‘As important as mine was during Watergate’- John Dean on importance of Meadows’ potential testimony
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00:00 - All right, I wanna bring in Jane Kirtley,
00:03 professor of media ethics and law
00:04 at the University of Minnesota and CNN contributor,
00:06 John Dean, former Nixon White House counsel.
00:09 Thank you both for joining us.
00:12 John, we just talked about Meadows.
00:14 If he is cooperating, can you give us a sense
00:17 of the significance of how important
00:19 his testimony might be?
00:20 - It would be as important as mine was during Watergate.
00:28 It would be actually more important
00:30 because he was at the scene of so many
00:32 of the activities that occurred
00:34 that are now causing Trump the problems he's got.
00:38 He would be a remarkable star witness if he's cooperating.
00:42 And he's got an attorney who could guide him that way.
00:45 I don't know if he'd make do a plea deal
00:47 or how he'd work it out, but he'd be a powerful witness
00:51 and Trump would be in deep problems.
00:53 - That was a really significant thing that you just said,
00:56 that it would be as big as you testifying
01:00 back in the days of President Nixon.
01:02 I do wanna get, John, your take on something else
01:05 that Trump's attorney said over the weekend.
01:08 Let's go ahead and listen to that.
01:09 - Would you be open to having cameras
01:14 in the courtroom during this trial?
01:16 - I personally want the public to see
01:22 what's going on in this country right now.
01:24 I want the public to see what kind
01:27 of prosecution is going on.
01:29 And I want the public to see the evidence.
01:33 If you ask me what my personal opinion is,
01:35 the answer is absolutely I'd like to see that.
01:38 What I'm concerned about is the government
01:40 has already signaled that they don't want the press
01:42 and the American people to see the evidence in this case
01:45 because they filed an emergency protective order
01:48 to prevent that from happening.
01:50 - Cameras haven't been allowed in the federal court
01:53 since 1946.
01:55 Should they be in this case in particular?
01:58 - Is that to me?
02:01 - Yes.
02:02 - I think they should be.
02:05 I've long thought they should be.
02:07 I've watched it happen at the state level.
02:09 It's been quite successful in a number of states.
02:13 There's a theater aspect to it,
02:15 but there's also an educational aspect to it.
02:18 In Watergate, people began to learn what was happening
02:21 when the Senate hearings occurred.
02:23 That's when they got an education.
02:26 That's what'll happen here.
02:28 It won't be just sound bites are being taken
02:31 as some apparently fear is the reason not to have it.
02:36 A few academics don't like it and they have studied it
02:40 and don't find it as effective as those of us
02:44 who don't study it think so.
02:46 But I think it makes the courts open.
02:49 It gives us the impression that we know
02:50 what's going on and I do think we learn from them.
02:54 - Jane, I know I was in your state in Minnesota
02:57 when the judge in the Derek Chauvin case
03:00 in the murder of George Floyd broke with
03:02 the longstanding court rules in your state of Minnesota
03:07 and did decide that it was imperative
03:09 that cameras belonged in the courtroom
03:11 from gavel to gavel,
03:12 something that Minnesota had never done before.
03:15 What would be the best argument for allowing cameras
03:17 in the court in a federal case?
03:20 - Well, I think in any case,
03:22 any high profile criminal case like this,
03:24 first of all, pedantic answer is to say
03:27 we have a First Amendment right to be there.
03:29 The public does.
03:31 It's not practical for most people to attend the trial.
03:34 And as a Supreme Court justice once said,
03:36 we don't demand infallibility from our institutions,
03:40 but it's unrealistic to expect us to have confidence in them
03:43 if we cannot see what is being done.
03:45 What the Chauvin trial proved was
03:47 you can have a high profile controversial case,
03:50 you can set up rules,
03:51 you can have a judge who is clear
03:53 about what conduct will be permitted and what will not be,
03:57 and it goes forward.
03:59 And I think it's fair to say that the public confidence
04:02 in the verdict in the Chauvin case
04:04 was enhanced immeasurably by the fact
04:07 that we got to watch the whole thing
04:09 and not have to rely on secondary spin
04:12 about what was going on in that courtroom.
04:14 - I would have to agree with you,
04:16 just having been there and having watched people
04:19 see how it unfolded.
04:21 People, including the defense attorneys,
04:24 thought that the case was at least fair.
04:26 I do want to talk to you though about Donald Trump himself,
04:30 because he is known to say wild things,
04:34 to make faces and the like.
04:38 He likes the camera, that's no secret.
04:41 Would it be a disruption, do you think,
04:43 in a case like this, Jane?
04:46 - Well, here's the thing.
04:47 Judges have inherent authority to control their courtroom.
04:51 They don't like to give up control,
04:53 and I think that's one of the reasons
04:54 they really don't like cameras in the courtroom.
04:56 It's going to be up to the presiding judge
04:58 in all of Donald Trump's trials to make it clear
05:02 that that kind of conduct is not going to be permitted,
05:04 not from him, not from any of the attorneys,
05:06 not from anybody in that courtroom.
05:08 It'll be an interesting thing to see,
05:10 because of course in a normal trial,
05:12 the judge would not hesitate to impose a contempt order
05:16 on somebody who didn't obey.
05:18 It'll be interesting to see what happens here,
05:20 but truly, I believe that if the judge
05:22 maintains control in the courtroom,
05:24 Donald Trump's going to have to learn
05:26 that he simply cannot act like that.
05:28 As you know, in the Chauvin trial, partly because of COVID,
05:32 one of the ways that our presiding judge,
05:34 Cahill, dealt with this was by having very strict
05:37 restrictions on where people could physically be
05:40 in the courtroom.
05:41 They were behind plexiglass.
05:42 They had to stand behind a podium.
05:45 Posturing, running around, wasn't permitted.
05:47 I'm not saying that would necessarily be a good idea here,
05:50 but it would be one option the judge could consider.
05:53 - Yeah, there was only one or two chairs
05:55 for each of the family members,
05:57 and only one person from the media also
05:59 that could be in there as somebody from the pool,
06:02 so it did really restrict who could be in the court.
06:05 And it went very smoothly.
06:07 Judge Cahill was very strict with everyone.
06:10 Thank you both, John Dean and Jane.
06:12 I appreciate you coming on the show.