Trump Legal Team Flips the Script on Jack Smith; Demands the 'Travesty' of His Trial Be Shown to All Americans
Donald Trump is turning the Democrats’ own game against them.
Ever since he descended the Trump Tower escalator in 2015 to declare he was running for the White House, the 45th president has rarely been on the same side as the establishment media, but when it comes to his upcoming criminal case in a Washington, D.C., courtroom, they suddenly have common cause.
Trump wants the “travesty” of his trial on television — and his legal team is demanding that the judge go along.
In a blistering motion filed Friday, Trump’s attorneys asked Circuit Judge Tanya Chutkan to agree to a request by news organizations seeking an exception to the ban on cameras in federal courtrooms because “[e]very person in America, and beyond, should have the opportunity to study this case firsthand and watch as, if there is a trial, President Trump exonerates himself of these baseless and politically motivated charges.”
That’s exactly what special counsel Jack Smith does not want to happen.
In a motion filed last week, Smith argued that making an exception to the ban for the Trump case would impede the ability to ensure a “fair trial” and “the fair administration” of justice.
As usual when it comes to Democrats in 2023, the truth is exactly the opposite. Nothing — nothing — in the way the case has played out so far indicates Smith and his team are remotely interested in a fair trial or the “fair administration of justice.”
What Smith wants is a conviction of Trump that would effectively remove President Joe Biden’s most influential political opposition from the field — the same motivation that’s behind the legal warfare being waged against Trump in New York, in Florida and in Georgia.
The case against Trump in D.C. stems from his alleged role in instigating the Capitol incursion of Jan. 6, 2021. He’s charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.
The Trump team’s filing Friday was not completely unexpected.
Back in August, his attorney, John Lauro — the author of the motion — made an argument on the Fox News program “America Reports” that cameras would be warranted in the courtroom.
“The first thing we would ask for is, let’s have cameras in the courtroom so all Americans can see what’s happening in our criminal justice system,” he told host John Roberts.
“And I would hope the Department of Justice would join in that effort so that we take the curtain away and all Americans get to see what’s happening.”
But the language in the motion was extraordinary, coming from a former United States president’s lawyers. It’s a document that reads more like a political broadside than a dry legal brief — and it suits the blatantly political nature of the prosecution perfectly.
“Aware that its charges are meritless, the prosecution has sought to proceed in secret, forcing the nation and the world to rely on biased, secondhand accounts coming from the Biden Administration and its media allies,” it declares.
“As a result, the citizens of our great country are unable to review for themselves what the facts of this case show, and how unfairly President Trump is being treated at the hands of his political opponent …
“The prosecution wishes to continue this travesty in darkness. President Trump calls for sunlight.”
The motion alludes to Chutkan’s obvious bias against Trump and her gag order preventing Trump from speaking publicly about the trial.
It declares the case “has all the unfortunate badges of a trial in an authoritarian regime, lacking legitimacy or due process.”
Then it drops the bomb of a conclusion:
“Therefore, the Court should grant the Motions and allow the movants to broadcast the proceedings of this matter in order to ensure that the American public can see the bare truth of this case, witness the Biden Administration’s wrongful acts, and hear all the evidence regarding an election that President Trump believes was rigged and stolen.“
What’s important here is that Trump’s legal team is asking for nothing more than what House Democrats and Nancy Pelosi’s ludicrously biased committee investigating the Capitol incursion tried to do.
The committee, remember, took to the airwaves in primetime in a vain attempt to convince the country that what occurred that day was an “insurrection,” convict Trump in the court of public opinion of being the man behind it, and remove him as a force in American politics.
That didn’t work, as is clear from Trump’s commanding lead in the Republican primary polls.
What Democrats have to fear — from Joe Biden to Jack Smith and all around the country — is that Americans seeing a show trial like the one that’s scheduled to occur in a D.C. courtroom right at the most important point in the primary calendar are going to understand just how corrupt the Justice Department has become under the Biden administration.
Even if, as is almost certain, Chutkan decides against cameras in the courtroom, Trump’s legal team has made the point.
Democrats wanted the country to see Trump as guilty with televised Jan. 6 committee hearings.
What they’re most afraid of is that a televised trial in D.C. will show how innocent he is. And who the actual guilty parties are.
And that would flip the script entirely.
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