The trial against Trump in New York shows that the legal system works

Finally show time. The first criminal trial of a former US president is underway, with Donald Trump sitting at the defense table in a New York courtroom – proving that our justice system does work, one way or another, after all.

Trump had unleashed a final salvo of invective on social media in his attempt to intimidate New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan and the state of New York from holding him accountable. Trump denounced “a conflicted judge, a corrupt prosecutor, a justice system in CHAOS, a state overrun by violent crime and corruption, and the cronies of Crooked Joe Biden….” Yada yada yada.

It did not work. Merchan’s first order of business was to deny a motion by Trump’s lawyers to remove himself from the case. Merchan ruled that the demand was filled with “innuendo and unsupported speculation” and said ethics rules state that a judge “is obligated not to recuse himself if it is not necessary.”

Thank you, Your Honor, for not allowing yourself to be bullied. Thanks also to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for his willingness to move forward with this prosecution after Trump’s three other trials — two on federal charges, one on state charges in Georgia — were postponed.

Trump is obviously wrong to claim that all his legal troubles are nothing more than “election interference” designed to damage his prospects against President Biden in November. Anyone who has paid attention to Trump’s political trajectory should have serious doubts that even multiple convictions, on the most serious charges, would have much impact one way or another. The word “shame” has no meaning in Trump’s political universe.

However, Trump is right when he says we have a “rigged” and “two-tiered” justice system. But it’s rigged to benefit people like him. Defendants who are rich, famous and powerful get to fly first class.

Consider how we got here: Some legal analysts lament that this New York case — which stems from a hush-money payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 election, allegedly illegally disguised — is the first to go to trial. The allegations are hardly trivial: Trump’s actions suppressed embarrassing information that could have affected the outcome of his race against Hillary Clinton. In language Trump would understand, that might be called “election interference.”

Yes, the charges in the other cases involve more serious state issues: Trump’s role in the plot to overthrow the 2020 election and in inspiring the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021; the role he played in overturning the election results, specifically in the state of Georgia; and his alleged unlawful hoarding of highly sensitive classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, including in a chandeliered bathroom.

But why are these processes postponed? Because Trump abused our bipartisan justice system to delay them.

Attorney General Merrick Garland bears some responsibility in the January 6 case for waiting far too long to launch an investigation into Trump’s possible guilt. Granted, no Justice Department had ever brought a former president to justice. But no president would ever have conspired to stay in power by overturning or blocking the certification of an election he lost.

But when charges were finally filed against Trump, Trump had the money to hire a phalanx of lawyers who filed motion after motion to delay everything. If the judge were to rule against new and fanciful legal arguments — for example, that a president has “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution — Trump could pay his lawyers to appeal. And then appeal again, all the way to the Supreme Court.

Similarly, in the classified documents case, Trump has hired lawyers to augment the works with a blizzard of preliminary investigations. It also happens that the inexperienced judge who presided over the case was appointed to the federal court by Trump – an advantage that no other defendant in the history of American jurisprudence has had.

In Georgia, Trump had the resources to hire lawyers who investigated the prosecutors and discovered a personal relationship that they were able to portray as a potential conflict of interest. No overworked public defender would have done that. The case survives, but after months of delay.

And how did Trump use all that time he bought? To viciously attack the judges (except the friendly one in Florida), the prosecutors and potential jurors who dare to hold him accountable. He has defied the ghost and possibly the gag order, including an order imposed by Merchan. A less wealthy, less well-known and less powerful defendant would have been fined or jailed for contempt of court.

But the system is finally working. Jury selection has begun in “The People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump.” Whether he is convicted or acquitted, that sounds like justice.