Democrats are starting to feel the ground crumble beneath them.
Going into the 2024 presidential campaign they’re starting to change their tune.
And Jack Smith, the Biden administration’s hand-picked prosecutor, filed a motion in a Washington, D.C. federal court pushing back against requests by media outlets to have his trial against Donald Trump televised.
The trial centers around the weaponized Justice Department’s classified documents prong of the Democrats’ all-out lawfare effort to have Donald Trump jailed in seeming retaliation for challenging the results of the election in 2020.
Smith was quick to claim that banning cameras from the courtroom is essential to maintain the federal Judicial Conference’s long-standing decision to ban televised federal trials.
Smith’s motion read:
The taking of photographs and operation of tape recorders inside the United States Courthouse and radio or television broadcasting from inside the courthouse during the progress of or in connection with judicial proceedings, including proceedings before a United States Magistrate Judge, whether or not the court is actually in session, is prohibited. A judge may, however, permit (1) the use of electronic or photographic means for the presentation of evidence or the perpetuation of a record, and (2) the broadcasting, televising, recording, or photographing of investiture, ceremonial, or naturalization proceedings. Contents of official tapes that are made as part of the record in a case will be treated in the same manner as official stenographic note.
Despite noting that there are exemptions carved out in the policy, Smith made clear later in the motion that he absolutely doesn’t want cameras permitted during the trial.
Smith’s motion continued:
While Applicants are free to advocate their views to policymakers, 6 this Court should decline their invitation to ignore the binding nature of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 53. Accordingly, the Applications should be denied.
The fact that Smith is so panicked over the thought of Trump’s trial being broadcast is significant and likely telling.
Democrats were all for televising hearings for Nancy Pelosi’s January 6 Special Committee back when they thought they’d stumbled across the perfect plan to take out Biden’s biggest GOP rival.
However, they soon discovered that Donald Trump’s poll numbers keep rising both against Biden and his GOP rivals after Democrats’ decided to use a weaponized justice system to keep the former president from winning another term in the Oval Office.
Smith is bound and determined to keep cameras in the courtroom during his trial against Trump because it could prove an absolute disaster if the American people get a chance to see what’s happening behind closed doors.
Smith—a Democrat prosecutor—is employing a novel legal theory to bend the law in hopes of sticking Trump with criminal charges that could keep him off the ballot in 2024.
The trouble for Smith is that there is no law on the books explicitly spelling out that anything Trump did as he contested the election is illegal.
Instead, he’s banking on a biased Democrat judge and an all-Democrat jury to serve up a predetermined guilty verdict.
But that scheme wouldn’t fly if the District of Columbia court televised the process.
In fact, Smith and his fellow Democrats have every reason to fear that cameras in the courtroom will only serve to fire up the Republican base giving Trump yet another boost in the polls, not to mention his fundraising.
On top of that, such a spectacle could also backfire by putting Joe Biden’s weaponized justice system on trial.
Political Animal News will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this ongoing story.
