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As a former president and the de facto leader of the Republican Party, Donald J. Trump is one of the most powerful people in America.

But as a criminal defendant within the confines of the Manhattan courtroom where the case against him will play out for months to come, Mr. Trump is under the authority of someone else: the presiding judge, Juan M. Merchan.

The two men came face-to-face on Tuesday, after prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorneys office unveiled 34 felony charges against Mr. Trump. When the prosecutors raised some of the former presidents recent social media posts, including one warning that death and destruction could follow if he were charged, Justice Merchan asked that Mr. Trump refrain from making comments that were likely to incite violence or civil unrest.

But after the hearing, Mr. Trump returned to Florida and to his old habits, calling the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, a criminal, and Justice Merchan himself a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family.

Justice Merchans warning and Mr. Trumps reaction later that evening provided dueling examples of what will almost surely be a delicate dance. The former president, who is running to take back the White House, will have to appeal to a political base that feeds on his unrestrained rhetoric without crossing a line that might cause the judge to take action against him.

If Mr. Trump does cross that line, Justice Merchan will have to be careful in how he responds, to avoid any appearance of bias. He has the rare power to constrain the former presidents speech. The question will be whether and how to use it.

A judge in this situation would have to discipline themselves constantly and try to act and respond to the situation as they would to any defendant facing these charges, said Barry M. Kamins, a former administrative judge of New York Citys criminal courts. I know it sounds like a herculean task to do that, but I think a judge has to be able to do exactly what he would do in any other case.

Mr. Trump, who on Tuesday pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a 2016 hush-money payment made to a porn star on his behalf, has the same rights the U.S. Constitution guarantees to any defendant. He has freedom of speech, the right to a fair trial and is innocent until proven otherwise.

But judges have significant power over defendants who appear before them, and Justice Merchan would have several means of disciplining Mr. Trump, if he deems it necessary.

I am sure Justice Merchan wants to avoid a real confrontation, if that is humanly possible, but he will want to assert the authority of the court, said Michael J. Obus, a judge who served in State Supreme Court for more than two decades and who has known Justice Merchan for about 14 years.

Though judges often act on their own accord, they sometimes exercise their powers over a defendant after prosecutors ask them to do so. On Tuesday, one of the prosecutors, Catherine McCaw, said that her team was in talks with Mr. Trumps lawyers over a draft protective order that would limit how the former president uses evidence and other case material shared with his lawyers.

Prosecutors are seeking to bar him from reviewing the material without his lawyers present, and from sharing the material with third parties, including the press or his social-media following. If he were to violate such an order, he could be held in contempt of court, Ms. McCaw said.

But Mr. Trumps defense lawyers have since decided that theyre going to oppose the proposed order, and the matter likely will be subject to litigation, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

Current and former judges said that Justice Merchan, who has been on the bench in New York State Supreme Court since 2009, would almost certainly take other steps before he even considered placing Mr. Trump in contempt of court.

He could admonish Mr. Trump or ask that the former president return to court in person earlier than Dec. 4, his next scheduled appearance date. Only if the former president continued to lash out might he think about harsher punishments.

One of those, raised in advance of Tuesdays hearing by some of Mr. Trumps associates, could be a gag order, a catchall term for an order limiting what a defendant or often a defendants lawyer can say to the public. Judges are usually hesitant to impose such orders and do so only to prohibit specific types of speech.

Certainly, the court would not impose a gag order at this time even if it were requested, Justice Merchan said during Mr. Trumps arraignment. Such restraints are the most serious and least tolerable on First Amendment rights. That does apply doubly to Mr. Trump, because he is a candidate for the presidency of the United States.

When prosecutors raised the subject of the social media posts from Mr. Trump, Justice Merchans response asking Mr. Trumps legal team to warn the former president against making such comments seemed to reflect the judges intention to exercise his authority in stages.

This is a request Im making, he said. Im not making it an order.

If Justice Merchan were to find Mr. Trump in contempt of court, he would have the power to fine the former president up to $1,000, or even to jail him for 30 days. But experts said the possibility of that happening is very slim.

The judge can put him in jail but that would absolutely be the last resort, because it would just make matters worse, Judge Kamins said.

Justice Merchan has been under the protection of armed court officers at least since the grand jury voted to indict Mr. Trump on March 30, according to a person familiar with the arrangements.

One person who knows the judge said his chambers have been flooded with calls of support from colleagues and others, as well as angry calls from supporters of the former president, and many of those calls have included threats.

