From the sordid cast of the Trump trial, the porn star came out better

There were a variety of boorish figures both inside and outside the courtroom where Donald Trump has been on trial in lower Manhattan for the past five weeks, and both have testified and extravagantly exhibited all sorts of boorish behavior. Now that closing arguments are being made and the jury is expected to be sent to deliberate, we have a moment to savor some of the overlooked features of this strange moment in American political history.

We had Trump himself shouting in the hallway outside the courtroom, earning a gag order from the judge. There were several right-wing cowards puffing out their chests on the street next to the courthouse in colorful displays of servility, like pigeons preening in nearby parks. The Biden campaign also entered the picture, sending Robert De Niro and some of the police officers who defended the Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection to the courthouse to draw attention to Trump’s attacks on democracy.

Inside, the witness gallery of a tin-hatted rogue testified to atrocious behavior. There was David Pecker, the delightfully named owner of the National Researcher supermarket tabloid. Leaving aside the testimony he gave relevant to the state’s case, he also portrayed a grotesquely unethical deal he had with Trump for the latter’s 2016 presidential campaign. He published outlandish stories favorable to the candidate and (often ridiculous and false) stories on his opponents. Worse yet, he would let Trump’s dimwitted henchman Michael Cohen review and contribute to the stories before they were published. (You’ll remember it’s a Trump refrain that the media and his opponents are conspiring against him. Here’s the reality of how such a thing would work in practice.)

Cohen, who testified, has been associated with so much evil that accounts of his actions fail to include them all, just as the tsunami of terrible behavior by Trump and so many of his cronies has swamped many less disturbing stories. For example, a New York Times An investigation into Cohen’s background a few years ago detailed a series of mafia affiliations, criminal behavior, insurance fraud and mysterious financial deals, such as buying some real estate in New York for $8 million and selling it for $32 million. soon. later. This background – key, one might think, to understanding the man and certainly material for some specific questions – is rarely, if ever, investigated in the press coverage of Cohen or in the fawning interviews he conducts with anti-TV shows and podcasts. -Trump.