The transcript of the Miami arraignment
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I had a look at the transcript of the arraignment. You cannot make this up. The judge addresses the plaintiffs and defendants as “folks.” Folks this and folks that. Trump is bail-free, can keep his passport, he is clearly still a trusted man.
But most of the time is spent on the way the no-contact rule is handled. There is normally a strict rule forbidding contact between the defendant and any witness, or a defendant and his co-defendant. That is not practical, the Court says, since the co-defendant and possibly several witnesses are (still!) in Trump’s employ and their livelihood depends on him. So now the rule is changed, and they can have contact all they want but cannot speak about the trial. Just imagine this!
This conversation between judge and the lawyers of the plaintiff and the two defendants, about how to change the rules, happens during arraignment at a time when the list of witnesses is not yet disclosed.
Imagine Trump the moment he finds out the names of the witnesses in his entourage who possibly have ratted on him. Imagine Trump from now on spending time with them in his daily commotions. At least one of them, as we learned from the proceedings, is one of his lawyers. Trump’s wrath boils inside of him and he is already cooking up plans to finish them for good once he is out of jail, or if the lady he appointed as judge manages to return his favor and never lets him get locked up to start with.
He has many ways of giving them signs of his displeasure and threatening them in nonverbal ways. In fact, according to his long-time confidant, Michael Cohen, who has lately turned against him, Trump’s ingenuity lies in his use of mob-style non-verbal signs that leave no audio trace picked up by hidden microphones.
Like the plucking sign he purportedly used suggesting the tossing of documents too hot to keep in the folders.
And have a look at the appendix of the transcript. I love the way the indexing is done, which goes on for pages and pages: every single occurrence of any word that has been uttered during those historic 45 minutes is accounted for, such as “is” and “was” and “and” and “I”.
But the single most enjoyable thing is to see first hand in transcript that Trump is silent, his ever so flexible mouth shut up for the duration of the proceedings.
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