WASHINGTON — The truth is getting lost already, as always when former President Donald Trump enters the room — or a courthouse.

Since the wrong crowd came to town on Jan. 6, 2021, our city longed for a moment of truth after the Trump mob stormed the Capitol. A Thursday on an August afternoon brought a fleeting moment of justice for that bleak day lasting into night and morning.

Make that mourning.

Fleeting, because Trump and his president’s men are now waging a series of lies, threats and character assassinations to fire up his base of followers. And they are base. Lawyer John Lauro uttered a falsehood his first day in court, which went unchecked.

In the press room in that federal courthouse for Trump’s Jan. 6 indictment, the mood was silent and grave as we watched a livestream. Special counsel Jack Smith caused a ripple when he walked in to watch, his stern, bearded visage fixed.

Then came the chilling familiar figure with the long red tie, sauntering and churlish as usual. Courtrooms are nothing new to the real estate mogul, who lived and breathed lawsuits in New York.

In a twist of poetic justice, the magistrate speaking coolly down to the defendant was a woman. After a greeting, she addressed him: “How old are you, Mr. Trump?”

Oh, he didn’t like that. “Seven seven.” Even less, her failure to call him “President Trump.” He was seething, fit to be tied.

The federal judge in the actual trial will be Tanya Chutkan, a distinguished Black jurist who’s presided in several Jan. 6 cases. Knowing the contempt Trump feels for Black women — he had virtually none among his appointees — will surely spice the courtroom drama with bitter herbs. Judge Chutkan showed her chops by promptly ordering a hearing on a protective order this week.

On offense, Trump is trying to get another trial judge, time and place, like maybe West Virginia.

To witness an ex-president go through a criminal proceeding, warned not to intimidate witnesses, was sweet sorrow. It was a moment in time and history that could never be undone.

Not to be outdone, Trump immediately began to intimidate witnesses, in capital letters: “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!” Prosecutors were unamused at this possible abuse of the First Amendment. The liberty and limits of free speech are at stake here.

This was Trump’s third indictment. Conspiring to block the peaceful transfer of power carries the most weight in American democracy. President George Washington showed how it’s done, when he likely could have stayed for life.

In 45 pages, the sordid story is laid neatly upon the table for Trump and his “crackpot” lawyers, as former Vice President Mike Pence put it. “Too honest” is what Trump said about Pence, according to charges.

The day in court was personal, a vindication for those who saw that day within the Capitol walls, who heard breaking glass, footsteps pounding, grunts and cries, gunfire in the Speaker’s Lobby.

A seasoned journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner said to me outside the courthouse, “I’m still angry for the young staffers who were terrorized,” hiding beneath desks and in locked bathrooms in senators’ hideaways.

We rushed down a secret staircase through tunnels, breathing hard, hoping not to meet the mob head-on. There were 30,000 of them, way outnumbering us.

Now Trump is crossing swords with Justice, the department that moved slowly but picked up speed with Smith. He also indicted Trump for hiding state secrets in boxes and sharing classified documents after he lost and left office.

Most worrying: Trump’s ferocious attacks on Smith, who prosecuted war crimes, as “deranged.” His method of disinformation is devilishly simple. Trump truly believes that repetition is the golden goose of making people loyal to his version of events.

Unfortunately, there’s truth to that. He learned his lessons well from a vicious mentor, Roy Cohn, lawyer for Sen. Joseph McCarthy during his 1950s “witch hunts” — how Trump first learned his favorite term.

Smith will keep his own counsel, properly mum, while Trump’s voice blares in the public square and on the presidential campaign trail as he faces three trials. He’s turning his troubles with the law into populist virtue, taking one for the team, or something like that.

A victim of political persecution, not prosecution.

The American public is not used to silent dignity after our Trump nightmare (from which we’re trying to awake.) I do not regard him a legitimate president, but a black blot on the record that far exceeds Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal, leading to his resignation many Augusts ago in 1974.

When I went to my goddaughter Clemency’s wedding in England back in 2018, all I could say to bewildered friends in the garden was, “I apologize.”

In recent days, Trump expanded his vengeance to the American women’s soccer team for losing to Sweden in the World Cup, blaming them for being too “woke.” He lashed out at House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (“a wicked witch”) for her remark that he was a “scared puppy” on his way to the courthouse: “How mean a thing to say!” Poor Donald; she gets to him more than anyone.

He had harsh words for the nation’s capital, saying it looked poorly since he left office. Somehow the temple of the Lincoln Memorial survived without him.

In the subversive “Barbie” movie manifesto, Trump may be central casting (off-camera) as Patriarch-in-Chief. His appeal lies in doing and saying the unthinkable. He brings out the worst in angry white people who feel their rightful place in the social order — and their control over others like women, Blacks, gays, immigrants and every Democrat under the sun — is under threat.

Liberals often make the mistake of framing Trump as absurd even as he hints of more civil war to come. He is a dangerous man. Taunting a judge to rein in his language is his first act in the drama of democracy, itself on trial.

A Florida lawyer, Lauro has a brazen edge. He exclaimed in court, “The government’s had three and a half years” to build their case. In fact, the Jan. 6, 2021, attack took place two and a half years ago. But who’s counting the time besides me?

On the Sunday talk shows, Lauro, 61, kept referring to his client’s conspiracy indictment as a “Biden administration” move. Clever yet deceptive, making it hard for interviewers to interject. Planting that seed into public discourse further poisons it in a deeply divided nation.

When will we heal from Trump’s barrage of lies, boasts, insults — and a medieval onslaught on uniformed police?

The citadel of the Constitution was violated like never before. The British burning the Capitol in 1814 was within the code of war by a nation’s army of redcoat soldiers.

The Metropolitan Police Department, 800 on the scene, saved us from the mob. “I’ll always be thankful,” I told an officer Thursday. There they were, a host of a hundred lined up like they were on wintry Jan. 6.

Seeing the Capitol’s marble dome as I emerged from the courthouse in summer rain was a vision: something sacred as the Wailing Wall, besieged but still standing.

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Follow @JamieStiehm on Twitter. To find out more about her and other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, please visit Creators.com.