Donald Trump's campaign to televise his election-interference trial is being greatly helped by a groundbreaking case involving the Victoria's Secret lingerie chain, a federal attorney has said.
A coalition of TV networks fighting to televise the Trump election proceedings last month cited the Victoria's Secret case in its petition to allow cameras into the Washington, D.C., trial, which is due to begin on March 4.
In the 1996 case of Katzman v. Victoria's Secret Catalogue, Court TV won the right to televise a federal class action taken by women who claimed that Victoria's Secret offered better deals to richer men buying lingerie for their partners than they did to Victoria's Secret female clients.
The case was led by Manhattan resident Denise Katzman, who alleged that a catalog sent to her offered a small discount, while the same one sent to her male lawyer had a discount worth $15 more. The case sparked nationwide media attention as a sex discrimination issue and Katzman appeared on 'The Oprah Winfrey Show' and on the front cover of USA Today, the UPI news agency reported at the time.
Court TV won the case as a federal court accepted that TV cameras were much smaller and quieter than they had been at the time of the 1965 Supreme Court case of Estes v. Texas, which established that public access to courts doesn't include the right to televise proceedings.
The former president was indicted on four counts in August for allegedly working to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the violent January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges, including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.
It is one of four criminal cases Trump is facing as he campaigns to retake the White House in 2024. He has also pleaded not guilty to charges in the other cases.
Newsweek approached Trump's legal team on Tuesday for comment.
Federal courts normally do not allow TV cameras in, except in very rare circumstances, but Trump and media groups have stated in court submissions that there is compelling public interest in the matter.
The chief prosecutor in the case, Jack Smith, strongly opposes having cameras at the trial, and on Monday he accused Trump of trying to create a media "carnival" in the federal courtroom.
Federal attorney Colleen Kerwick told Newsweek that, as in the Victoria's Secret case, the Trump trial is of public interest.
"The First Amendment of the United States Constitution allows trials to be open to the press and public, absent compelling and clearly articulated reasons for closing such proceedings," she said. "The federal court in Katzman v. Victoria's Secret Catalogue extended this to permit a case to be televised in the public interest. It is also a matter of the highest public interest as to whether Trump conspired to steal the 2020 election from Biden, especially where many Trump supporters have vociferated that the reverse is true."
Kerwick said that televising the Trump trial "can only further the interests of justice, enhance public understanding of the judicial system and maintain the high level of public confidence we all have in the judiciary."
In October, Charles D. Tobin and Leita Walker, two attorneys representing a coalition of media companies that want TV cameras in the Trump trial, cited the Victoria's Secret case in a written petition to Thomas Byron III, secretary of the Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure for the Washington, D.C., federal courts.
The petition states that the court in the Victoria's Secret case found that TV equipment in 1996 was "no more distracting in appearance than reporters with notebooks or artists with sketch pads," and says cameras have become even more discrete since then.
"Now, the media will typically use a single, stationary pool camera, which produces no noise and requires no lighting other than existing courtroom lighting, and can be operated remotely if necessary. Often cameras are mounted near the ceiling and trial participants do not even know they are there (or they soon forget)," the petition states, adding that "microphones affixed to tables can be as small as the erasers found on the ends of pencils."
On Monday, Smith wrote in a legal submission that Trump wants TV cameras at the trial so that he can create "a carnival atmosphere from which he hopes to profit by distracting, like many fraud defendants try to do, from the charges against him."
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Sean O'Driscoll is a Newsweek Senior Crime and Courts Reporter based in Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. law. ... Read more
