Legal professionals for former President Donald Trump informed a New York choose on Monday that they oppose the request by media retailers to broadcast Trump’s arraignment on Tuesday.
“We submit that the media request needs to be denied as a result of it is going to create a circus-like environment on the arraignment, increase distinctive safety considerations, and is inconsistent with President Trump’s presumption of innocence,” the Trump workforce stated in a letter to New York Supreme Courtroom Choose Juan Service provider.
Trump’s attorneys stated of their letter to Performing New York Supreme Courtroom Choose Juan Merchan that he’s required below court docket guidelines to take note of potential safety considerations.
“As Your Honor is well-aware, this case presents extraordinary safety considerations (together with Secret Service-related considerations) and we submit that any video or images of the proceedings will solely heighten these critical considerations,” they wrote.
Among the many Trump legal professionals signing the brand new letter was Todd Blanche, who, CNN reported, not too long ago joined the previous president’s authorized workforce.
In the meantime, the Manhattan District Lawyer’s workplace additionally responded Monday to the information retailers’ request, and stated that it was deferring to the choose to resolve how finest to handle his court docket room.
Nevertheless, the district legal professional’s workplace wrote that it will “be a defensible train of the Courtroom’s discretion to exclude or prohibit videography, images, and radio protection of the arraignment within the curiosity of avoiding potential prejudice to the defendant, sustaining an orderly continuing, assuring the protection of the members within the continuing, or for different causes throughout the Courtroom’s broad authority to handle and management these proceedings.”
However the prosecutors additionally famous that there “doesn’t look like a categorical prohibition on cameras throughout an arraignment” below present New York statutes and case regulation.
Whereas the district legal professional’s workplace stopped in need of opposing the request, its lawyer identified to Merchan {that a} comparable request for audio-video broadcasting was made for the 2021 arraignment within the tax fraud case in opposition to Trump Group and its CFO Allen Weisselberg.
The choose responded to that 2021 request by “permitting a restricted variety of nonetheless images to be taken previous to the graduation of proceedings,” the prosecutors famous Monday.
CNN is among the retailers requesting digital camera entry for Tuesday’s arraignment.
