The line for reporters seeking to be in the courtroom for Donald J. Trump’s arraignment in Manhattan started forming at 2 p.m. on Monday, more than a day before the former president was scheduled to face a judge in a case centered on hush-money payments.
One of those who got in was Jonah Bromwich, a criminal justice correspondent for The Times.
He tells us what it was like inside the courthouse as Mr. Trump was charged with 34 felony counts.
Guest: Jonah E. Bromwich, a criminal justice correspondent for The New York Times.
Background reading:
- Trump pleaded not guilty, then sat quietly as lawyers sparred.
- The former president is accused of orchestrating a hush-money scheme to pave his path to the presidency and then covering it up from the White House.
For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
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orient about absolute. It is ten twenty. I am Tuesday April. Fourth and you
standing at the bottom of what
essentially a small neighbourhood of legal buildings in court houses that, if you ve ever watched a procedural
on tv. You recognize it feels like
We episode a sort of law and order has some seen shot at the steps.
these court houses- and this is where history is going to
made today, and this is where Donald trump is gonna show up in his mind
came with a secret service get.
And surrender himself to the manhattan district attorney
This is where a few hours later, donald trump,
is going to be arranged in court.
charges are going to be read to him. He's gonna have to enter a plea. That's the moment, everyone's waiting. In the meantime, people have gathered across the street from the courthouse to protest. His indictment, and this impending arraignment, as well as expressed support for it and say that it needs to abbott, and that is
We had enough, let's go the ok, so this is interesting. The metal fences that are separating the two sides, I think we're on the trump side on the other side, is
Opponents are definitely more reporters and tourists here,
Then there are from supported.
not entirely surprising. We are in manhattan, the it's very, very complex. It's hard to put it into. This sounds like the words that will draw. The crowd is that trump should never have been in that office time. It's long time coming while you're here, because they were arresting donald trump for nothing, it's unjust.
I think this is pretty ridiculous and it's pretty obviously a political hit job. The celebration is finally finally there's some accountability, you're going as a celebration, the way just because there's accountability,
and having a hard time. By doing that, I support prison,
I think if the climate energy was committed is homeless, didn't hurt anybody
as we would wish,
the warriors, I can't say too much by. I can tell that people get away with much worse things in the city all the time. You know exactly what your shirt says. It says arrest chat and that is happening today:
please, god has just made the turn here. There's the motorcade has arrived from new york times. I Michael borrow. This is a daily
Ok, very as I can see the back, it turns out today what it was like as Donald trump those charged with thirty
four felony cows promise now in the building. He is threatening us
This is very, very real right now
in italy right here. At this quarter of history and lower banana, we are entering uncharted territory. My colleague junior bromwich.
Takes us inside the courthouse was arraigned. It's Wednesday April gonna just to begin. How did you even
yet inside discordant, because as I left birmingham for the day, I noticed all these reporters, some of them very famous tb personalities,
waiting in a lie. Looking really crestfallen because they hadn't gotten into the scoreboard.
man, I heard
even know where to begin so we understood that the line was going to work in a certain
where people were going to line up there, they're gonna be given numbers and then
gonna get in the courtroom based on those numbers that turned
To be totally wrong so
first assumption we made that was wrong was that the line would stop.
Sometime overnight, but kind of early
tuesday morning. The lion started at two p m on
There will be no more than twenty four hours before the arrangement was catch report. This is the line of journalists to get in the courtroom to see Donald trump period.
right, and we just got a little bit lucky in that. I knew that there was supposed to be a line forming at one point: MIKE
sean because he was down at the scene, and I said John just keep. It
I am for any lines that seem to be forming. I don't think it all happened, but to see what
can do so?
said, there's a line. There's three people in it. I'm number four and seven.
We had him in another of our colleagues. Niche weber joined him, so he had spots number four number, seven in line and we coordinated reporters throughout the night- and I got there shortly before
or seven, so somebody spent the night in that line. For you, multiple people spent the night in line for us,
this is Jonah Bromwich a court reporter with the new york times now. I can see the tents in the line of journalists who have been waiting since yesterday afternoon, so I showed up and tuesday I took
for brittany, kriegstein spot. She gave me her beach chair, which I later carried into the court house alright, so I'm at the front of the line. Now, thanks to brittany and jason and five or six other colleagues who have been standing here in the meantime, helicopters are circling overhead and the sun is coming
up over the federal court building to the south and the tension in the line is just growing because
you dont know whether you gonna get in.
