Rousing a sleeping giant: Trump perks up as testimony begins in hush money trial
No one will ever accuse former President Donald Trump of being woke.
No one will ever accuse former President Donald Trump of being woke. But over a few hours Monday, he transformed from an uninterested observer at his own hush money trial — eyes shut at times — to a highly attentive defendant-in-chief.
Maybe it was the chance to stare the full jury in the eyes, which he did when the jurors sat in their box — against the wall to his right — and when they entered and exited the courtroom. Perhaps it was onetime ally and alleged co-conspirator David Pecker testifying against him from a dozen or so feet away. Or it could just have been that all the talk was finally about him — after jury selection and arguments over legal points last week.
Sitting in a wood-paneled courtroom in Manhattan seemingly designed to induce sleep — like a 1950s junior high school or any branch office of a state's Department of Motor Vehicles — Trump leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes at the start of the fifth day of his trial. But after New York state Judge Juan Merchan dispensed with rote procedural matters, including a long set of instructions for jurors, Trump began to focus more intently on the other key players in the room.
He stared straight ahead during prosecutor Matthew Colangelo's opening statement, willfully refusing to look at an adversary who previewed the case for the jury. Trump conspired with onetime "fixer" Michael Cohen and Pecker, the former tabloid publisher, to stop pornographic film actor Stormy Daniels from publicly accusing him of having had an affair with her, Colangelo alleged.
"Then he covered up … that scheme by lying in his New York business records,” Colangelo said, adding that the full set of actions amounted to "an illegal conspiracy to undermine the integrity of a presidential election" and "conceal that illegal election fraud.”
Rating: 5