Muted in place he couldn’t control

Not guilty. When the law finally caught up with Donald Trump, that was all he had to say.

Indeed, it was all he could say. For the first time in recent memory, the former president found himself in a room where he could only speak when spoken to, where his opinion counted for nothing, where he was not in charge.

Sitting next to his lawyers in front of a judge, Trump looked shocked, unnerved, even angry. Perhaps he had planned to appear defiant in front of the cameras allowed into the New York courtroom to capture the historic moment. But his expression gave him away.

Only moments before, Trump was placed under arrest and shown the 34-count indictment against him – the first time criminal charges had been laid against a US president.

He insisted before turning himself in that he had not broken the law when hush money was paid to silence a porn star who claims she slept with him.

It was a witch hunt, Trump claimed, a politically motivated case mounted with no evidence by a corrupt prosecutor.

In the court of public opinion, and especially among the Republicans who will decide if Trump is their nominee for next year’s presidential election, that argument may be enough.

But in an actual court? Trump will need far more than fiery rhetoric.

While the Manhattan District Attorney’s case is not without its vulnerabilities, it is backed by emails, text messages, phone calls and documents, not to mention witnesses willing to testify Trump falsified corporate records to “conceal crimes that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election”.

Faced with that reality, and despite a warning from the judge against “making statements likely to incite violence or create civil unrest”, the former president immediately sought the comfort of a room he could control and a stage where he could speak.

Back in Florida, Trump unleashed an incendiary 25minute rant against the prosecutors trying to hold him to account, not only for the hush money saga but his handling of classified files and his efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat. That episode challenged the foundations of America’s political system. Now the justice system is in for a similar test.