Finally, court officers are now coming and checking the line. It seems as if we're about to get our tickets, this group of
officers descends out of nowhere and they start handing out these tickets, and there are three ticket color,
there's green, there's, yellow and there's white. I've got my ticket, which is essentially the equivalent of the golden taken into this room, and it felt like getting a golden ticket
right, and when do you actually lay eyes on donald trump, so we get into the
What and then I walk into this fifteen floor courtroom and on the first early to walk in which was kind of remarkable and just look at the draw really
and sit down and wait, do you know why I'm sitting
we're room? So obviously I can't see anything, but we do here. These faint cheers in the crowd outside and so
what we understood at. That point is ok. He said,
who made his way into the building.
And then we know that he made his way up to the fifteen floor and the prosecutors come in and the defence came in and then Donald trump walked into the court room and I'm so you
seeing donald trump on tv or in his social media photo just go
seeming larger than life right? And in that moment what I see as someone who who looks like a criminal defendant, he looks his age. He looks
irish. He looks a little bit apprehensive. He really felt human and, despite the court officers, despite all the hubbub just seeing him, he looked significantly more normal.
Then I would have expected them to and understand what you're saying from yours
watching them on tv and rise a little diminished
a hundred percent and as we talk about what happened in the hearing, I think that since just
amplified and grew well. Let's talk about that once he's in the room, and this proceeding starts what's happening. We're so used to
This point, Donald trump completely owning the room, but the first thing that happens: isn't even the arraignment a lawyer for the assembled media stands up
and are used that journalists should have greater access to this. Proceeding in trump is not the centre of attention. You know he's off to the side he's not speaking
I still listen to this person, he doesn't know- and it really just sets the tone for everything that comes next and what does come next, so fifteen minutes go by and that portion is over and then the judge one motion says let the rain, MR trump please. So they do. They start to arraign mister trump. A court official reads out the charges for the first time he's charged with thirty four counts of falsifying business. Records in the first degree
which is a lot of counts. That is a lot accounts and the clerk asked him how he pleads he he leaned forward. He takes the mike and he says
two of the only words he's going to say, and it's so quiet because everyone has just been waiting to hear from trump this entire time and the two words are not guilty, so the prosecutors take over. They start to describe the charges and outline them and say what they mean and it's the first time we've heard this story in a courtroom, so the prosecutor, Chris Conroy, says that trump falsified business records and he did so to promote his candidacy in two thousand and sixteen and that's why we're here, but then
goes further than that because he also talks about trumps, true social posts at the last few weeks, and this is something that I didn't expect to come up frankly, but trump as recently tweeted. You know that death and destruction would ensue. Were he to be charged he's too
threatening things about the in district attorney tourney albin brag, Mr Brok is black and miss,
from his called him, an animal so the language on truth, social has been quite ugly and Chris Conway. This prosecutor brings that up and again I was just so struck because trump, whose language we are talking about even in the courtroom, is not speaking and he's being spoken about right and he's being spoken about by people who have power over him.
Both the prosecutor and the judge whose hearing that complaint- and I haven't my no vote- this is around to forty seven, just the words huge power shift. Trump can't talking here, can't interrupt, judge and prosecutors hold sway right, not a familiar dynamic. Exactly he's been silenced right, that's right! So
what the prosecutor is doing here. Is that he's asking the judge to recognise that these statements happen
diplomatic and potentially harmful and his ass,
the judge away in on that, but events lawyer todd blanche stands up and disagrees. The prosecutor says that these posts were born of first
Patient and MR from has been frustrated by the way this case has been handled, but then, as
happens in a court room, but with parties turned to look at the judge, and what the judge says to the defence lawyer is
I don't share your view that certain language and certain rhetoric is justified by frustration, and he tells him to warn trap to refrain from making comments are engaging in conduct that has the potential to incite violence, create civil unrest or jeopardize. This
do. Your well being of any individuals is judged basically admonishing tromp, whose sitting a couple of it away from him to behave himself
It comes to this case exactly for his social media, post, trumps, social media posts or so at the heart of what
makes him a public figure and so to see those posts in particular come up in
What room in this way that was really really striking to me
So how does this proceeding ultimately come to an end? So there's a lot of procedural questions and there's some back and forth between the lawyers, but that's pretty much it and then all of a sudden we're done so trump stands up. His lawyer stand up. They all walk out
it's over. We wait for a little while and were released and we rush out of the court room when I turn my
peter on, and I turned my phone on and its
We, then that we get a bunch of information from the days office that tells us a little bit more about the charges in the case, including this
in of facts and the same in a fax? Is what tells us that this is all going to be a little more complicated than we realized we'll be right back.
