FRONTLINE Presents a 2.5-Hour Special on the 2020 Election Case, Trump’s Defense, and the Implications for Democracy

Democracy on Trial
Tues., Jan. 30, 2024
Streaming at 7/6c at pbs.org/frontline & in the PBS App
Airing at 9/8c on PBS and on YouTube
Available on the PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel
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This March, former President Donald Trump is scheduled to begin standing trial on federal conspiracy and obstruction charges, including conspiracy to defraud the U.S., in connection with efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.

What are the roots of the federal criminal case against Trump, who is now the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and who says the charges against him are politically motivated? How did the country arrive at this fraught and historic moment: A U.S. president charged with trying to subvert democracy while in office? How has Trump challenged the case? And what are the stakes?

FRONTLINE investigates these questions in Democracy on Trial, a 2.5-hour documentary special premiering Tues., Jan. 30, on PBS and on streaming platforms that offers television’s most comprehensive look at what led to Trump’s upcoming federal trial. Gripping and illuminating, the newest film from FRONTLINE’s award-winning political team, Michael Kirk, Mike Wiser and Vanessa Fica, traces the road to this unprecedented moment, and examines the implications of the historic criminal case unfolding in the midst of a presidential election year.

“Donald Trump is going to be the defendant and the candidate all wrapped into one,” New Yorker journalist Susan Glasser tells FRONTLINE. “It’s just unprecedented.”

Drawing on court documents and revelatory interviews with elected officials, former government lawyers, House Select Committee witnesses and former committee staffers, authors and journalists, the documentary reports that the work of the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack provided the groundwork for special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump and may offer insights into how the trial unfolds.

“I just think all what we see now is a byproduct of the work of the January Select Committee,” says U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the chairman of the committee.

Democracy on Trial chronicles how the committee built its case against Trump and tried to prove his intent, how it chose to present its case to the American public, and criticisms of its work. Key witnesses who testified before the committee and whose firsthand accounts are now evidence in the federal case speak out in the documentary – including Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Georgia elections official Gabriel Sterling and former Arizona Speaker of the House Rusty Bowers.

“I flat-out said, you’re asking me to break my oath,” Bowers, a lifelong Republican, tells FRONTLINE about Trump and his associates’ alleged pressure campaign on local officials to swap in false electors. “I swore an oath — I’m not gonna break it, period.”

As an appeals court weighs Trump and his team’s argument to have the case dismissed on the grounds that presidents should have absolute immunity from prosecution, the documentary also explores how both federal prosecutors and Trump’s defense team may approach the coming trial: “There should be room under the First Amendment and otherwise for the president to say an awful lot without having to tag him with a criminal offense,” Robert Ray, an independent counsel who investigated President Bill Clinton and served as a defense lawyer for Trump during his first impeachment, tells FRONTLINE. “You’re given a big amount of latitude to say a lot of wild and crazy, even stupid, things, without having to worry about somebody afterwards deciding that you should be sent to jail for it.”

“Lying to the government is not protected by the First Amendment. Obstructing justice is not protected by the First Amendment,” Ken White, federal criminal defense attorney, tells FRONTLINE. “And so here, the government’s position is going to be, we are not going after him for, you know, what he said on the news, that’s not the crime. The crime is he specifically pushed to derail specific government functions.”

Democracy on Trial examines why Trump’s defense will likely be aimed not just at the courts, but also the voters: “If he wins the election, he can just order the DOJ to drop the case entirely,” conservative columnist David French tells FRONTLINE. “So he has an enormous personal incentive to win the presidency just to get himself out of legal jeopardy.”     

Democracy on Trial will be available to watch in full at pbs.org/frontline and in the PBS App starting Jan. 30, 2024, at 7/6c. It will premiere on PBS stations (check local listings) and on FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel at 9/8c and will also be available on the PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel. The documentary is distributed internationally by PBS International. Subscribe to FRONTLINE’s newsletter to get updates on events, podcast episodes and more related to Democracy on Trial.

Credits
Democracy on Trial is a FRONTLINE production with the Kirk Documentary Group. The director is Michael Kirk. The producers are Michael Kirk, Mike Wiser and Vanessa Fica. The writers are Michael Kirk and Mike Wiser. The reporters are Vanessa Fica and Brooke Alexander. The editor-in-chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE is Raney Aronson-Rath.

About FRONTLINE
FRONTLINE, U.S. television’s longest running investigative documentary series, explores the issues of our times through powerful storytelling. FRONTLINE has won every major journalism and broadcasting award, including 106 Emmy Awards and 31 Peabody Awards. Visit pbs.org/frontline and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to learn more. FRONTLINE is produced at GBH in Boston and is broadcast nationwide on PBS. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional support for FRONTLINE is provided by the Abrams Foundation, Park Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund, with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation, and additional support from Koo and Patricia Yuen. Funding for Democracy on Trial is provided by the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation.

Press Contact:
FRONTLINE — Suzanne Pinto, Senior Publicist | Suzanne_Pinto@wgbh.org, frontlinemedia@wgbh.org