It is a date particularly awaited by Donald Trump and his supporters. On August 28, Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan will preside over a hearing in Washington to set the date for the former US president’s trial for his attempts to subvert the electoral process in 2020, after receiving submissions from the prosecution and defense .
This trial is already at the heart of the issues. With a recurring question: should the debates be broadcast live? In the United States, the recording of trials is possible in the courts of certain States. That of former American football star OJ Simpson captivated the whole country. On the other hand, it is proscribed before federal justice by a law of 1946.
In a letter published Thursday, August 3, 38 Democratic parliamentarians judge that “few circumstances justify a television broadcast more than these, given their historical nature”. “For the public to fully accept the outcome of this trial, it is vital that they can see it, as immediately as possible, to see how the proceedings are conducted, the quality of the evidence, the credibility of the witnesses”, write these parliamentarians in this letter to Roslynn Mauskopf, Secretary of the United States Judicial Conference.
Trump’s lawyer in favor of a broadcast
It is unclear whether Donald Trump, ex-star of reality TV, would support such a measure, which should be taken on an exceptional basis by the president of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, or provided for by an act of Congress. However, in an apparent reversal, the defense of the ex-president declared himself in favor of this retransmission. “If you ask me for my personal opinion, the answer is yes,” John Lauro, Donald Trump’s lawyer, said Sunday, August 6 on CNN. “I am convinced that the Biden administration does not want the American people to access the truth,” he added on FoxNews.
According to Alan Dershowitz, a specialist in constitutional law, “if the trial is not broadcast, the public will not be able to inform themselves objectively”. “There will be two trials: one followed by the progressive media and the other chronicled by the conservative press,” he told AFP. The Hill.
For Neal Katyal, a law professor at Georgetown University, the ban on the entry of cameras into federal courts is now “obsolete”. “We are in the digital age, where people think with their eyes,” he wrote in the Washington Post.
The risk of television entertainment
Prosecutor in the trial of the white Minneapolis police officer who killed George Floyd, an African-American, during an arrest in 2020, Neal Katyal assures that his broadcast allowed a very divided public to accept the guilty verdict. According to him, it would be the same with a federal lawsuit against Donald Trump, organized “in the name of the people of the United States” and “with our taxes”. “We have a right to see it and make sure that rumormongers and other conspirators don’t control the narrative,” he says.
But that’s without counting on the extraordinary ability of the ex-president to dominate and distort the debates, explains to AFP Christina Bellantoni. This specialist in political journalism at the University of Southern California thinks that “her popularity will go up, regardless of the evidence presented”.
There is also a risk that such a serious trial will become mere television entertainment, which will not move the lines. Opinions are already very divided on Donald Trump, on both sides, assures Christina Bellantoni. “Nobody’s going to be like, ‘Okay, I’ll watch this and see what comes out of it’.”
Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor and president of the West Coast Trial Lawyers law firm, is in favor of the presence of cameras, but believes that the rules will not be changed. “This will be the biggest trial in American history,” he told AFP. ABC News. “But I don’t think they’ll make decisions for all federal cases, civil and criminal, based on a single case.”
As reminded ABCNews, The Judicial Conference has previously tested allowing cameras in federal courts with two pilot programs: one in the 1990s and one in the 2010s. Both of these programs received positive reviews from participants, according to Jane Kirtley, professor of media ethics and law at the University of Minnesota. Nevertheless, the Judicial Conference ultimately declined to change the existing rules after the second program ended in 2015, judging that there was insufficient evidence of benefit to the judiciary.
Donald Trump wants to challenge the judge in his trial
On Sunday, Donald Trump announced that he wanted to “recuse” federal judge Tanya Chutkan who must oversee her future trial for having tried to reverse the results of the November 2020 presidential election and favored the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
“I can in no way benefit from a fair trial with the judge ‘assigned’ to this ridiculous case of freedom of expression and fair elections”, thundered Donald Trump, as usual in capital letters, on his social network Truth Social. “Everyone knows it, including her. We will immediately request that this judge be challenged, on very solid grounds, and likewise (request) a change of scenery (of the trial) outside of (Washington) DC”, added the former president on Tanya Chutkan and the US Federal Capital Court.
John Lauro, however, denied on Sunday that a final decision had been made. Donald Trump’s lawyer confirmed he would seek a change of venue, but only after “some polling” and “a quantitative analysis of how people are reacting to the indictment”.
These other cases that concern Donald Trump
On May 24, 2024, six months before the presidential election and in the middle of the Republican primaries, Donald Trump must face a federal court which will judge his management of documents classified as secret-defense, in the context of another case.
Two months before, he may have already explained himself to the justice of the State of New York this time on accounting fraud linked to the purchase of the silence of an actress of X movies during the 2016 presidential campaign. The prosecutor in charge nevertheless said he was willing to change this date to allow the holding of his two other trials, before the federal justice.
The 45th president of the United States can also expect a fourth indictment, in the state of Georgia where he is suspected of having pressured a senior local official to “find” votes in his favor.
The former US head of state was charged on August 1 with conspiracy against the state in connection with his attempts to reverse the November 2020 election result. On August 3, in Washington, he pleaded not guilty of having orchestrated a conspiracy against American institutions after his defeat in the 2020 election. The following day, in Miami, the former American president pleaded not guilty to the additional charges brought against him at the end of July this time in the case of his negligent management of confidential documents.
These lawsuits do not affect his popularity among Republican voters: 74% think he did nothing wrong, according to a recent poll by the New York Times and Siena College. Donald Trump likens the lawsuits to a “witch hunt” by officials seeking to derail his new campaign for the White House.