Trump Arraignment Judge Banning Phones From Courtroom Raises Questions

No cameras, phones and electronic devices will be allowed into the Miami courtroom where Donald Trump will be arraigned on Tuesday, a Florida judge has decided.

The ban was announced late on Monday by the chief judge for the Southern District of Florida, Cecilia M. Altonaga, as the time of the much-awaited appearance of the former president in court quickly approaches.

Last Thursday, a grand jury indicted Trump on 37 counts including obstruction and unlawful retention of defense information for storing dozens of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida after leaving office in January 2021, and refusing to return them to the FBI and the National Archives. It was the first time that a former American president was charged with a federal crime.

Trump has maintained his innocence, saying that documents found by the FBI at his Florida resort last summer were declassified. But a tape available to federal prosecutors and obtained by CNN shows that the former president was aware of being in possession of at least one document that he had not declassified and was then unable to.

Trump will be arraigned at a Miami court on Tuesday—an appearance that has posed the issue for many broadcasters and networks on how to cover the historic event.

Altonaga ordered that "on Tuesday, June 13, 2023, all cellular phones and/or electronic equipment are hereby prohibited for news reporters and other members of the media inside the Wilkie D. Ferguson, Jr. United States Courthouse in Miami," the official document reads.

The ban has raised questions, especially among news reporters. CBS News Congressional correspondent Scott MacFarlane wrote on Twitter: "There will be no photos. No video. No audio. And no journalists permitted to communicate to the outside world through phone devices (or thru any other technology) during the first ever federal arraignment of a former US President."

He added: "This historic American moment will largely (if not fully) be invisible to America."

But others on social media pointed out that the transcript of the arraignment would be made available later and that news reporters could still go "old school" and use pen and paper to take notes. Reporters will have to run outside the courtroom to update their networks of what's going on in the arraignment.

No audio from the event will be made available to reporters or the public later, magistrate judge Jonathan Goodman, who's presiding over the arraignment, has decided. He also rejected a media coalition request for limited access to cameras in the courtroom before the proceedings.

According to Goodman, "allowing photographs would undermine the massive security arrangements put in place." During Trump's arraignment in New York in April, linked to the payment of hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election, reporters were allowed to take pictures at the start of the proceedings.

It's not unusual to have phones and cameras banned in a federal court, where this happens regularly. Cameras have been traditionally prohibited for criminal proceedings such as this, especially inside the courtroom.

The media coalition's request to have cameras inside the courthouse appealed to the historic nature of the arraignment on Tuesday, but this wasn't found by Goodman to be a strong enough reason compared to issues of security.

The arraignment will begin today at 3 p.m. ET at the Miami court, where Trump is expected to plead not guilty. He will then likely be released and give a speech in the evening of the same day.