Trump’s an Amateur When It Comes to Courtroom Antics

Donald Trump made headlines this week — and in which weeks does he not? — when during his New York civil fraud trial he sparred with Justice Arthur F. Engoron, who committed the sin of cautioning the former president to give shorter answers to the prosecutor’s questions. Later, Trump pointed at Engoron and declared, “He called me a fraud and he doesn’t know anything about me!” It was all quite Trumpian: self-righteous and self-pitying, vindictive and loud.

But as a matter of history, Trump’s antics are nothing new. I don’t mean his history; I mean the history of the courtroom. Judges possess extraordinarily broad discretion to punish disruptions, and Trump, former president or no, might yet press too hard and wind up with more than last month’s wrist slap. Nevertheless, for well over a century now, defendants have been engaging in outbursts in the midst of trials, many of which are far more objectionable than what happened this week. At courtroom outbursts, Trump is an amateur.