Drama during the fourth hearing of the trial in New York against Donald Trump in the case of porn star Stormy Daniels. Just as the jury was being filled, a man in jeans and a gray T-shirt threw conspiracy leaflets into the air, doused himself with a flammable liquid and set himself on fire outside the courthouse, in an area of a park cordoned off for the tycoon's fans, despite the large number of police forces present. The causes of the gesture are currently unknown.
Some of the fliers were about former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Al Gore and attorney David Boies, who represented Gore in the 2000 election recount. One has references to “evil billionaires.” Law enforcement identified the man as Maxwell Azzarello, 37, a resident of St. Augustine, Florida, and believe he is a proponent of conspiracy theories. The man is in serious condition.
Those dear to the “Maga” world, often propagated also by the tycoon. According to Newsweek, before the incident the man held a sign with a link to the Substack site where there are allegedly some of his conspiratorial political ideas. “This extreme act of protest aims to draw attention to an urgent and important discovery: we are victims of a totalitarian scam and our own government (along with many of its allies) is about to hit us with an apocalyptic fascist global coup,” we read on the page.
Passers-by screamed at the sight of the flames and some tried to put them out but CNN reporters reported in their live links that they saw the man burning for over three minutes. The same was true for other witnesses, who were dismayed by the scene. After a few minutes, however, dozens of police officers rushed in and put out the flames.
The man, who appeared to be alive, was loaded into an ambulance and transported to hospital, where he is in critical condition. The Secret Service that continues to protect Trump informed him of the incident. The episode happened shortly after judge Juan Merchan announced the completion of the jury, at the end of a long and troubled selection: dozens of candidates stepped aside or were excluded for not being able to guarantee their impartial judgement, or for fear of threats and media overexposure.
Among them also an Italian-American who withdrew claiming to be influenced by the analogies made by the press between Trump and Silvio Berlusconi. Of the 12 jurors, seven are men, five women, almost all employees, including two corporate lawyers, a software engineer, an English teacher, a speech therapist. Six replacements have also been named. From Monday the criminal trial, the first against a former president, will come to life with the preliminary statements of the parties, before the prosecution illustrates the 34 charges.
They all revolve around the payment of 130 thousand dollars to the porn star Stormy Daniels so that she would not reveal an old affair with Trump in 2016 (while Melania was expecting her child), compromising her run for the White House. A payment made by falsifying corporate documents and violating election law. She charges less serious than those contested in the other three criminal proceedings. But Al Capone also slipped up on a minor crime: tax evasion.