For decades, Mr. Trump has taken a keen interest in the judges presiding over civil cases that have involved him. Longtime associates recall Mr. Trump invoking Roy M. Cohn, his former fixer and lawyer, when arguing about the importance of the judge in charge of any case.

The former president often suggests judges hearing cases are too biased to continue, as he has with Justice Merchan. People familiar with Mr. Trumps thinking say he believes he can get the judge to recuse himself. He may seize on public records which show that, during the 2020 presidential election, Justice Merchan donated $15 to the Democratic group Act Blue earmarked for Mr. Trumps opponent, Joseph R. Biden Jr., as well as $10 each for two other Democratic groups, including one called Stop Republicans.

Before he was arraigned, Mr. Trump attacked Justice Merchan by his full name: Juan Manuel Merchan. Justice Merchan was born in Bogot, Colombia. He came to the United States with his family when he was 6 years old, grew up in Queens and began his legal career in 1994 as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan.

Last fall, he presided over the trial of Mr. Trumps family business, The Trump Organization, which in December was convicted of 17 felonies. He is currently overseeing a case the district attorneys office brought against Steve Bannon for defrauding contributors to an organization that sought to help construct a wall along the southern border.

Though Justice Merchan typically appears sober and even-keeled, lawyers for Mr. Trumps company and Mr. Bannon have at times tested him. During the trial of the Trump Organization, he appeared to grow frustrated with two of Mr. Trumps lawyers after they made vulgar references and gestures in closing arguments. Eventually he told another lawyer representing the company to tell them to refrain from the improper decorum thats going on.

He had even less patience for David Schoen, a lawyer for Mr. Bannon. A January hearing at which Mr. Schoen was seeking to be removed from the case included several fiery exchanges between Justice Merchan and Mr. Schoen.

At the end of the hearing, the judge told the lawyer that you never need come back.

Maggie Haberman contributed reporting. Susan C. Beachy contributed research.

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Dilemma for Judge in Trump Case: Whether to Muzzle the Former ... - The New York Times

The same week that former President Donald Trump appeared in a Manhattan court room for the first time, ProPublica reported that for years Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has accepted luxury trips from Republican businessman Harlan Crow without disclosing them. At first glance, those two stories may seem to overlap little, beyond two leading figures on the right being caught up again in scandal. But both Trump and Thomas are under fire as much for their record keeping as their actions a sad sign of how ill-equipped our political system is to punish corruption.

Remarkably, amid the stories of lavish resorts, private jets and all-male retreats, the two most telling details about Thomass story arent even in ProPublicas reporting. The first is Thomass statement. While Crow affirmed his generosity to Justice Thomas and Ginni to ProPublica, Thomas himself declined comment. Only after a day-long firestorm did Thomas issue his own statement Friday, claiming that colleagues and others in the judiciaryadvised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable.

If the justice felt his actions were proper, then he would never have hid them or obscured why he hid them.

If Thomass claim that borrowing a private jet counts as hospitality stretches credulity, the second detail blows it up. This isnt the first expos of Crows generosity to the Thomases. Nearly 20 years ago, the Los Angeles Times reported that Thomas had accepted gifts and trips from Crow, including a bust of Frederick Douglass valued at $19,000. As that newspapers David G. Savage wrote Thursday, Thomas responded to that story, not by swearing off gifts, but by not disclosing those gifts. If the justice felt his actions were proper, then he would never have hid them or obscured why he hid them.

Which brings us to Donald Trump. The former president has turned shamelessness into brand I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, okay, and I wouldnt lose any voters, okay? But he allegedly hid a one-night stand with adult film actress Stormy Daniels and an alleged affair with Playboy playmate Karen McDougal.

The overly credulous argue that the alleged concealments were to preserve his marriage. But according to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Braggs statement of facts, McDougals non-disclosure agreement ended after the election, and Trump asked his then-lawyer Michael Cohen if they could delay the payment [to Daniels] until after the electionbecause at that point it would not matter if the story became public. Then as president, Trump allegedly disguised his reimbursement of Cohen to further bury the deception.

Why go to all this effort? Because most voters consider having affairs and purchasing peoples silence to win election as actions not befitting a president. The latter of those two actions is crucial: Braggs case doesnt exist because of hush money or because of any alleged affairs. It exists because he says Trump deceived voters to win an election.

