No, this juror interview is not going to put Donald Trump’s prosecution at risk – but we do have a big problem here
Even as every bit of information coming out has made it clear for awhile now that Donald Trump was going to end up criminally indicted in multiple jurisdictions, we’ve had to hear this unending narrative about how Trump will simply get away with it all no matter what. Along the way I tried to warn everyone that the minute it became clear for all to see that Trump was indeed being indicted, the folks who told you he would never be indicted would jump straight to telling you that he won’t be convicted. Sure enough, that’s already happening, in almost startlingly swift fashion.
Tuesday’s media interviews with a member of the Fulton County special grand jury make it clear that Donald Trump has been recommended for criminal indictment and will soon be criminally indicted. For those who have been waiting for Trump to be brought to justice, this is the biggest and best piece of news in quite some time. But instead of allowing this great news to be seen for what it is, we’re already seeing a new media narrative about how this juror’s interviews will somehow taint the indictment, and Trump will go free.
To be clear, that is absolutely not how things work. Georgia law allows jurors, once their work is complete, to talk about some things and not other things. This juror didn’t even come close to breaking those rules. Nothing that she said will in any way put anything in danger, and no legal expert could ever even try to argue otherwise – at least not while keeping a straight face.
Yet that fact hasn’t stopped talking head after talking head, everywhere from MSNBC to Twitter, from insisting that these juror interviews have somehow put the Trump indictment in jeopardy. The media has already pulled a fast one. It’s managed to gloss over the earth shaking news that Trump is being indicted and skip right to the part where it begins trying to scare and outrage you into believing that he won’t be convicted. It’s exactly what I warned you these types would do. And they’ve done it in shockingly quick fashion.
Let’s be clear here. This wasn’t coincidence. Major news outlets asked the judge overseeing this case to prematurely release the entire special grand jury report, which would have put Trump’s indictment at risk. Fortunately the judge refused to go along with it. When that effort failed, major news outlets then sought interviews with the jury forewoman, and proceeded to ask her the kinds of questions that could have put Trump’s indictment at risk. Fortunately she refused to answer those questions. See the pattern here?
It’s the major media outlets themselves that are now willfully putting Trump’s indictment at risk. They’re the ones who are actively trying to create fundamental problems for this criminal case. And even now that they’ve twice failed to taint the case, they’re now just proceeding with the lie that these juror interviews have created fundamental problems for this case. It’s honestly a bit unnerving.
The most charitable interpretation would be that the media is so eager to start cashing in on ratings ahead of Trump’s indictment, it doesn’t care if its antics put the indictment at risk. The darker interpretation would be that the media is trying to sabotage Trump’s indictment, because it wants him out of prison and therefore available to run in 2024, for the sake of ratings.
Either way, the major media outlets have now outed themselves as the most direct threat to Donald Trump being brought to justice. And perhaps that’s not a surprise. The media’s thirst for ratings in 2016 is what helped put Trump in power to begin with. The media’s thirst for ratings in 2021 and 2022 caused it to spend the whole time pretending that Trump, in spite of his overwhelming criminal liability, will somehow magically be available to run in 2024. And now that Trump is indeed being criminally indicted in multiple jurisdictions, that same media just happens to be making moves that are putting his prosecution at risk. Hmm.
This particular juror did not come off well in these interviews, and that’s an understatement. But she is now a former juror, and she did follow the rules of what former jurors are and aren’t allowed to say. She didn’t put anything at risk. It was the media who (knowingly) put Trump’s indictment at risk by seeking interviews with her. Whatever you think of this juror, if we’re picking a villain here, it has to be the media. It’s the media that desperately tried (and failed) to get this juror to make a mess of Trump’s indictment.
Sometimes I’m told that I’m a little bit too hard on the mainstream media. But then we have a day like Tuesday, where the media seems to go out of its way to prove me right and then some. Meanwhile back in the real world, the real story is that Donald Trump is being criminally indicted. Too bad the media went out of its way to manufacture a bunch of nonsense that obscured the real story and could have put Trump’s criminal prosecution at risk.
You’d think the fact that Donald Trump is being criminally indicted would be a ratings-friendly enough story to keep the media happy. Instead the media did what we saw it do on Tuesday. It’s becoming more of a concern by the day. Now more than ever, we have to hold the media accountable and force it to be more honest. It’s simply not optional.
