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Donald Trump hasn't listened to anyone telling him to sit down since he was sent to boarding school, but that streak ended with Judge Juan Merchan the other day, according to a man who was in the room at the time that it happened.

During an appearance on MSNBC, columnist and longtime Washington insider Jonathan Alter set the scene for what happened when Merchan instructed Trump to have a seat. It has been reported that Trump was "fuming" after being made to sit like a dog would.

The host asked Alter how the event might affect Trump's "psyche."

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"In the final minutes of the trial on Friday as Donald Trump was standing to leave the courtroom, the judge firmly told Donald Trump, 'Sir, can you please have a seat?' That moment has come to represent the stripping of control from a man who used to be the most powerful person in the United States, some could argue in the world. How could you -- how does this impact Donald Trump's psyche?" she asked Alter.

"Well, first of all, I was in the courtroom when it happened and it was a stunning, dramatic moment," he said. "You know, you have a former president of the United States who since the time he was a little boy never listen to anything -- anyone about anything. He was sent to military academy for being disobedient. Ever since, he has never sat down when someone told him to. In this case, he had to. He sat down meekly, like the obedient little boy he never was, and it was quite striking and I think it symbolizes that he is not the most powerful person in that courtroom."

"That honor," accord to Alter, "belongs to his honor, Judge Juan Merchan, who the country is becoming increasingly familiar with."

"And he is going to make Donald Trump face the music."

Watch the video below or click the link.

A federal appeals court has upheld the conviction of a Republican operative who had been pardoned by Donald Trump in the waning days of his presidency.

The District of Columbia Circuit Court rejected an appeal by Jesse Benton, a former senior aide to Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Rand Paul, of his November 2022 conviction for orchestrating a scheme to conceal a $100,000 donation from a Russian national to his GOP consulting firm — and pocketing most of it.

Russian businessman Roman Vasilenko wired the money under his own name to the consulting firm, but Benton kept $75,000 for himself and gave $25,000 under his name to the presidential campaign for Trump, who posed for a photo with Vasilenko. Benton then filed a false report with the Federal Election Commission to conceal the source of the funds, the court found.

The Trump campaign was not aware of the true source of that donation.

Benton had appealed the conviction, saying Trump's 2020 pardon should have prevented the jury from hearing about his previous election crimes before convicting him of the newer charges.

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However, prosecutors argued that the unusual manner in which Trump handed out pardons by sidestepping the Justice Department's Office of the Pardon Attorney should have allowed them to present evidence of Benton's previous conviction for bribing an Iowa politician to switch his endorsement in 2011 to Ron Paul's long-shot presidential campaign.

The 45-year-old Benton, who is married to Ron Paul's granddaughter, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for that straw donor scheme.

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