CNN Table Erupts in Laughter at Trump Fan’s Defense of Drug Pardon

CNN’s Newsnight table erupted in laughter at ex-Trump official Harrison Fields over his defense of President Donald Trump for pardoning a convicted drug trafficker amid strikes on alleged drug boats.

Trump has faced criticism for pardoning former president of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was sentenced to 45 years in prison for drug trafficking. The pardon comes as Trump wages a deadly campaign against alleged Venezuelan drug boats — including one strike in which the survivors were ordered to be killed.

The president has claimed that Hernandez’s imprisonment was the result of a political prosecution by President Joe Biden’s administration. But the lead investigator on the case that resulted in the conviction, Emil Bove, went on to become Trump’s personal lawyer and then a Trump judicial appointee.

On Wednesday night’s edition of CNN NewsNight, Phillip convened a panel consisting of Fields, Ana Navarro, Arthur Aidala, and Jaime Harrison to discuss the strikes and the pardons.

During the former conversation, Fields accused Phillip and others of “defending” drug traffickers by objecting to the killing of survivors. That accusation came up when most of the table fairly cackled as Fields defended the Hernandez pardon. Even pro-Trump attorney Aidala got in on the act:

FIELDS: These are the flashy pardson, these are ones that catches the news. When you look at what’s actually happening, you have Alice Marie Johnson, someone who the president pardoned in his first term, who’s overseeing a large majority of all these pardons giving a second chance to countless Americans who would be left in the shadows in a dark, cold prison cell.

This president is giving these people extra life. Alice Marie Johnson is the best test —

HARRISON: A lot of test, billionaires and —

PHILLIP: Why are you overshadowing with these other pardons? Why is he pardoning a drug trafficker? Why is he pardoning somebody that his own DOJ just prosecuted? Why is he pardoning somebody who was convicted of $1.7 billion in fraud?

FIELDS: If you look at a lot of these cases —

PHILLIP: So, why — and why is he pardoning somebody who he and his family are in business with?

FIELDS: If you look at a lot of these cases, what you happen to be telling is half the truth. If you look at the actual, some of these are over prosecutions. Some of these are crimes that would have never been prosecuted.

PHILLIP: So the Honduran drug trafficker is–

FIELDS: That is a whole another — it’s not going to take three minutes.

ANA NAVARRO, CNN SR. POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Who was the lead investigator?

FIELDS: There was a larger — there was a larger, there was a larger geopolitical issue there. This is a right-wing, this is the previous administration.

PHILLIP: So Trump is trying to influence the Honduran election by pardoning someone.

Of course, it’s Joe Biden.

PHILLIP: So pardoning someone from this guy’s political party. But he’s a drug trafficker.

FIELDS: But I’m saying the previous administration tried to make an example out of this person. And if you look at who he testified against him, it was drug lords that this guy extradited to the United States.

PHILLIP: And I just pointed out that the Honduran president’s brother was prosecuted in this, in the part of the scheme, prosecuted by Emil Bove. That’s Trump’s former lawyer. He’s now in the Trump administration right now.

FIELDS: So you guys try to take him out.

PHILLIP: I’m sorry. Now he’s on the court.

FIELDS: And you guys, and you had —

PHILLIP: So are you really trying to argue? You were just talking about us defending drug traffickers. Are you trying to defend a drug trafficker?

FIELDS: I’m not. If you look at the facts of the case, you talk about over, there’s a lot of holes in that case. They try to make an example out of this person.

I don’t know all the facts.

ARTHUR AIDALA, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Holes filled with cocaine!

FIELDS: But what I can tell you, what I can tell you.

PHILLIP: I got to leave it there. But I’m just going to leave, I’m going to leave that alone. There’s only one person at this table who’s defended a drug trafficker, and it ain’t me.

Watch above via CNN NewsNight.