Former President Donald Trump’s Fulton County, Georgia trial will be televised following a ruling by the judge presiding over the case. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee determined this week that Trump’s trial would be carried on networks and the internet.
The judge said that the decision was done “in line with the spirit of transparency” and that the court would livestreamed “on a Fulton-County-provided YouTube channel.”
Trump pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from the aftermath of the 2020 election Thursday. The former president did not appear in the courtroom physically, but instead appeared on video.
He will not be arraigned in person for the planned Sept. 6 date. This arraignment will also be broadcast.
Trump's Georgia Trial to Be Televised
https://t.co/ZzM7OnATOr— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) August 31, 2023
The date of the trial has not been set. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) requested an Oct. 23 date, which will be determined in the near trial.
The decision to broadcast the trial was not the only significant action in Fulton County court in recent days. Willis and former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows filed competing legal documents in his pending trial.
Meadows is one of the 19 defendants charged by Willis’ office.
Meadows sought a change of venue in the case and also requested that the charges be dismissed in federal court. Meadows’ legal team argued that his actions following the contentious election were within the parameters of his job in the Trump administration.
United States District Judge Steve Jones sought additional information from Meadows’ and Willis’ legal teams. Willis argued that the former chief of staff engaged in criminal activity that did not come under his job in the administration.
The defendant conspired not for any purpose related to his duties as chief of staff, but to transform Mr. Trump from a losing political candidate into a winning one, no matter what the outcome of the election had actually been,” Willis wrote.
However, Meadows’ attorneys wrote that “what controls is Mr. Meadows’s articulation of his federal defense, not the State’s articulation of its state charges.”
Jones has not yet made a determination regarding the legal filings.