I Was In The Courtroom When Donald Trump Was Found Guilty. Here's What You Didn't See.

The description I’ve settled on when people ask what it was like seeing Donald Trump in court every day for seven weeks is that it was like watching a cartoon character come to life.

I was in the courtroom pretty much every day of the trial, chronicling the proceedings on HuffPost’s live blog from my spot on the unforgiving wooden benches that felt like church pews.

Security protocols in the courthouse meant that reporters were barred from coming close to the former president — we had to sit still while he moved between rooms so as not to pass him in the hallway, and the aisle seats in the public gallery were blocked off to put more distance between him and the people sitting there. He was no ordinary defendant, to be sure.

So when he sauntered up and down the aisle, reporters watched him carefully. The man most Americans have only seen on their TV and phone screens walks with a slight stoop, arms usually dangling, face usually steely — although he occasionally found somebody in the gallery to single out with either a greeting or a glare. (He was particularly pleased to see Fox News pundit Jeanine Pirro, a staunch ally, seated in court one day. He was particularly displeased by MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell.)

On the day of his verdict, Trump left looking flushed. His face, already such a unique tone, was darkened.

The case revolved around whether he’d falsified business records connected to a scheme to repay his former fixer, Michael Cohen, for a hush money payment to the porn actor Stormy Daniels, which Cohen made just before the 2016 presidential election.

Everybody in the courtroom felt the whiplash just after 4:30 p.m., when New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan announced the jury had reached a decision and just