CNN Legal Analyst Elie Honig Skeptical Trump DOJ Can Make a Perjury Charge Stick Against James Comey: ‘Really, Really Hard Case’

CNN legal analyst Elie Honig believes the DOJ will have a tough time making a perjury charge stick against former FBI Director James Comey.

Appearing on CNN’s The Arena on Wednesday — moments after CNN confirmed reporting that the U.S. attorney’s office in the Eastern District of Virginia is expected to indict Comey for lying to Congress — Honig made clear that it’s going to be a high bar to convict the former FBI director on such a charge.

“It’s important to keep in mind that it’s really hard to bring and prove a false statements or perjury case,” Honig said. People sometimes sort of say that casually, but you have to prove a couple things. First of all, you have prove that the statement made — the testimony, in this case, given to Congress — was false, and that it was intentionally false. That the person who made the statements gave the testimony lied on purpose. Now, it’s real easy to get an indictment. It’s not automatic, but all you have to do is go into a grand jury, convince a majority — not unanimous — but a majority of grand jurors that you have probable cause. That’s a low standard. That’s much different than what you’ll need to prove someone’s guilt at trial, eventually.”

Honig argued President Donald Trump’s own words and actions might hurt the case — alluding to Truth Social posts in which Trump announced the replacement of the U.S. attorney in Eastern Virginia, and specifically said he wasn’t satisfied with the progress of the investigation into Comey.

“The timing here … so important because just days ago, Donald Trump replaced the prosecutor in this office, and said specifically in his post it’s because he wants Jim Comey, among others, to be prosecuted,” Honig said. “So that’s something that, if there’s an indictment, I promise you Jim Comey’s legal team will use that to argue that these cases are politically motivated and should be thrown out.”

Honig wrapped up his analysis by reiterating that the burden of proof will be extremely high.

“It’s really, really hard to make perjury cases, I think way harder than people think,” he said. “So they’re going to have to show a straight up lie by Jim Comey. They’re going have to have show that it is in fact a lie, and that he knew it, that he didn’t get crossed up, that he wasn’t asked a confusing or a vague question.”

Watch above, via CNN.