Braggs statement of facts and Thomas failure to disclose Crows lavish spending on him suggest that Trump and Thomas knew their actions were unworthy of the offices one sought and the other held. But unfortunately, neither mans actions will lead to any accountability by themselves. Instead of charging Trump with cheating to win an election, and Thomas with receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in improper gifts, were left with allegations of falsifying business records and outrage over improper gift disclosures.

This problem of ethical violations being defined down into nonexistence runs wider than Thomas or Trump.

In Trumps case, the focus on his recordkeeping is partly the result of deliberate interference at the federal level. As legal writer Marcy Wheeler notes, after Cohen agreed to a guilty plea, the Trump Justice Department attempted to interfere in the Cohen investigation repeatedly. Then-Attorney General Bill Barr, for example, wanted the charges against Cohen dismissed even though hed already pleaded guilty. Over at the Federal Election Commission, Wheeler writes, the commissions general counsel recommended acting on complaints regarding Trumps payments to Cohen, but Republican Commissioners Sean Cooksey and Trey Trainorrefused to do so. By the time Trump left office, the federal government had its hands full with the Jan. 6 investigation and other matters.

As for Thomas, no interference was required because his actions though clearly unbecoming of a justice did not necessarily violate any actual rule. Even after years of trying to create an ethics code, the Supreme Court still has none. New guidelines from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts will require Thomas to disclose some of those gifts going forward. But, still, no rule prevents him from accepting such gifts, nor does any mechanism exist to mandate his recusal from any case involving groups linked to Crow.

This problem of ethical violations being defined down into nonexistence runs wider than Thomas or Trump. The Supreme Court has been limiting the scope of anti-corruption laws for years. The most noteworthy ruling came in 2016, when the court reversed former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnells 2014 conviction on public corruption charges for accepting $175,000 in loans and gifts from a businessman who wanted McDonnell to promote a nutritional supplement. The court declared that none of McDonnells actions, including holding events at the governors mansion, met the standard of an official act.

Thomas joined in that decision, of course, but so did every single one of his colleagues including the liberal justices. That legal experts on both sides of the aisle agreed with the ruling, in defiance of common sense, only highlights the breadth of the problem. It seems obvious to the justices, wrote Slates Dahlia Lithwick during the cases oral arguments, that public corruption and ethics rules are adorable, antiquated, and unenforceable becauseeverybody does it. Indeed, subsequent Congresses, under both parties, have declined to replace the now-neutered official act standard with something more stringent. Other seemingly basic anti-corruption efforts, such as a ban on members of Congress trading stocks, have also languished.

Any accountability is better than no accountability. Demands for Thomass impeachment and resignation from Democrats such as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Ted Lieu, D-Calif., are welcome. So are calls for investigations from senators such as Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin.

But even impeachment is only a start. It would be far better if, instead of relying on record-keeping violations, our political system developed stronger laws reflecting a common-sense standard of corruption. But too many people in power Republicans mostly, but many Democrats as well dont want it that way. They shelter in the shades of grey.

Oh, and the prosecutor who convicted McDonnell only to see that conviction thrown out? That would be Jack Smith, now in charge of the federal investigations of Trump. We can only hope that past isnt prologue.

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Donald Trump, Clarence Thomas and America's corruption creep - MSNBC

Trump lawyer James Trusty said Sunday that there are no more classified documents at former President Donald Trumps Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.

In an interview on Meet the Press, Trusty was asked by NBC News' Chuck Todd whether he can be certain there are no classified documents or copies of documents at Mar-a-Lago following reports that Trump's legal team turned over additional materials, as well as a laptop, to investigators.

Yeah, sure," Trusty responded. "And I can tell you the leak about what happened with this additional document or several documents that were found in the thumb drive is absurd."

Sources had told CNN this year that a Trump aide made copies of classified documents his lawyers discovered in December in boxes at Mar-a-Lago before the documents were handed over to the Justice Department.

Its been the same mischaracterization that the media has run with to suggest that President Trump is just sitting on a mountain of documents. Its not true at all," Trusty said.

Trusty, a former Justice Department colleague of special counsel Jack Smith, whom Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed to investigate Trumps handling of classified documents, slammed the Justice Department for what he called a "campaign of leaks."

Last week, The Washington Post, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that the Justice Department and the FBI have gathered new evidence that suggests possible obstruction by Trump in the documents case.

Theres been a campaign of leaks from DOJ unlike anything Ive ever seen, Trusty said. I was a prosecutor for 27 years. I spent 17 at this Department of Justice. I dont recognize it anymore."

