It’s happening: Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee has confirmed that Donald Trump’s Georgia felony trial will be streamed via the county court’s YouTube channel and that a press pool will be arranged, allowing the trial to be televised. That news comes to us via The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Each of the 19 indicted defendants’ trials will be televised, in fact; current legal wrangling has yet to determine which of the defendants will have their trials split off from Trump’s, but a number of his co-defendants have already broken with Trump to request that their own trials happen much, much sooner than Trump’s current (non-indicted) lawyers are pushing for. Attorney Kenneth Chesebro was the first to request a speedy trial, receiving an Oct. 23 trial date from Judge McAfee. Trump’s trial is currently scheduled for next March.
Co-defendant and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows is attempting to move his own trial to federal court; if he is successful, that trial will not be broadcast. Trump’s legal team is expected to attempt the same move, but likely won’t succeed.
Trump has been responsible for a series of firsts after winning election in 2016. He was the first United States president to be impeached twice. He later became the first former president to be criminally indicted. He is now the first former president to be indicted four times, the first to be indicted for violations of the Espionage Act, and the first to be indicted for an attempt to nullify a U.S. presidential election by submitting fraudulent electoral slates to Congress.
Now he will almost certainly become the first former president to have a felony trial televised worldwide, no doubt to ratings Trump himself will brag about if he takes the witness stand, which he will not—unless he does.
Truly, a historic figure. Not in a good way, mind you, but if our republic manages to survive this mess, his name will definitely be in the history books.
Trump’s continuing legal problems, the car crash of a Republican debate, and the polling numbers defy the traditional media’s narrative that the Republican Party is even above water with voters.
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