mugshot, no handcuffs. Trump didn’t address the crowd on his way into the courthouse or as he left. A pro-Trump demonstration before the arraignment had more reporters than participants—Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia left almost as soon as she arrived.
Still, it was a historic day—the first time a former American president has been charged with a crime. As we learned when Indictment No. 71543-23—“The people of the State of New York against Donald J. Trump”—was unsealed, Trump faces 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, each a Class E felony that carries a four-year maximum sentence.
I made it inside. The defendant’s red tie was the first thing I saw coming down the courtroom’s center aisle, as I watched the CCTV feed from an overflow room in the courthouse. Trump looked sullen as he found his place at the defense table. He was sitting dead center, flanked on each side by a pair of lawyers. While they ruffled through papers and folders, Trump sat quietly, hands in his lap, shoulders sunk.
Just five photographers were permitted to capture the historic image. They were promptly escorted out of the courtroom before the arraignment began. No TV cameras, laptops, or audio-recording devices were allowed, per a ruling from Judge Juan Manuel Merchan. A scrum of journalists shifted in the long, creaky wooden benches and furiously scribbled notes and quotes on paper.
Today’s proceeding was, as one longtime city lawyer sitting in the back of the overflow room described it, mostly posturing. Assistant District Attorney Christopher Conroy argued that Trump’s recent inflammatory rhetoric was a threat to public safety. He referenced Trump’s social-media posts featuring phrases such as “death and destruction” and “World War III.” He described an image that the former president had shared of himself wielding a baseball bat at Bragg’s head.
