You have to open your eyes before the sun rises to see sitting on the bench who was – and, for many, continues to be – the ‘sun king’ of American politics. Every morning donald trump He becomes flesh and becomes vulnerable on the fifteenth floor of a New York courthouse. He is accused of committing crimes.
The queues to enter the trial – like everyone else, it is public – form from the first hour. The press devours the trial against Trump and dozens of reporters and citizens come every day to have space in this date with history, the first criminal trial against a former US president.
The advantage of getting up early is the spectacle of the first lights of the day turning orange the stone towers of the Brooklyn Bridge and the glass of the skyscrapers in southern Manhattan. Everything is darker when you reach Collect Pond Park, a square sandwiched between administrative buildings. One of them, the New York County Criminal Courts Building. An ‘art-deco’ mammoth, with the stone of the façade worn out. Pure Gotham.
The sidewalk in front is taken over by television crews, who mark out their territory with duct tape. It’s half past six in the morning and the line to enter is already formed. Except for a handful of places for citizens, the assistants for the courtroom are already distributed by the court authorities to the main media. There are a hundred more seats, also highly desired, to follow the trial in an adjoining room. Those are the ones that are played every morning.
The first in line are professional ‘strainers’. They line up for money for high-class journalists who want to save themselves an early morning. The first of them wears an eye patch. He does not want to say his name or what he charges for waiting in line. “Don’t worry, you’ll get in safely today,” he says, and points his finger at the end of the line, about thirty people further away. The vast majority are journalists. There are eye bags and plastic coffee cups.
Some citizens queue to try to access an annex room to follow the trial
J. Ansorena
“I had nothing to do today and I thought it would be interesting to see this,” says Liam, a boy who has just finished high school. He will vote for the first time next November and today he will see on the bench the presidential candidate of one of the two major parties of the leading world power. “It’s something historic.”
But the weight of history is not the only reason why Liam, the rest of the curious and the legion of journalists have gotten up early. It’s also because it’s the only way to see it. This trial is not broadcast on television, as is the case in many jurisdictions. The only way to follow it live is to come early and get in line.
At those hours of the morning, the myth of the city that never sleeps is destroyed again. He’s barely stretching. You hear more birds than cars. In a moment, everything is occupied by the sound of a bell. It is tied around his waist by a disheveled man with gray hair and beard. With each step, the cymbel strikes. He carries a crucifix in his hand. On his back, a sign with the legend: ‘The three best presidents in history: George Washington, John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Donald Trump. He is one of the many eccentric characters who appear in Trump’s entourage. He is alone in this square, divided by fences into two areas, one for Trump supporters, the other for the opponents. In the most shocking episode so far in the trial, a man burned himself to death here, after distributing conspiratorial leaflets. The man with the bell doesn’t want to talk. He just raises the crucifix in the direction of the courthouse, where Trump is about to arrive.
Trump supporter holds up crucifix
J. Ansorena
Around eight thirty in the morning, the wait is over. The court police organize the line and distribute some cards that will be the safe passage for everyone who has passed the cut.
The agents herd journalists and citizens to cross the street, avoid the tangle of scaffolding that surrounds the court, pass two security checkpoints and reach the trial floor. The interior is how one would imagine an official building of a decaying Soviet republic. Grand halls, with murals on the ceilings, but without polish. Bare counters, rusty fences in the middle of the hallways, industrial fans stowed away. An elevator that takes a lifetime to reach the fifteenth floor.
That is the maximum security area of the court. Here the treatment is almost penitentiary. Once in the room, you can only leave with permission from the agents. Eating and drinking -except water- is prohibited. Taking images or recording with your cell phone means immediate expulsion and a closed door for the rest of the trial.
That deal goes to Trump too. The New York billionaire, flattered to the extreme where he goes, leader of a movement that is almost a cult, which moves between the tinsel of the Trump Tower and his mansion in Florida, with a popularity in a large part of the conservative electorate that has not diminished for the assault on the Capitol or for his accusations, he is no longer the king here. The judge, Juan Merchan, rules here.
Trump supporters, like every day, gather in front of the New York Supreme Court
J. Ansorena
Both appear in the room and on the closed-circuit screen in the annex after half-past nine in the morning. As much as it is repeated every morning and as much as it is the weakest trial that Trump faces – falsification of financial documents to hide payments to a porn actress to silence their romance before the 2016 elections – the image is shocking: the man who had access to the red button – and who will have it again if he wins in November – tried for the commission of crimes. Dwarfed, limited and humiliated. Walking through the same corridors where traffickers and murderers parade.
But nothing should infuriate Trump more than having to keep quiet and obey the judge for six or seven hours every day, four days a week, for seven or eight weeks. The almighty Trump cannot drink a Diet Coke – his favorite drink – from him, nor respond to the judge, nor react, nor go to the bathroom when the almost 78-year-old presidential prostate requires it. Only when Merchan allows it.
At the same time, the army of journalists follows each of their reactions in detail. A reporter sees her close her eyes and publishes that she has fallen asleep. Others record every gesture: he crosses his arms, tilts his head, sighs. More than anything, he seems very bored.
Among those who decipher the former president is Josh Cochran, an illustrator who gets up every day at four-thirty in the morning, takes his bicycle and tries to be in the front row. His drawings and those of other illustrators also serve to tell the story, the judge only allows a couple of photographs at the beginning of the sessions. “It’s fascinating to portray everything that happens,” he says. He claims that he would believe it would be easy to portray Trump, perhaps the most well-known face in the world. But it is not like that: “His expression of him is always half one thing and half another.”
The silence in the room is sepulchral. It is only broken by keyboards slammed by journalists when the judge, the parties or the witnesses say something interesting. And there is a lot in this trial, between porn actresses, Playboy models and unscrupulous muñidores.
Gregory Gold, a Denver lawyer who traveled to New York to follow the trial
J. Ansorena
“There’s nothing better than coming here, it’s the best show right now in New York,” says Gregory Gold, a lawyer who has come from Denver (Colorado) without taking off his hat and cowboy boots. “This is better than going to see ‘Les Misérables.'”
