If Anything Is Going To Make CJ Roberts Say “No”…

Donald Trump's lawyer says he wants the January 6 trial to be televised. Excellent. Let's do this and show the world what American justice looks like.https://t.co/7Lo1Pcm2Mc

— Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) August 4, 2023

...it would be this.

Trump’s lawyer wants to re-litigate the 2020 election (as emptywheel pointed out, a strategy pursued by many now-convicted J6 defendants). He wants a circus, IOW. He wants an Aaron Sorkin Chicago 7 trial special, with him as William Kunstler (who, to be fair, was far more dramatic IRL than in Sorkin’s version).

And that’s why Roberts won’t even respond to such “demands.”

I’ve seen lawyers go hammer-and-tongs balls-out crazy in front of a jury. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I’m sure they are more inclined to do it if the audience is millions and not just 6.

I’m not sure OJ would have been acquitted if Johnny Cochran hadn’t played so well to the cameras (even juries love a good show). TeeVee is not taking the roof off the courthouse so we can all look inside. A camera is a magnifying lens: it doesn’t provide perspective and a full picture. It selects and magnifies only certain things. It doesn’t put us all in the courtroom; it makes us all the cameraman, and gives us tunnel vision. One big hungry eye, and it wants a feast. It wants to be entertained. Beware the lawyer who wants to feed it, too.

Besides, what most of America would see is not the trial, but the histrionics of Trump’s lawyer on the evening news, be it one of the Big 3, or CNN or Fox or just clips on Xitter.

This utopia that is imagined after Trump’s trial is broadcast gavel to gavel is not going to come about. Be careful what you wish for…