Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance highly doubts Donald Trump’s claim that he now wants cameras inside the courtroom during his trial next year over 2020 election interference.
The former president’s legal team on Friday filed in favor of allowing every spit and cough of the proceedings to be televised. But Vance argued in her latest “Civil Discourse” newsletter that Trump was simply trying to make himself look like the victim if the cameras are not permitted.
“It’s meant as a strategic measure to paint himself as martyr and the government as a Soviet-style prosecution,” she wrote. “He might even change course if it appeared the trial was going to be televised.”
“Trump wants to damage trust in the government and call this a kangaroo court — fine, let him have his way and let the sunlight into his trial,” she added. “Because the facts are the facts and the evidence is the evidence. People are entitled to the truth here.”
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan may now have the reason needed to allow cameras, thanks to Trump’s lawyers, said Vance.
“Federal courts have traditionally disallowed cameras out of concern for a defendant’s due process rights,” she explained. “Here, Trump has effectively mooted that argument. He has waived the argument on appeal. There is no reason, other than the existence of an outmoded rule, to prevent the public from observing this most important of trials.”
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