“As he walked into court for the first day of his first criminal prosecution, Donald Trump hoped to make clear that it was the system, not him, that was really on trial,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Said Trump: “This is an assault on America. This is political persecution, this is a persecution like never before. It is a case that should have never been brought.”
“He then walked into the courtroom where he would spend much of the week and many to come, in a scene that seems fated to become this election’s defining tableau: a former president and current presumptive Republican nominee sitting at the defendant’s table as the prosecutors and defense lawyers seek to convince a jury of his peers that he is or isn’t guilty of a felony for having covered up a hush-money payment to an adult film star on the eve of the 2016 election.”
“At stake, Trump and his opponents agree, is far more than the particulars of the charges. The case, in both sides’ telling, stands to be a referendum on the rule of law, the integrity of elections and the nature of accountability in an age when all have been called into question.”
The Independent: Outside court, Trump tries to command the narrative. Inside, he can only sit in silence.
