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A succession of newly freed figures emerged with drooping trousers and flopping shoe tongues from the arraignment part at Manhattan criminal court on Tuesday morning.
That was just part of the usual routine there. Belts and shoelaces are confiscated at the time of arrest in New York City and remain at the precinct when a prisoner is transported downtown for booking and arraignment. Prisoners who are released after arraignment must still make their way to a stationhouse to reclaim their property. One accused shoplifter who prepared to head off while holding up his pants with both hands pronounced Tuesday a day like any other.
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“There’s just more people,” he said.
He was referring to a pop-up circus of media folks, protesters, and gawkers across the street from the courthouse. He and the other beltless, laceless ones gazed at the scene with eyes gone red and bleary during a long night in the holding cells. None of them chose to stay and witness the arrival of the first former president to be charged with a crime. They had themselves just been arraigned and they had personal property to reclaim. They scuffled on their way through a gorgeous day.
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The perfect blue sky and sunshine were too much like the morning of 9/11, when two jetliners flew into the World Trade Center just a few blocks downtown. That day had been made sacred by the bravery of the first responders risking all to save the innocent. Those who died included several court officers who rushed to the scene from this very building.
This day was made profane by everyone involved, Trump foremost among them. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Rep. George Santos put in appearances long enough to make it extra-tawdry. Former Florida Rep. Anthony Sabatini—the current Lake County GOP chair—had left his 16-day-old first child to drive to New York and he was not alone in saying the indictment would end up helping Trump.
“I think it’s Donald Trump’s moment,” Sabatini declared.
That made the 9/11-like sunshine suddenly intolerable if you had been at the World Trade Center that morning two decades ago and remembered Trump's many lies about the “hundreds of friends” he supposedly lost and the help he claimed to give in the aftermath but in fact never did. Trump’s response to the collapse of the Twin Towers and the death of thousands was to brag that he now owned the tallest building downtown.
Thankfully, escape from the Trump songs and chants was just around the block in a park behind the court building. Groups of Chinatown residents played mahjongg and cards in front of a statue of Sun Yat-sen, the first president of the Republic of China and a leader who seems to have been actually worth respecting.
A number of homeless people sat on benches, among them William Diaz, who served 15 years for manslaughter. He offered a succinct opinion of Trump.
“He’s a piece of shit,” Diaz said.
But that does not mean he approves of the case being brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
“Political,” Diaz said.
Diaz asked aloud why Bragg was indicting Trump now, when the case could have been brought years ago. And this question came from a Trump despiser who proudly declares himself a Democrat. Similar grumblings were heard everywhere around the courthouse.
At 1:20 p.m., Trump arrived in a motorcade that passed in front of the federal courthouse on Pearl Street where Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to facilitating the pay-off to former porn star Stormy Daniels. Cohen went to prison, but the feds never brought a case against Trump.
But Bragg had now brought a state case centered on those same pay-offs. The motorcade swung around to the entrance to the Manhattan District Attorney's office, which is at the downtown end of the Manhattan criminal court building. Trump was riding alone in the second of five black SUVs. NYPD snipers on the roof of a building across the street kept watch as he stepped out and strode inside. Several gawkers at the police barricades got a glimpse of the top of his head.
“I saw the orange hair!” somebody exclaimed.
Just down the street and around the corner, the New York City Marriage Bureau was continuing to hold civil ceremonies for couples who were lined up in the sunshine. They included 27-year-old Chandler Dean and 28-year-old Carolina Trevini of Brooklyn. Dean told The Daily Beast that they had not planned on getting married the same day Trump was arraigned, but he was able to take a positive view of it.
“I think that the president should be held accountable to the law just like any other citizen,” he said. “I think it is really heartening.”
A pair of NYPD helicopters hovered overhead as Trump was being fingerprinted and arraigned up in the DA investigators’ office. He was one prisoner who did not have to surrender his belt and shoelaces or sit in a holding cell before being brought in front of a judge.
By 3:30 p.m., Trump had pleaded not guilty and returned to the black SUV. The motorcade carried him back out past the federal courthouse where the case belonged. Three vocal Trump supporters stood neary, one a woman wearing an American flag as a skirt.
“We love you President Trump!” she called out.
With that, Trump was gone, a divisive and mendacious fiend who left us with an historic moment on a sunny day that profanes the one from a morning when we were at our unified best.
The arraignment part had briefly halted for lunch and Trump’s visit, but not before Judge Michael Ryan remanded a prisoner who sounded like he might fit right in on Trump Social.
“Suck my dick,” the prisoner told the judge. “Suck my dick you f----t!”
A police officer assigned to the courts stepped up.
“You going to hit me again?” the prisoner asked.
“Not yet,” the cop said
As the arraignments continued after Trump’s departure, a woman in a black coat stepped up. The prosecutor read aloud a police report of what the woman said when she was arrested.
“I didn’t do anything.”
Trump had just said much the same. And proceedings in this same building will test the proclaimed innocence of them and everyone else who pleaded not guilty at arraignment on that splendid Tuesday.
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