Irish Examiner view: Donald Trump's bellicose circus is in town

Trump comes out fighting after he became the first US president to see the inside of a courtroom as a defendant

Former US president Donald Trump speaking at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Tuesday after being arraigned earlier that day in New York. Picture: Evan Vucci/AP

The belligerent address by Donald Trump to supporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort, following his historic indictment in New York on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, told us pretty much everything we needed to know about the man who is the first former US president to see the inside of a courtroom as a defendant.

Indeed, as he was formally charged with criminal activity and then retreated to his Florida lair, his attacks on district attorney Alvin Bragg and a number of other prosecutors investigating him for a wide variety of wrongdoings, told us everything we already knew about the man.

Despite having been warned by Juan Merchan, the judge presiding over the New York case, not to make comments that were inflammatory or might cause civil unrest, Trump used his Mar-a-Lago platform not only to berate prosecutors and investigators but the judge himself, who the former president decried as “a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family whose daughter worked for Kamala Harris”.

Donald Trump's cover-up of his tryst with porn star Stormy Daniels is but one of his alleged wrongdoings for which he could face charges.  File picture: Markus Schreiber/AP

In front of an audience that included firebrand members of Congress including Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, conspiracy theorist and pillow maker Mike Lindell, and long-time associate Roger Stone who was convicted of lying to Congress and pardoned by Trump — but not his wife Melania — he gave a short but typically bellicose speech.

However, Tuesday’s court appearance was only the start of Donald Trump’s journey through the American criminal justice system. 

He faces three other criminal investigations relating to undermining an election and mishandling secret government documents — but he still found breath to categorise special counsel Jack Smith, who is investigating the discovery of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, as “a lunatic”. 

Trump’s political life has been characterised as a circus-like era in American politics marked by fiery social media posts and a relationship with the truth that can only be described as casual. 

He was perhaps a tabloid president and maybe it is appropriate he is now facing criminal charges for lying to cover up a tryst with a porn star — a fittingly tabloid story.

America has already withstood the worst of Trump’s excesses, not least his attempt to maintain power by inciting a mob to attack Congress while it ratified the vote which swept Joe Biden to power. It will surely survive his attacks on the judicial system. But whether or not Trump will survive the many cases of legal jeopardy ahead of him even if acquitted is another matter.