Inside the hushed Miami courtroom as Donald Trump pleads not guilty while nemesis Jack Smith watches

The large glass front of the Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. U.S. Courthouse in downtown Miami was designed to represent transparency and equality before the law.

At 2:56 p.m. Tuesday, former President Donald Trump sat in Courtroom 13-3. He unfolded his arms and stood as U.S. Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman called the court to order.

His nemesis, Jack Smith, the war crimes prosecutor turned Trump fighter, stood a few feet away.

“We’re here, folks,” Goodman said, “for case number 23-80101, U.S. v. Donald J. Trump and Waltine Natua.”

Unlike other chapters in Trump’s public life, no cameras were present except for a single videographer who beamed the proceedings into an overflow room for hapless journalists who didn’t secure a lottery seat in the courtroom itself.

And unlike other twists, the former president himself didn’t say a word, as he was formally charged, except to confer with his attorney in a whisper.

It was all over in 48 minutes. Trump’s team pleaded not guilty to federal criminal charges that he kept national security documents after leaving office and lied to officials trying to get them back.

His assistant, Nauta, didn’t even enter a plea because his attorney has yet to register in Florida.

When Trump stood up, he turned and looked at about three dozen members of the media. His look was somber but defiant, that of a man playing his part: persecuted but unbowed.

He didn’t look the other way to acknowledge Special Counsel Smith sitting in line behind the government lawyers. Smith didn’t take his eyes off Trump as he walked away, his eyes burned into Trump’s back.

Hours earlier, the former president had denounced the special counsel on social media as a “thug” and a “Trump hater.”

Trump’s decorum in the courtroom surprised Janie Jackson, who had been lucky enough to sit on the smooth wooden benches reserved for nine members of the public.

“He was very quiet,” said the 51-year-old housekeeper as she rode the elevator down from the 13th floor.

‘I thought he would open his mouth.

“He behaved.”

She had arrived at 9 am. Reporters in the courtroom faced more of a battle for seats.

Some had stood in line outside the courthouse overnight despite the thunderstorms. Others used apps like TaskRabbit and like to find placeholders lined up for a few hundred dollars.

That was the kind of historic day Tuesday brought. A day before Trump was due to celebrate his 77th birthday, he reached another milestone: he appeared in court to plead guilty to criminal charges for the second time this year.

In April, he became the first former president to face criminal charges, charged with falsifying business expenses as part of a payout to porn star Stormy Daniels.

That time he showed up at his old stomping grounds, a gritty New York courthouse. There, five photographers were given special dispensation to enter the courtroom to take pictures.

In Miami it was different. The steel-and-glass cruise ship shape of the Federal Building made it look like a New York TV show had been sexed with a Miami spin-off.

Trump made an invisible entrance through an underground garage — Trump’s team insisted the building’s layout meant it was the only way to arrive and that he wasn’t trying to avoid waiting media.

And in an 11 a.m. ruling, the court refused to admit photographers and banned accredited journalists from bringing in laptops or phones. The day before, a reporter was caught taking pictures, which is against all rules.

Instead, there was only draftsman Jane Rosenburg and her paper, pastels and binoculars to capture the historic image of the first former president to answer federal indictments.

Eight Secret Service agents sat behind Trump in court. The sloping ceiling was reminiscent of the waves of the sea and the patchwork of lamps made it look like it was dotted with marine life.

In that case, the judge wanted to keep things moving. Instead of reading the 37 charges against Trump, he suggested that lawyers for both sides simply say they read them themselves.

“We’re waiving the formal reading,” Trump attorney Todd Blanche, perhaps aware that the campaign team wanted the 2024 frontrunner back at his Bedminster golf club that night, said in time for a scheduled speech in prime time.

Goodman asked if he could assume Trump would plead not guilty?

“We most certainly plead not guilty,” was the reply.

Trump leaned back in his chair, arms folded for much of the hearing. At key moments, he leaned forward, elbows resting on the desk.

Most of the remainder of the hearing was taken up with a legal discussion over the terms of Trump’s release.

Smith’s deputy, Jay Bratt, said the prosecution did not believe Trump posed a flight risk and did not ask for special conditions, such as surrendering his passport or a ban on having firearms.

The judge had other ideas. Goodman suggested that Trump should not only be banned from speaking to Nauta about the case, but that he should also be barred from speaking to all witnesses and victims of the alleged crime.

But that request cut some of the complicated nature of the case and the web surrounding Trump.

Blanche said the condition was too broad, as it “encompassed many of the people he interacts with on a daily basis, including the men and women who protect him.”

Smith’s case relies on testimony from Mar-a-Lago employees and even evidence from one of Trump’s own attorneys.

How, Blanche said, could Trump avoid all those people?

In the end a compromise was reached. Trump would be barred from talking to those witnesses about the case itself. He can still order a Diet Coke from them.