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was case, laramie a show from cereal,
actions in the new york times in nineteen, eighty, five
was a high school sophomore laramie wyoming, when a woman was brutally murdered their victim,
just a few years older than I was the killing stuck with me.
these years partly be
of how violent it was, partly because
how emblematic it was of my time in laramie, a town
we thought of as the meanest place I'd ever been, but mostly
as the crime, was never solved and then a few years back
the police arrested, someone for the murder of former laramie cop
his dna was found that the crime scene, but then prosecutor
drop? The charges,
temporarily, they said, but they still
reviled the charges and it's never been clear why? How did it
It seemed this open and shut fall. Apart was such a whimper
I decided I had to head back to laramie to find answers to.
This case, laramie, listen
wherever you get your podcast.
So what exactly did we learn from the documents released by the district attorney?
on tuesday. That has made this case sort of feel, as you said, a little more complicated. But basically the case is telling multiple stories. That is also one big story. So the first of those multiple stories is one that we knew about and that's the hush money payments to stormy Daniels that was made by Michael Cohen, before the two thousand and sixteen election
then, after the twenty sixteen election trop reimbursed going right and we ve reimbursed him with a series of payments. Each
payments and the related documents represents account. So when you look at the false statements made about those payments in terms of how they were categorized in terms of what was said about them at the trump organization, that's how you get to the filing false business records charge. That is this entire case. There's thirty for those right, because the payments are
legibly miss characterized by trump and the trump organization. The trunk organization said that these were payments to Michael Cohen, for
Ordinary legal work, but they were reimbursements for the hush money that Cohen paid out of his own,
get to stormy Daniels. You're saying there are thirty four charges here, because there are thirty. Four:
since, as of the trump organisation falsifying business records to cover up those reimbursements, that's exactly right
So that's the part. We know a lot about before the survey. So what else to blur, while we learnt like I said that there are multiple stories included in these documents that the prosecutor send out
so one concerns a woman named Karen Macdougall she's, a former playboy model.
And she says that she had a months long affair with donald trump and so trump and his folks are worried that this story is going to come out during the twenty sixteen election. But this time they coordinate with a meaty organization, they're close to the national enquirer, and it's that organization that pays Karen
Google and they pay her for the exclusive rights to her story right, which is known as a catch and kill. Basically, the national inquirer gets word that Macdougall has this story about an alleged affair with trump they offered
who pay her for the story and in so doing they get her to sell the exclusive rights to the story, so they know
control over it, but they never actually write the story. They never intend to write the story, they are catching it and they are killing it. Yes, exactly that, that's the idea is to kill the story and that's what happens to Karen macdougal story and then there's a third story that is also similar, and this story involves a person who worked at trump tower as a doormat and the doorman says he has this story.
About trump, supposedly fostering a kid out of wedlock, and here again is an instance where the national choirs, the one who gets involved, they pay for the story. They kill the story and the story. Doesn't it
her during the twenty sixteen campaign and later they determine
the story wasn't even true and yoda. How do these two cases that you just described the
Karen Macdougall case and the doorman monkeys how they actually fit into the charges that have just been brought against tromp and that were described on tuesday by the DA. That's such a good question
truth is we don't entirely know yet there's a good chance. We won't know for some time here. So the charge is the thirty four counts. Those relate to the trump reimbursements to michael calling for the stormy Daniels payment right, but in order to be a felony, those thirty four charges
to conclude and intent to commit or conceal another cry, and as of now, we don't know what that crime is and the,
We don't know what it is it because the prosecutors haven't yet said one less, and so it may be that by including all three of these stories in the story of the overall case, the prosecutors are trying to preserve
a pattern of behaviour that will help them, sell that underlying crime to a jury and one theory of that underlying crime. Correct me, if I'm wrong is that it might be a crime involving campaign finance because, ultimately,
The payments that were made to stormy Daniels in the eyes of many people.
