My coverage of Trump’s historic arraignment

By Alex P. Vidal

“The events in New York City have, obviously, been a long time coming. This is a historic day and the implications of what’s about to happen at the courthouse in Lower Manhattan will have massive implications for this country.” —Mary Trump, niece of the former president.

WHEN a big story unfolded in the United States April 4, we are proud to report that we are part of it.

We covered the the historic arraignment of former US President Donald Trump in the Manhattan Criminal Court.

Arriving outside the courthouse in Collect Pond Park on Centre Street in the Lower Manhattan before 12 noon, I immediately jumped into action.

Pro-Trump protesters led by the New York Young Republicans and anti-Trump protesters, both carrying streamers and placards, engaged in a loud and fierce shouting match like archenemies while the New York Police District (NYPD) cops watched in the middle, preparing to referee in case any untoward incident occurred.

NYPD and the Secret Service made sure the opposing camps wouldn’t clash physically by limiting their movements in separate areas. Lawmen installed security barriers where the warring protesters hurled invectives without bumping and pushing each other.

The presence of lawmen was overwhelming. They surrounded the major thoroughfares around the parameters of the courthouse. I saw patrol cars and cops as far as on Lafayette and Broadway Streets when I walked to the Canal Street after the event.

For two hours, I stayed on the side where the pro-Trump protesters had converged as it was difficult to immediately cross to the side of the anti-Trump hecklers due to security arraignments.

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Once journalists were able to get inside the heavily guarded and monitored Collect Pond Park, it’s difficult to cross or transfer from one area to another as the crowd grew boisterous and rowdy hurling accusations and counteraccusations like they wanted to eat each other alive.

I spent the remaining hours on the side of the anti-Trump protesters after Mr. Trump arrived and proceeded to the courtroom to “surrender.”

The historic arraignment was covered by international press from different countries. I saw several TV crew and stand up reporters from Japan, China, Mexico, Great Britain, Canada, among other countries.

Most reporters weren’t allowed inside the courtroom except for at least five photojournalists, who were ordered to leave before the start of the arraignment.

The protesters insulted and cursed each other before, during, and after the arraignment, where Mr. Trump pleaded not guilty on 34 felony counts.

The raps, the first former any former US president, included falsifying business records after paying porn model Stormy Daniels with hush-money to but her silence before the 2016 presidential election through his fixer and lawyer Michael Cohen.

Anti-Trump rallyists appeared to have outnumbered Trump’s defenders who had been abandoned by right-wing provocateur and rally organizers, Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) and George Santos (R-New York).

 

The two GOP solons appeared to have chickened out and were frightened when demonstrators with whistles and drums drowned them out shortly after they reached the rally.

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There was no major movement on Centre Street in front of the courthouse’s main entrance when Mr. Trump arrived before two o’clock in the afternoon where he was whisked to the courthouse’s side entrance.

NYPD cops occupied half of the Centre Street in front of the Collect Pond Park, where the bulk of media people, including TV equipment installed by major networks, were waiting.

Following Mr. Trump’s arraignment, two documents were unsealed and they were a study in contrasts.

One was a 13-page statement of facts—a narrative adopted by the grand jury outlining what was described as a more than two-year-long “unlawful scheme” by the former president to influence the 2016 presidential election by “identifying and purchasing negative information about him to suppress its publication and benefit (his) electoral prospects.”

The other was the 16-page indictment itself, which outlined the criminal charges pending against Mr. Trump. This document described a far more narrow range of wrongdoing—34 counts of falsifying business records related to how the former president and his company falsely accounted for payments to his former attorney Cohen in 2017 to reimburse the attorney for a $130,000 payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels before the election.

In New York, falsifying business records is a felony when there is an “intent to defraud” that includes an intent to “commit another crime or to aid or conceal” another crime, it was learned.

Prosecutors in this case will have to prove that Mr. Trump is guilty of maintaining false business records with the intent to hide the $130,000 payment to Daniels in the days before the 2016 election to cover up an alleged 2006 affair.

I left the courthouse at past four o’clock in the afternoon.

There was no mugshot and Mr. Trump, who was not handcuffed, immediately went back to Mar-a-Lago in Florida.

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SURFING THE WEB KEEPS OUR BRAIN YOUNG. The glut of information on the internet can seem mind-numbing, but the stimulation we get from wading through it exercises our brain, which may keep it more youthful.

Scientists who connected older Web surfers (all were 55 and up) to a brain-scanning MRI machine found that searching the internet, like reading a book, stimulates the brain.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two local dailies in Iloilo.—Ed)