'Let Americans see': Legal expert implores federal courts to allow cameras for Trump trial

Former President Donald Trump's trial must be publicly televised, with cameras in the courtroom, as a matter of basic transparency for the American people, former Solicitor General Neal Katyal wrote for The Washington Post on Thursday.

A number of states already allow trials to be televised publicly — but this is not true for federal trials, where the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure expressly prohibit it. But this doesn't make sense anymore Katyal argued, and much less for a case of this level of national import.

"Whatever the virtues of this rule might have been when it was adopted in 1946, it is beyond antiquated today. We live in a digital age, where people think visually and are accustomed to seeing things with their own eyes," wrote Katyal. The simple fact is that "A criminal trial is all about witnesses and credibility, and the demeanor of participants plays a big role. A cold transcript cannot convey the emotion on a defendant’s face when a prosecution witness is on the stand, or how he walks into the courtroom each day," he said.

Televising trials, Katyal argued, is in line with the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of a "public" trial — and it would also help teach the general public about the intricacies of the judicial system, while additionally making it harder for partisans to misrepresent what happened in the trial.

This could happen two ways, Katyal noted: Either the Judicial Conference, the body presided over by Chief Justice John Roberts that sets federal courtroom rules, could revise the rule or at least make an exception in this case, or Congress could pass a law giving judges the ability to allow cameras in certain circumstances — something Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) already introduced.

"This criminal trial is being conducted in the name of the people of the United States," concluded Katyal. "It is our tax dollars at work. We have a right to see it. And we have the right to ensure that rumormongers and conspiracy theorists don’t control the narrative."