Turns out the Robert Costello meltdown on the witness stand was even worse than we thought

As soon as Donald Trump’s defense team called Robert Costello as its first witness today, we knew it was going to be a dumpster fire. This is, after all, the same guy that Trump sent to spew total nonsense to the the grand jury last year. And Costello quickly went off the deep end.

As it was playing out in real time, we were only able to follow what the reporters in the room were posting. But there was a point where Judge Merchan cleared the entire courtroom in order to address Robert Costello privately over his misbehavior. Now the full transcript has been released of the day’s proceedings, and it reveals that the Costello debacle was even uglier than we thought.

The judge went as far as informing Costello that he was in contempt, and that he was one false word from being kicked out of court mid-testimony. When Costello asked if he could say something, the judge simply said no, adding that it wasn’t a conversation.

As a reminder, Trump’s defense apparently plans to put this same guy back on the stand tomorrow. That should be fun. Keep in mind that a misbehaving defense witness doesn’t somehow help a defendant. All it does is tell the jury that the defendant isn’t serious about his assertion of innocence.