Sometime between two of Donald Trump’s court appearances this week, New York’s Andrew Rice mentioned to me the possibility that Trump might actually think it a good idea to follow his victory in the Iowa Caucus on Monday with a third appearance — at the defamation trial against E. Jean Carroll, who he claims falselyaccused him of rape.That would be crazy even for him, we thought. (He plans to attend.) We should have known better — Trump showed up in person to an appeals court hearing in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, where he watched his lawyer say it would more or less beperfectly legal for a president to assassinate his political opponents. And yesterday, Trump himself acted like an attorney to deliver a closing statement in New York’s civil-fraud trial, leveling “witch hunt” accusations against the attorney general and judge. As Rice reports, Trump didn’t stick around to hear the alternate narrative prosecutors unspooled about his business fraud: It gave him the cash and cachet to win the presidency in 2016.

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