MIAMI (TNS) — The 45th president of the United States has been charged with 37 felony counts related to his handling of classified documents in Florida. According to the indictment, the former president “endeavored to obstruct the FBI and grand jury investigations and conceal retention of classified documents.”
Stringent rules in the U.S. Southern District of Florida mean neither audio nor video recording will be shared in real time.
However, these unprecedented charges require that the case against Donald Trump be held in the open. Period. An empowered public is an informed public. The only chance America has of beginning to heal its political and ideological divides is to let people actually see — or at least hear — the government’s evidence and Trump’s rebuttal.
Audio of U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments is livestreamed, or at least recordings are released on a same-day basis, and have been since December 2000 when RTDNA compelled then- Chief Justice William Rehnquist to do so in Bush v Palm Beach County Canvassing Board, the case that decided the outcome of that year’s presidential election.
That case was unprecedented. It required the courts to reevaluate existing structures and adapt to the modern era.
These federal criminal proceedings against Trump — a former president of the United States — are also unprecedented. This moment, too, requires unprecedented action.
Americans and people around the world have a clear need to see for themselves how and if justice is administered to a former president. They need to hear directly from the judge, prosecutors, defense attorneys and witnesses. They need to see the evidence shown to the jury. They need to see and hear the verdict rendered the same moment it is delivered.
For decades, because of arcane and arbitrary rules, the public’s access to federal court proceedings has been limited to sketch artist depictions and retellings from journalists and legal analysts. While these rules may continue to prevent the U.S. Southern District of Florida from allowing video recording, at the very least it needs to livestream audio from the trial.
While those artists and journalists, by and large, have done a remarkable job of accurately conveying the essence of what occurred in court, the public has not been able to determine, using people’s own eyes and ears, the full context of what happened.
Drawings and summaries are not enough in such a highly consequential, historic and unprecedented case involving a former president, especially one who is actively campaigning for another term in office.
The American people must see or, at the very least, hear high-profile court proceedings in what is one of the most important investigations the U.S. Justice Department has ever conducted.
(Dan Shelley is president & CEO of the Radio Television Digital News Association.)
