On Thursday, America witnessed history. A Manhattan jury found former President Donald Trump guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records, making him the first U.S. president ever convicted of a crime.
Except, of course, most of the country did not actually get to witness this moment: Only a very few members of the public, including press, were allowed into Judge Juan Merchan’s courtroom, and New York state court rules forbade any video or audio recording equipment.
It’s one thing to read a trial transcript. But it’s quite another to be in the room, watching and assessing the credibility, and perhaps volatility, of witnesses and lawyers in real time. Tone and cadence and mannerisms can all play a role in a jury’s decision, and these intangibles are hard to capture in black and white.
Only a very few members of the public, including press, were allowed into Judge Juan Merchan’s courtroom.
Several MSNBC and NBC reporters and analysts were able to experience the trial from inside the courthouse. And as we spend the next few days debriefing how exactly this historic verdict came to be, that experience should provide invaluable insights.
Michael Cohen’s witness testimony and cross-examination is a good example of why it’s important to be able to draw from first-person accounts. Trump’s former fixer was a remarkable witness in court. During both the prosecution’s direct questioning and the defense’s cross, he maintained his cool. Those in the courtroom can attest that he was respectful at all times, answering politely and calmly, even when goaded by defense counsel with personal questions about his wife and daughter.
The defense also did something smart: They played for Cohen, and thus the jury, a clip from his own podcast, ostensibly to show how much he hated Trump and wanted to see him convicted. (This hatred is something Cohen has readily admitted and indeed said on the podcast.) But the audio clip actually served another purpose. In it, Cohen’s tone was strikingly different from his court testimony; he was loud and angry to an almost manic degree. The effect was jarring, and it allowed the defense to argue that there were actually two Michael Cohens — the one in court and the “real” one from the podcast.
Obviously, this strategy didn’t ultimately sway the jury, but it was absolutely a compelling moment that needed to be personally experienced to fully understand.
On the other hand, one of the many things the prosecution did very well was utilize visual displays. The last exhibit used by Josh Steinglass, at the end of his five-hour summation, really needed to be seen to be understood in full. The display started as the completely blank page of a PowerPoint. Steinglass told the jury he was now going to go over with them all the direct proof against Trump, leaving aside the evidence from Cohen. As Steinglass talked about a piece of evidence, the PowerPoint would display the testimony or exhibit and fill that part of the page; by the end of the presentation, the entire page was filled with testimony and exhibits, like a lush tree.
Those are just two examples, but I think they illustrate why being in Merchan’s courtroom was such a unique experience. Those of us privileged enough to gain entry to that drab room at 100 Centre Street, with its hard wooden benches and oddly fluctuating thermostat, had a front-row seat to history. And we’ll never forget it.
For more eyewitness accounts from Andrew, Rachel Maddow and the MSNBC legal analyst team, watch “Prosecuting Donald Trump: Witness to History,” a new special airing Sunday, June 2, at 9 p.m. ET on MSNBC, and streaming on Peacock.
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