The FBI recovered a trove of top secret and other highly classified documents when itsearched Mar-a-Lagoin Florida in August. After the incident, classified materials were also found in the possession of President Joe Biden, as well as former Vice President Mike Pence.

Garland has appointed separate special counsels to investigate theTrumpandBidendocuments. He has not appointed a special counsel to review the Pence documents.

Former Trump Attorney General William Barr said Sunday he thinks investigators "probably have some very good evidence in the probe into the former presidents handling of classified documents.

He had no claim to those documents, especially the classified documents, Barr said in an interview on ABC News This Week. They belonged to the government. And so I think he was jerking the government around, and they subpoenaed it. And they tried to jawbone him into delivering documents.

But the government is investigating the extent to which games were played and there was obstruction in keeping documents from them. And I think thats a serious potential case," Barr added.

A federal judge ruled last month that Smith's office had presented sufficient evidence to establish that Trump committed a crime through his attorneys in the classified documents probe, according to a source briefed on the proceedings.

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell of Washington was not ruling on whether Trump was guilty of a crime, only about whether his attorney could be compelled to testify.

As a result, Howell ruled in favor of applying the crime fraud exception, which would allow prosecutors to sidestep protections afforded to Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran through attorney-client privilege. Howell also ordered Corcoran to testify before the federal grand jury.

Trump has denied wrongdoing in the case of the classified documents, having claimed last year that he can declassify materials by thinking about it.

Summer Concepcion is a politics reporter for NBC News.

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Trump lawyer says there are no more classified docs at Mar-a-Lago - NBC News

Today we do not access information in a strictly corporeal world, but the sketch artist does. In the courtroom, all devices must be turned off. The roles of each participant are specified and then ordered into the architecture: Individuals fit into the space, the space does not change to fit the individual. The sketch artist must rely on their own faculties to sense, communicate, and maneuver within the space. In high-profile trials, the rules are even more intense. Visitors to the courtroom are instructed to not move around, warned several times about technology, and told when and how they can enter and exit. You are watched closely, and every sound you make feels like you have incriminated yourself.

Entering the court, through security, and into the courtroom, I am flanked on both sides by hallways lined with officers and members of the Secret Service. They all ask to see my green pass; I go through two rounds of metal detection and bag searches. I was running late because of a logistical issue with my official placement in the court, so by the time I arrived, all authorized press and sketch artists were already seated. An officer led me down the center aisle and into the jury box, where five sketch artists were at work furiously drawing the architecture of the courtroom and the profiles of the state attorneys. When I finally sat down, a bundle of adrenaline was delivered, my hands and legs vibrated joyfully, my shocked body celebrating the return to being the center of attention; this is a physical performance.

In this new chapter in American history, The People of New York v. Donald Trump, the shift in power is Shakespearean. Stormy Daniels, a porn star, has lubricated the stagnant wheels of justice, bringing the former president to his knees. A man who only a few years earlier held the highest office in the land, arguably the world, is now a criminal defendant. Last Tuesday, April 4,Trump walked down the aisle slowly, haloed by a blur of officers, secret servicemen, and attorneys.

Despite this drastic repositioning of power, Donald Trumps strides are measured, walking confidently while wearing an expression of military stoicism expertly stolen from the generals he envies and the duties he infamously dodged decades earlier. In this moment, I am convinced firsthand of his deep and genuinely pathological confidence.

Like a disgraced bride, he looks from side to side at those observing him from their seats.

In this metaphor the groom is the judge, walking in after everyone is seated upon the bailiffs announcement all rise, including Donald Trump. Judge Merchans bench is raised and positioned to face the entire court, casting a shadow over the 45th president.

Trump hunches involuntarily in his seat, facing the judge.His groom hovers over him, holding an invisible thread to Trumps tongue, momentarily canning his chronic platitudes.

Like Dorothy saw Oz, I see Donald Trump. Stripped of his arsenal, there was no livestream to perform in front of, no phone to echo his belligerence. Restrained to the park outside the courthouse, the sounds of his protesting base are abstracted but still audible from the 15th floor. I study Trumps colors and grab pens and pencils in shades of blue, orange, red, and yellow. His face is tan with bright white raccoon rings around his puffy eyes. The glazed marbles turn slowly in their sockets without the rest of his head. His hair is as thin as phyllo in varying shades of yellow and sand and is perfectly blown out into one thin layer placed stiffly over the surface of his head. His lips are small and pursed sourly, casting a shadow over his chin. His eyebrows are up wrinkling and reddening the center of his powdered forehead. He hardly moves or speaks, but when asked how he pleads, he leans forward and utters the words not guilty, instantly memorializing an unprecedented moment in our nations history.

