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MANHATTAN COURTROOM DESTROYS THE TRUMP MYSTIQUE  
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Symone D. Sanders-Townsend
April 26, 2024
MSNBC
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_ Just as the Wizard of Oz tried desperately to distract Dorothy and
her friends when he was revealed, Trump and his lawyers are trying
hard to keep the public from looking at the man behind the curtain. _

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On opening night
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the Republican National Convention in 2016, Donald Trump came out
onstage like a pro wrestler, amid clouds from a smoke machine and
dramatic shadows.

It was the kind of image he likes to project of himself: grandiose and
imposing, like the floating head of the Great and Powerful Oz ordering
Dorothy to bring him the broomstick of the Wicked Witch.

But eight years later, the real Trump has been revealed before the
world in a courtroom in lower Manhattan. Whether he was sitting in the
courtroom or standing outside of it amid bad fluorescent lighting, he
looked small, diminished and the very opposite of presidential.

And just as the Wizard of Oz tried desperately to distract Dorothy and
her friends when he was revealed, Trump and his lawyers are trying
hard to keep the public from looking at the man behind the curtain.

“We will call him ‘President Trump’ out of respect for the
office that he held from 2017 to 2021,” his lawyer Todd
Blanche said during opening statements this week
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“And as everybody knows, it’s the office he’s running for right
now."

Trump's lawyers can use whatever title they want, but there is nothing
presidential about what’s unfolding in that courtroom.

Trump’s lawyers can use whatever title they want, but there is
nothing presidential about what’s unfolding in that courtroom. Make
no mistake, Trump’s current circumstances define him. The fact that
he has spent every day court has been in session at the courthouse is
the physical representation that Trump is not special. He is not above
reproach and not above the law. His fate, like the fate of every other
defendant in a jury trial, is in the hands of his fellow citizens.

The case, too, has diminished Trump. Focusing on his actions during
the 2016 election, prosecutors have presented him as a small man,
desperate to protect his reputation, colluding with the editors of a
tabloid newspaper to spread smears about his opponents and pay off
anyone who might share the truth about him.

The ex-president’s longtime friend, former National Enquirer
publisher David Pecker, has already proved to be a star witness in
this trial. In court testimony, Pecker detailed the steps he took to
fabricate actual fake news against Trump’s political opponents and
“catch and kill” damaging allegations against Trump during the
2016 election.

‘Our girl Karen’: David Pecker testifies discussing Karen McDougal
with Trump in White House 
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The details have truly been stunning. I lived and worked through the
2016 presidential election, and even I learned new things when I read
Pecker’s testimony.

I had to read it because — to the detriment of the American voters,
there are no cameras or microphones to allow them to see and hear the
testimony from inside the courtroom. That’s left the public relying
on the exceptional journalists sitting inside to paint a picture of
the ongoing revelations. That picture is far more damning than even
the allegations that Trump cheated on his wife by having a one-night
stand with an adult-film actor. (Trump has denied the affair and
pleaded not guilty in the case.)

During opening statements, the Manhattan district attorney’s office
argued that the case was actually about “election fraud, pure and
simple.” The prosecution then described the case to the jury as an
orchestrated criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election
by paying people to stay silent about stories that might damage one of
the two major candidates’ reputations.

It's not the only case revolving around Trump's disgraceful approach
to democratic elections, either.

It’s not the only case revolving around Trump’s disgraceful
approach to democratic elections, either.

In the federal election interference case against Trump, special
counsel Jack Smith similarly accused Trump of defrauding the country
he once led. And in the Fulton County, Georgia, election interference
case against Trump and his co-defendants, District Attorney Fani
Willis described the sprawling RICO case as a plot to steal the 2020
election. (Trump has pleaded not guilty in both cases.)

The allegations in these cases spell out the brazen ways Trump has
plotted to secure and hold on to power. They are not a coincidence,
they are a pattern, and one that he will keep attempting in his third
run for the White House this year.

Trump may try, just as the Wizard of Oz desperately pushed buttons and
pulled levers, to maintain his failing facade before finally admitting
that he was nothing more than a humbug.

_Symone D. Sanders-Townsend is an author and a co-host of "The
Weekend," which airs Saturdays and Sundays at 8 a.m. ET on MSNBC. She
is a former deputy assistant to President Joe Biden and a former
senior adviser to and chief spokesperson for Vice President Kamala
Harris._

* Donald Trump
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* Election interference
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* hush money indictment
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* Alvin Bragg
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