Submitted by Jonathan Perloe
To the editor,
The trial of former president Trump on charges of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election will be the most consequential in U.S. history. But because Rule 53 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure bans the broadcasting of federal criminal proceedings, only a handful of Americans will be able to watch it live. That does the public a huge disservice. As the Washington Post‘s slogan says, “Democracy dies in darkness.”
At a time when trust in government is near an all-time low, and nothing less than the cornerstone of our democracy is at stake, the peaceful transfer of power, it is imperative that Americans have a full and transparent view into the proceedings.
With four in five Republicans believing the investigations leading to Trump’s indictment are a “witch hunt,” every effort must be made to disprove their strongly-held convictions. Televising the trial will demonstrate that Trump is being treated just like everyone else charged with a crime. Steven Brill, founder of Court TV, wrote that jurors consistently reported greater faith in the U.S. justice system following their time in the courtroom. Seeing is believing.
Despite the prohibition on televising federal trials, there have been exceptions. In the 1997 trial of the Oklahoma City bomber, survivors were afforded the opportunity to watch the proceedings via closed-circuit TV. The 9/11 families were similarly allowed to view the trial of alleged al-Qaeda member Zacarias Moussaoui.
In USA v. Trump one of the charges is conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted. The alleged victims are the 81 million Americans who cast their ballots for Joe Biden. These victims have a right to watch Donald Trump tried in a rules-bound court of law, not in the circus-like court of conservative media spin. In Richmond Newspapers v. Virginia, the Supreme Court held that the press and public have a right to observe federal criminal trials. Unnecessary barriers should not be erected to diminish that right; USA v. Trump should be televised.
As Alberto Gonzales, Attorney General in the George W. Bush administration, put it, “The government has made the argument that every American was affected. This case is so unique that televising the proceedings deserves serious consideration.”
Televising federal trials is not a new idea, and it has broad support. The Judicial Conference piloted two programs to explore the use of cameras in the courtroom, one ending in 1994, the second in 2015. In a follow-up survey, many of the federal judges affirmed that cameras were not disruptive and did not change their behavior.
Letting cameras into federal courts has bipartisan support in Congress, including from Republican Senators Grassley and Cornyn, who co-sponsored the Sunshine in the Courtroom Act. When Grassley re-introduced the bill in 2021, he commented, “Federal courtrooms…represent the birthplace of decisions that can impact the lives of Americans for generations.” That could not be truer than in the outcome of USA v. Trump
America needs to see the trial of USA v. Trump first-hand, unfiltered by media bias and partisan spin. If you agree, please add your name to my petition calling on the U.S. Judicial Conference and Chief Justice Roberts to suspend Rule 53 to make it possible.