Upon leaving the courtroom, Trump regains a more recognizable form, insults flare from his recently zip-locked lips. He attacks the judge and his family, sowing doubts about his professionalism by accusing his daughter of receiving money from the Biden campaign. Trumps mania presents itself in desperate fear-mongering tactics and violent calls to action for his disenfranchised base to save the country with him, hidden away but still standing firmly at the helm.

Sketching this trial as it happened afforded me the right to gather as much nuance as I pleased. Where a photograph signals a moment, a live drawing bulges to contain it. Interpretations of Trumps presence in court claim he appeared diminished, weak, and defeated. He did not. As someone I had only witnessed through a screen, Trump was dangerously flat and comprehensible, living in my mind as a gaudy symbol of opportunistic hate, taking up space in a nightmarish realm of the surreal. But he was unfortunately very real and magnetic. Calm as a seasoned crook, a compelling source of immeasurable mayhem, he released an uncanny, sociopathic remorselessness into the air we both shared, patiently waiting to leave and do whatever the fuck he wants to for now.

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The People of New York v. Donald Trump - Hyperallergic

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. When he wrapped up remarks following his arraignment Tuesday with a familiar promise to Make America Great Again, former President Donald Trump pushed into the adoring crowd at his Mar-a-Lago club ignoring Secret Service instructions to take a pre-cleared path and made his way to a private patio dinner with his daughter Tiffany, her husband Michael Boulos and longtime conservative operative Sergio Gor.

While they ate, surrounded by aides and friends at nearby tables, Trump listened to a playlist he had curated himself. Songs included Justice for All, his version of the national anthem with the J6 choir of inmates awaiting trial for their roles in the insurrection, Luciano Pavarotti and James Brown singing Its a Mans World, and selections from Sinead OConnor and Phantom of the Opera.

It was a serene end to one of the most tumultuous days in American political history one that started with the first booking of a former president on criminal charges in New York and transitioned to the same man, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination, delivering a speech rebuking state and federal prosecutors from his campaigns base of operations in Palm Beach, Fla.

What Mar-a-Lago provided was a soothing retreat full of Trumps favorite things: a crowd of friends and family, a quiet dinner on the patio and a 500-song Spotify list that allows him to play disc jockey. If Trumps mood was mostly reserved that day from his arrival at the courthouse where he declined to speak to reporters, through a jab-filled but sedately delivered speech, all the way to the end-of-night dinner its a mood his team will be trying to sustain over the coming months as he tries to survive the twin crucibles of an election and criminal jeopardy.

The relative calm in the midst of chaos Tuesday belied Trumps well-earned reputation for failing to control his impulses and for whipping his supporters into frenzies in times of crisis most notably the one that ended in the Jan. 6 insurrection. But it also revealed the extent to which the smaller, more insular, lower-drama team around him this time has already helped him keep focus and avoided riling him up unnecessarily.

Thats not to say it will be easy or that it will succeed. Trump is still Trump. He continues to push the unfounded claims of a stolen 2020 election, shared a photo of himself holding a baseball bat next to the head of the Manhattan district attorney and has championed the people incarcerated for the Jan. 6 riot on the U.S. Capitol.

His teams discipline promises to be put under severe duress as he simultaneously runs a presidential campaign and defends himself against charges in New York and investigations at the federal level and in Georgia.

Ive never seen a more professional operation around Trump. Ive also never seen a Trump-world operation with so little infighting, said one longtime operative in his orbit. All of the key people are genuine pros.

Indeed, the biggest difference, according to interviews with half a dozen people working on his campaign or with direct knowledge of its operations, is the type of operatives Trump is surrounded by right now. Gone from the inner circle are figures who sought their own publicity like campaign chiefs Corey Lewandowski, Steve Bannon and Brad Parscale. So are the sycophants who believed the best way to curry favor with Trump was to execute on his most outlandish ideas, like Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell.

We have less people who try to ingratiate themselves with him by going the extreme route, said one person involved in the campaign who credited Susie Wiles, the co-manager of the operation, with keeping the crazies out. Everything seems to be less dramatic not drama-free, but less dramatic.

On Friday, the campaign quickly put out a fire lit when the New York Times reported that Trump had instructed aides to hire Laura Loomer, a prominent Trump supporter with a long history of making anti-Muslim comments. Trump allies, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, reacted angrily to the news, and by the end of the day a campaign official confirmed to NBC News that Loomer would not be brought into the fold.

