POLITICS
Trump’s Georgia Trial For Election Interference To Be Streamed Live
Courtesy of realdonaldtrump/Instagram
Former President Donald Trump’s trial in Georgia on charges of election interference will be streamed live, Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee said Thursday.
Most federal courts prohibit photos and audio and video recording inside the courtroom, but Fulton County regularly records court proceedings and posts them on its YouTube channel.
McAfee also said members of the press will be allowed to bring computers and cell phones into the court room, as long as they are not used to record the proceedings.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and 37 other Democrats sent a letter earlier this month to Judge Roslynn Mauskopf, director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, to request that Trump’s criminal trials be televised.
“If the public is to fully accept the outcome, it will be vitally important for it to witness, as directly as possible, how the trials are conducted, the strength of the evidence adduced and the credibility of witnesses,” the letter read.
“Cameras in the courtroom is a terrible idea and will allow Donald Trump to make a circus of things,” said attorney and law lecturer Danny Karon, who is not involved in the case.
“The controversy about cameras dates back to the Lindbergh baby kidnapping trial, and the grandstanding cameras evoked. Well, the more things change, the more they stay the same, and we can expect an unprecedented level of grandstanding from Donald Trump here,” Karon said.
“No net good comes from allowing cell phones and cameras into Trump’s courtroom. For decades, placing cameras in the courtroom has stirred controversy, and this concern is only amplified with the advent of cell phones. But these technologies do nothing to advance justice. Instead, they are certain to cause distraction, dissent, and violence,” Karon said.
Trump was indicted by a Fulton County grand jury along with 18 others on 13 felony charges including racketeering under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, Act, which is normally associated with mobsters.
The grand jury accused Trump of “knowingly, willfully and unlawfully” making false statements on a call in which he “unlawfully” solicited Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to help him change Georgia’s results in the 2020 election.
The 100-page indictment details other allegations, including the claim that one of Trump’s lawyers attempted to tamper with voting machines and steal data from a voting machine company.
Other defendants include Trump’s then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, his former personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, and lawyers who allegedly strategized overturning the results, including Sidney Powell, John Eastman and Kenneth Chesebro.
“The indictment alleges that rather than abide by Georgia’s legal process for election challenges, the defendants engaged in a criminal racketeering enterprise to overturn Georgia’s presidential election result,” Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said at a news conference announcing the indictment.
“The left must be extremely confident that cameras in the courtroom would help their case in the court of public opinion,” said Diane Canada, author of “Lady Up & Don’t Quit” and founder of the Lady Up America movement.
But Canada said the move may open “Pandora’s box” and allow possible evidence of election fraud to come out in open court, potentially vindicating Trump.
“I welcome the idea of cameras in the courtroom so that we can all see, for ourselves, the evidence that was not allowed to be heard up to this point. With a ‘pandemic’ that unprecedentedly altered our voting process in 2020, I cannot understand why anyone would be so quick to dismiss the idea that the election was tampered with,” Canada said.
Trump pleaded not guilty Thursday and is set to be arraigned on Sept. 6. Prosecutors proposed a March 4 start date for the trial, the day before Super Tuesday in the 2024 presidential election, in which Trump is the early frontrunner in the Republican primary.
It is the fourth indictment for Trump, who is facing nearly 100 separate criminal charges across all four cases. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
TMX contributed to this article.
