The New York Times has warned that allowing the public to watch Donald Trump’s Jan 6 trial on television may lead to a shift in public opinion in the former President’s favor. Instead, the paper insists Americans should get their information on the proceedings through “experts”, echoing former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo’s ludicrous claims after the release of the Hillary Clinton e-mails in 2016.
Author Nick Ackerman, a New York lawyer, claims the former president “could, through gestures or well-timed outbursts, try to use the broadcast to sway public opinion” – as if it would be wrong for a presidential challenger who believes his prosecution is politically motivated to make his case to the public – and undermine the trial’s supposed “solemnity”.
“Televising the Trump trials is no substitute for contemporaneous expert legal reporting and analysis to provide the public with real transparency,” he argues, suggesting that, rather than being able to watch the trial unfold directly and make their own judgments, the American people should have their information on it filtered through various partisan talking heads on networks like CNN and MSNBC – and perhaps New York Times guest essayists like himself, too.
Ackerman also cited his experience trying “mafia and organized crime cases” as a reason not to televise the trial, harping on themes such as “witness intimidation”.
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