No one in proximity to Trump is under the illusion that he will barnstorm across the country for the next year and a half in anything resembling an ordinary campaign; nor would they want him to lose the rawness that connects him to millions of voters. But, for now, Trump insiders are pleased with what they see as a more-disciplined operation that helps the candidate channel his political instincts.

That group includes Wiles, co-campaign manager Chris LaCivita, strategist and public-relations veteran Jason Miller, longtime adviser Boris Epshteyn and a set of trusted hands who manage various aspects of security and logistics for his public appearances.

They are charged with helping Trump navigate the political side of the ledger while a three-member team of lawyers Todd Blanche, Susan Necheles and Joe Tacopina defends him against the charges in New York, along with allegations that he incited the Jan. 6 riot, mishandled classified material and tried to overturn his defeat in Georgia in the 2020 election.

Though noticeably more sedate thanhis fans are accustomed to in his speeches, Trump ripped the judge in the New York case, Juan Merchan, during his speech at Mar-a-Lago Tuesday night. He called the jurist, who appears to have donated $15 to Joe Bidens campaign in 2020, a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family.

For any other politician or defendant that remark alone would constitute a radical breach of decorum, political savvy and legal strategy. For Trump, an avid golfer, it was par for the course at a time when his legal troubles have solidified his support among the GOP primary electorate.

A Trump aide said they do not plan to attempt to significantly rein in the former president when it comes to these attacks, in part because they appear to recognize the benefits in them. While his harsh words for judges and prosecutors are always a concern for the lawyers, the aide said the campaign team was less worried.

We see the criticism as mild and factual. Its not just coming from a place of anger, the aide said, pointing to Trump highlighting the work Merchans daughters firm did for Vice President Kamala Harris short-lived 2020 presidential campaign. As far as we are concerned, I would say there are minimal concerns because he behaved appropriately.

Trump has watched his political fortunes rise in recent weeks, but one aide on his 2020 campaign said the political operations turnaround was first evident in a February visit to East Palestine, Ohio, the site of a major train derailment that released toxic chemicals into the air.

That felt like that was the first thing they did that was OK, theyve got their s--- together the operative said.

Trump railed against President Joe Biden at a rally with Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, in a 10-minute speech and made several stops in town to meet with residents. Last month, he held rallies in Davenport, Iowa, and Waco, Texas, and one adviser said his calendar will soon fill out with big events in early primary states.

His next scheduled public appearance is April 14 at the National Rifle Associations conference in Indianapolis, where several potential rivals for the GOP nomination are expected to speak.

Trump insiders say he has been encouraged by Republicans rallying around him in the face of the charges against him.

He is pumped, the adviser said. He loves this moment. Its a moment of vindication in his eyes.

That sentiment may become more acute now that the anxiety of the arraignment is behind him.

On his flight to New York Monday, Trump and his aides discussed the logistics of his court appearance for about 25 minutes and then watched Fox News, according to a person who was present.

It was for sure a surreal moment, the person said. We were stressed to some degree, of course, but there was no anger, and nothing totally out of the ordinary.

Trump was virtually silent when he arrived at the courthouse to be finger-printed and sit for the arraignment hearing.

It was a sober moment, according to an adviser. He did not really say two words. I think he knew it was not the right moment to do that. He let everyone else do the talking.

The morning after the arraignment and his speech at Mar-a-Lago, Trump posted a note of gratitude to the officials inside and outside the courthouse on his Truth Social media platform.

The great patriots inside and outside of the Courthouse on Tuesday were unbelievably nice, in fact, they couldnt have been nicer, Trump wrote. Court attendants, Police Officers, and others were all very professional, and represented New York City sooo well.

That courtroom setting, and the legal system more broadly, are things Trump and his team will have to become more accustomed to as they try and pull off a historic political high-wire act: returning to the White House facing criminal charges and a handful of separate serious state and federal investigations.

His advisers are confident his indictment will provide a short term political boost, and early public polling has backed that assertion it could at least with Republicans. But the person fretted over the long term uncertainty of the historic moment. We just dont know, they said of whether the weight of high profile legal woes and ongoing investigations will eventually bog down his political aspirations.

No one has ever done this before, the person said. We just dont know whats going to happen here.

Matt Dixon is a senior national politics reporter for NBC News, based in Florida.

Jonathan Allen is asenior national politics reporter for NBC News, based in Washington.

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How a tight circle of aides is trying to keep Trump out of trouble - NBC News