In a seemingly bipartisan alignment with Democratic lawmakers and former President Donald Trump‘s legal counsel, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee said they want cameras allowed into the courtroom when Trump appears in the federal cases against him.
A spokesperson for the GOP-led committee told the Washington Examiner Wednesday that they “support cameras in this limited by extraordinary circumstance” one week after Trump was hit with charges over his alleged attempts to subvert the 2020 election results.
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Nearly three dozen House Democrats led by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) signed a letter last week calling for televising Trump’s federal trials related to the election interference case and the case over his alleged mishandling of classified records, which is ongoing in a Florida federal court.
The letter requests the Judicial Conference, the national policy-making body for the federal courts led by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, “explicitly authorize the broadcasting of court proceedings in the cases of United States of America v. Donald J. Trump.”
While Roberts technically is the presiding officer of the Judicial Conference, the letter was addressed to Judge Roslynn R. Mauskopf, the secretary of the administrative body. The Washington Examiner contacted Mauskopf for a response.
On Sunday, Trump attorney John Lauro said he was adamantly in favor of cameras in the courtroom after the request from 37 Democratic lawmakers.
“I personally would love to see that,” Lauro told Shannon Bream on Fox News Sunday. “I’m convinced the Biden administration does not want the American people to see the truth. And they acted on it by filing this protective order, which is an effort to keep important information about this case from the press.”
As of now, a federal rule prevents “the taking of photographs in the courtroom during judicial proceedings or the broadcasting of judicial proceedings from the courtroom.”
There are several arguments that have been made for and against allowing cameras into Trump’s trials.
Nick Akerman, who was an assistant special Watergate prosecutor and a former assistant U.S. attorney, wrote in a New York Times op-ed that there are potential dangers to trial witnesses and jurors in televising such a high-profile trial.
“It is one thing to testify in a public courtroom; it is a whole different level of public exposure to testify before the entire world on television,” Akerman said. “A witness who is named and pictured on television becomes a sitting duck for any Trump partisan intent on seeking retribution.”
But Democrats who signed the letter cited a need for “transparency” and “reliable information” about the case going forward.
The public needs “timely access to accurate and reliable information surrounding these cases and all of their proceedings, given the extraordinary national importance to our democratic institutions and the need for transparency,” the letter stated.
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On Wednesday, the judge presiding over Trump’s classified documents case denied a request from media outlets to bring electronic devices into the Florida federal courtroom where a hearing is slated for Thursday.
The media parties notably mentioned that their request was asking permission to send messages and social media posts about the proceeding, not whether they would be allowed to record or transmit video or audio.
