Trump has shared stories of courtroom spectacles with his supporters. The reality is much more discreet

On Monday evening, an email from Donald Trump – with the subject line: “My farewell message” – contained a fateful warning to his supporters.

“Tomorrow is my GAG ORDER audience,” it reads. “If things don’t go the way we want, I could be thrown in jail. »

Sinister? Certainly. Doubtful? Yes, that too.

Trump was unlikely to end up behind bars on Tuesday. Instead, the prosecution, in its secret trial, wanted the former president to pay a modest $1,000 for violations of a court order against the attacking witnesses, the district attorney and others involved in his affair. They proposed 10 fines. At the end of Tuesday’s hearing, the judge had so far waited to make a decision.

Throughout the first six days of his trial, Trump’s dramatized accounts of his legal peril have diverged significantly from the events actually unfolding in and around the Manhattan criminal courthouse. In his social media posts and fundraising campaigns, a frenzied Trump recounts stories of courtroom spectacles and plots against him, unrelated to the subdued — and sometimes sleepy — rhythms of the justice system. criminal justice in motion.

In a fundraising email on the first day of his trial, Trump claimed he had “stormed out” of the proceedings. Reporters in the courtroom observed no such excitement as the former president left, but that didn’t stop Trump from repeating the lie in an email Friday.

He informed his supporters that he had called several “emergency” press conferences – a term he used to describe the dispassionate remarks he makes to the cameras almost every time he enters and exits the room audience.

These embellishments helped Trump raise $5.6 million online during the first week of the trial, according to a source familiar with his fundraising. But they deny the court appearances, which are particularly notable for Trump’s unremarkable behavior as Judge Juan Merchan asked him to watch the trial from his Manhattan courtroom. The stakes of his case – the first criminal trial of a former president, taking place in the middle of the presidential campaign – require that Trump agree to participate a little in his own story as the legal proceedings unfold around him.

Trump is accused of falsifying business records to conceal cash payments made to Stormy Daniels, an adult film star and his alleged mistress, in an attempt to conceal information from voters before the 2016 election. The trial happened quite quickly – but also laboriously. It will continue on Thursday with further testimony from prosecution witnesses.

Trump mostly filled in the mundane moments in the only way an accused person is usually allowed: with silence. He bites his lip, looks ahead and glances at the jurors. He nodded approvingly when a potential juror mentioned reading some of his books. While the courtroom was quiet Tuesday, Trump was thumbing through a stack of papers loudly enough to hear the pages turn.

On two occasions, he appeared to doze off – although in his version of events, relayed on his Truth Social platform, he was “PRAYING not to sleep!! »

In the civil defamation suit filed against him by former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll, Trump’s audible reactions drew rebuke from the judge. But so far in this trial, Trump has rarely spoken. At one point last week, he looked at his aides in the gallery and was heard saying, “It’s freezing.”

On the second day of jury selection, Trump gestured and spoke in the direction of a juror. Confused, Merchan asked Trump’s lawyer to calm his client down.

“I will not let any juror be intimidated in the courtroom,” Merchan said. Trump has since avoided similar outbursts.

That’s not to say Trump’s legal team didn’t confront Merchan in the courtroom. Tuesday’s proceedings heated up as Merchan debated whether or not to hold the former president in contempt.

“You lose all credibility with the court,” an increasingly frustrated Merchan told Trump lawyer Todd Blanche after a testy exchange over the former president’s social media posts about a juror.

But Trump, typically verbose, quietly took his lumps. He barely reacted when prosecutor Christopher Conroy accused the former president of violating the silence order and continued to stare straight ahead while Blanche defended him. He refused a bottle of Fiji water offered by an aide and passed a note to one of his lawyers.

In other words, it’s a far cry from a fundraising email from the day before that declared, “ALL HELL BREAKS OUT IN 24 HOURS.”

But by Tuesday morning, Trump had moved on to another grievance, this one alleging that police blocked thousands of his supporters from protesting outside the Manhattan courthouse.

Unlike the protests allowed to take place at Columbia University, Trump wrote on Truth Social: “Lower Manhattan surrounding the courthouse, where I am currently headed, is completely SHUT DOWN. SO UNFAIR!!!”

In another message, Trump said that “people who truly love our country and want to make America great again are not allowed to ‘peacefully protest’ and are brutally and systematically arrested and taken to ‘holding areas.’ » distant. »

There is little evidence of such public displays of encouragement for the former president around 100 Center Street. Protesters are being allowed out of the courthouse and, contrary to Trump’s claims, traffic has moved through Lower Manhattan despite increased security.

On Monday, reporters outside the courthouse spotted a single Trump supporter with a flag.

CNN’s Kate Sullivan, Kristen Holmes, Jeremy Herb, Lauren del Valle and Kara Scannell contributed to this report.

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