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Dear Friend,
Mitch McConnell is going to Orwellian lengths to block public access to Donald Trump's impeachment trial.
Journalists are being scanned by magnetometers for recording devices. Reporters are corralled into a "pen" far away from senators’ conversations.1 They even provided senators with cards listing phrases to use to avoid the press.2
Mitch McConnell has declared war on freedom of the press to prevent public accountability for Trump and the senators who defend him. Demand Progress is leading a coalition of groups pressuring the Senate to repeal its anti-journalism restrictions and allow transparent access to the impeachment trial.
Will you donate to stop the Senate from censoring Trump’s impeachment trial?
In an age when the White House produces edited “transcripts" of phone calls and Mitch McConnell tries to dismiss impeachment charges without a single witness, it could not be more important for the press to have public accountability and access to the impeachment trial.
But McConnell is doing everything possible to make sure that doesn’t happen.
According to a proposal leaked last week, only government cameras will be allowed in the chamber, stopping the public from seeing which senators are paying attention and how certain questions are asked and answered. Journalists will be roped off from the senators who may want to speak to the press.3 The impeachment trial press rules are so restrictive that even C-Span is mad!4
Trump’s impeachment is an event of monumental historical importance, and the legitimacy of our democracy is at stake. There is absolutely no reason why Americans shouldn’t have open access to the trial, and the Senate should, if anything, err on the side of more access, not less.
That’s why Demand Progress called on McConnell and the Senate Rules Committee to cancel these draconian restrictions and open the impeachment trials to press coverage. Organizations from the ACLU to Public Citizen have signed on to the coalition letter, and now we need to publicize as much as possible the Senate’s plan to censor the impeachment trial coverage to raise an uproar.
Thanks for standing with us.
Robert Cruickshank,
Demand Progress
Sources:
1. National Coalition Against Censorhip, "NCAC Joins Call For Full Press Access to Senate Impeachment Trial," January 17, 2020
2. Business Insider, Capitol Police gave senators phrase cards with suggestions to tell reporters covering impeachment to 'get out of my way'," January 16, 2020
3. The New York Times, "Even C-SPAN Is Piqued: Senate Puts Limits on Trial Coverage," January 19, 2020
4. Ibid.
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