No, the law may have been illegal campaign: donations, cracked, that's exactly right, but we really just donor know so, no matter what this
second or underline crime. Everyone describe it, no matter what that is
the reason that prosecutors have decided to tell all these stories. All three is
cause you're, saying it will firmly
establish a kind of trump ammo, a pattern of behaviour that a jury can look at and they think that
makes this a stronger case. A hundred percent prosecutors job is to tell a persuasive story about donald trump
and they can tell a story that just involve stormy daniels, but they don't know what a jury is going to make of that. But if they tell a story that involves stormy daniels and then they tell another one that sounds pretty similar. That involves Karen Macdougall and they tell a third one that involves a doormat and, in all of those stories, there's this common thread, which is burying a potentially damaging set of facts.
To help the campaign that might be a lot more convincing right basis, not just a common story. It's a common intent its
in motivation from diatribe. That's exactly exactly right!
earlier this afternoon. Donald from was arranged on a new york supreme court indictment return by manhattan, grand jury and later on tuesday actually went to a new conference that the district attorney albin brag, held the defendant repeatedly made false statements or new york is its records. He also,
cause others to make false statements and he talked about trump committing the same illegal acts. Again and again, we today uphold our solemn responsibility to ensure that everyone stands equal.
Before the law and wide. I was unacceptable to back so much. Ok, so don't what happens next, based on everything that you?
and on tuesday. Where does this case now go? I think we're gonna keep seeing this case play out into very, very different,
those on the campaign trail where tromp is approved.
actual canada and in the courtroom, where he's defend it, and those are two very different roles and it'll, be really interesting to see whether there reconcilable role
is because the trump we saw in court today is so different from the trunk were used to seeing
Will you mentioned earlier that the judge in this case warned from
not to run around rising people up about the case. But beyond that did today
legal proceedings put any real constraints on how tromp can talk about or campaign on, the fact that he's been indicted and does not put any restrictions
on his travel or anything else related to his campaign. So we don't quite know yet, but we will know soon there are going to be limitations on trump, those related to what is called a protective order, that's being drawn up between prosecutors and MR trumps legal team and that's going to dictate the way the trump uses what's happening in the court room on the campaign. Trail and prosecutors. Don't want him to tweet evidence from the case. They don't want him to disclose
thinks he's not able to disclose. They asked that he not even look at certain material from the case unless he's in his lawyers office. So we don't know what is going to be in that final agreement, but there is going to be a document that constrains what down trump can do and what donald trump can say, and I am very curious to see whether he can heed the terms of that document and what will happen if he does not if he doesn't, the judge will have to make a decision about how
to sanction the former president for so long he's conflated his
problems with political problems and he's turned legal problems into politics.
It's one thing to do that when you're under investigation, but it's a whole another thing
when you're, a criminal defended,
what's jonah
Thank you very much appreciated. Thank you.
The
Thank you very much everybody we have to save our country. God bless you! All! God bless you all! On Tuesday night troop delivered a speech about
The arrangement for moral logo- and I never got anything like this- could happen in america. Never thought it could happen. The only crime that
I have committed, is too fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it.
And despite the warning from prosecutors,
the judge in the case, trump attacked the proceedings and the judge himself calling him a quote: trump haider order. It back.
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for the next year to reverse the states ban on abortion and envy you
of gerrymandered legislative maps that have given republicans a lock on power in the state
on Tuesday sinuous became needles. Thirty first member state, a death
from russian president vladimir Putin, who was determined to block nato's expansion, but instead galvanised finland, which borders russia to join. The alliance,
as a response to russia's invasion of ukraine
During a ceremony, the finnish flag was raised at NATO's headquarters.
And the alliances leader pointedly warned russia that nato would keep getting stronger? President Putin wanted to slam NATO's stores
today. We show the world that he failed, that aggression and intimidation do not work.
in southern less, they thought he has achieved the opposite. More night, tidies episode was produced by us, the charter of eighty romp zippo nina feldman and clear tennis scatter. It was edited by rachel Cuesta lisa chow
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Transcript generated on 2023-04-17.