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CNN Correspondnent Kaitlan Collins outside the New York courthouse where Trump is on trial
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CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Monday detailed Donald Trump’s frustration with courthouse security as “a few dozen” supporters “are kept cornered off a bit of a distance” from the former president’s Manhattan “hush money” trial.
Opening statements in the Manhattan district attorney’s 34 felony count case against Trump began Monday morning as prosecutors alleged the former president lied “over and over and over” in an “illegal” conspiracy to hide hush money payments to adult film star Stephanie Clifford, whose stage name is Stormy Daniels, the New York Times reports.
According to Collins, Trump is growing increasingly frustrated as he views “this all through the lens of the campaign trail.”
“I think big picture, when you look at what Trump has been saying, his mindset going into this, he’s complaining about the gag order incessantly,” Collins told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. "I’m told privately the idea that he can't directly attack the judges family, the prosecutors in this case — he can go after [Manhattan District Attorney] Alvin Bragg— but not other members of the team … it has been a big thing of his.”
“The other thing: there's a lot of security outside the courthouse,” Collins noted. “Understandably, we saw what happened last week. It is a former president who is going on trial.”
Collins appeared to be referencing the death of Max Azzarello, who succumbed to his injuries on Saturday after setting himself on fire across the street from the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse on Friday.
Collins continued, “Trump has been complaining that his supporters — when there's only a few dozen, it's not a huge group because we've been live outside the courthouse for several weeks now — that they can't come closer to the courthouse.”
“Because he is viewing this all through the lens of the campaign trail and what that means going into it and the fact that they are kept cordoned off a bit of a distance so people can get in and out of the courthouse has been driving him crazy,” Collins concluded.
Watch the video below, via CNN, or at this link.
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
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Donald Trump outside the New York courthouse
Donald Trump
Hours before the start of opening arguments and the second week of the trial of the first former U.S. president to face criminal charges, Donald Trump is urging his supporters to “rally behind MAGA” and “go out and peacefully protest” at courthouses across the country, as he laments the protections and high security at Manhattan’s Criminal Courts Building.
Trump’s remarks come just days after a man set himself on fire last week outside the same courthouse where jury selection was underway in Trump’s criminal trial. That man later died.
Seizing on current news stories, Trump claimed “Palestinian protesters, and even rioters,” are “allowed to roam the Cities, scream, shout, sit, block traffic, enter buildings, not get permits, and basically do whatever they want including threatening Supreme Court Justices right in front of their homes.”
NCRM has found no reports of pro-Palestinian protestors “threatening Supreme Court Justices right in front of their homes.” Over 100 pro-Palestinian protestors were arrested in New York City last week, according to Reuters.
Trump also complained that “people who truly LOVE our Country, and want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, are not allowed to ‘Peacefully Protest,’ and are rudely and systematically shut down and ushered off to far away ‘holding areas,’ essentially denying them their Constitutional Rights.”
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled areas designated to house protestors are legal, including at courthouses depending on the protestors’ motivations.
“America Loving Protesters should be allowed to protest at the front steps of Courthouses, all over the Country, just like it is allowed for those who are destroying our Country on the Radical Left, a two tiered system of justice. Free Speech and Assembly has been ‘CHILLED’ for USA SUPPORTERS. GO OUT AND PEACEFULLY PROTEST. RALLY BEHIND MAGA. SAVE OUR COUNTRY!”
Trump concluded by misquoting the famous Democratic U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt: “THE ONLY THING YOU HAVE TO FEAR IS FEAR ITSELF.”
This is not the first time Trump has urged his followers to show up and show support for him. Ahead of his expected indictment in New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s criminal case against the ex-president, Trump told his supporters to “protest,” and “take our nation back!” in all-caps.
Last week, MSNBC‘s Lawrence O’Donell “explain[ed] how Donald Trump’s wish for a revolution during his first criminal trial did not happen because his supporters did not show up.”
Donald Trump has been criminally indicted in four separate cases and is facing a total of 88 felony charges, including 34 in his New York criminal trial for alleged falsification of business records to hide payments of hush money to an adult film actress and one other woman, in al alleged effort to suppress their stories and protect his 2016 presidential campaign, which could be deemed election interference.
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
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