Donald Trump has been in an uproar about many things during his criminal trial in Manhattan: the judge, the prosecutors, his relatives, the witnesses, the jurors and of course the media, for reporting on the sparse crowds outside.
Yet Trump, more than anyone, knows that his fellow New Yorkers are proudly indifferent to celebrity happenings. He should not be surprised that not much of a crowd forms at the courthouse where the Don has been in the dock. After all, if you've seen one mob boss trial in Gotham, you've seen them all.
opinion columnist
Jackie Calmes
Jackie Calmes brings a critical look to the national political scene. He has decades of experience covering the White House and Congress.
And Trump's trial, in which he is accused of fraudulently covering up hush money payments to Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election to keep voters in the dark about their alleged tryst, resembles nothing more than a prosecution of another organized crime figure, even if it is indeed unprecedented: the first criminal case against a former US president in history.
Lest anyone think that the quick-to-complain Trump might complain about being compared to gangsters, he draws the parallel himself, repeatedly.
“I have been accused more than Alphonse Capone,” Trump boasted at a conservative conference in February. (Fact Check: False, but it's close). He regularly and admiringly compares himself to old “Scarface” at MAGA rallies. “He was very tough, right?” tough guy trump he told attendees at the Iowa rally in October. Last year on social media, he called Capone “the late great gangster.” Excellent?
The trick could be fun if what underlies it were not so serious. As we approach the third week of The people of the state of New York against Donald J. Trump In that gloomy courtroom so far removed from the usual gilded opulence of the Don, it is downright disturbing to contemplate the similarities between his trial and that of a mafia boss.
How can this man be tied or ahead of President Biden in the polls? I still trust that Trump pay a political price over time, as the sleaze of it all sinks in.
Perhaps the most worrying of the comparisons with the mafia is this: jury safety It is a real concern. Their identities are secret to protect them from intimidation or harm, and one juror was dismissed after confessing to being afraid of her. Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance aware in
And it's not the first time for Trump. Jurors who in January discovered that he defamed writer E. Jean Carroll after she successfully sued him for sexual assault also had their identities withheld. After that civil trial, federal judge Lewis A. Kaplan warned them: “My advice to you is to never reveal that you were on this jury.” Creepy.
Former prosecutor and general counsel of the FBI, Andrew Weissmann, highlighted on MSNBC who had last heard a judge similarly warn some jurors decades ago, after they convicted Genovese crime family boss Vincent Gigante. “It's notable,” he added, “that that same warning was said regarding someone who was the president of the United States.”
It's tragic, actually. Trump once vowed to uphold the rule of law; Now he is making fun of it and putting innocent people and public officials at risk.
There is also concern for witnesses. Prosecutors will not share his witness list with Trump's defense team, an act that is usually routine.
“Mr. Trump has been tweeting about the witnesses. We're not going to tell you who the witnesses are,” said prosecutor Joshua Steinglass. “I can't blame them for that,” Judge Juan M. Merchan said, dismissing appeals by Trump's lawyer. Trump, Todd Blanche.
Trump's tweets earned him a gag order from Merchan against attacks on witnesses, as well as prosecutors, court staff, and the judge and district. Lawyer. The Alvin Bragg Families. These kinds of jokes are rare, except, of course, in the trials of rude gangsters.
The judge and prosecutors fear that Trump will intimidate those he targets and perhaps drive some unhinged supporter to violence. (Not that there isn't precedent for that!) The threats Trump stokes also explain much of the tight security around the courthouse.
One final mob connection: Trump's demeanor in court: the scowls captured in courtroom photographs and sketches, and his wiseguy murmurs reported by reporters in the courtroom. His model, Trump told biographer-turned-critic Tim O'Brien, is none other than murderous mobster John Gotti. “What I respected about Gotti,” O'Brien said MSNBC, “it was that he… sat there in court and looked at the jurors and looked at the judge with a big FU face.”
Trump's mafia model goes back a long time. His former attorney Michael Cohen, a key witness against him, saying For decades, Trump ran his family business “like a mobster would.” Cohen, who describes himself as a consigliere, admits to intimidating people and lying on Trump's behalf. “He doesn't give you orders,” Cohen told Congress in 2019. “He speaks in a code and I understand the code.” Trump responded to Cohen's testimony in mob language, naturally, tweeting that his former lawyer was “a rat.”
The trial's first witness, former National Enquirer editor David Pecker, testified last week about his cooperation with Trump in 2016 to “capture and kill” lewd Trump stories before that year's election. He repeatedly described Cohen as warning him that “the boss” would get mad if Pecker didn't hold up his end of the deal.
Mob mentality offers a particularly clear perspective on Trump's strategy. say in early 2016: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and I wouldn't lose any voters.” Eight years later, he is on trial for something less than murder, but the result is the same: he trusts that his voters don't care.
You are almost certainly right about most, if not all of them. But Trump needs more than just his MAGA loyalties to win. Let's hope that this trial, whatever the outcome, leaves everyone determined to never see a godfather in the White House again.
