CNN’s Elie Honig Tells Kaitlan Collins He Thinks Trump Charges May Be ‘Unconstitutional’ Hours Before Sentencing

CNN legal analyst Elie Honig told anchor Kaitlan Collins that President-elect Donald Trump has “substantial issues” on which to appeal in his hush money case, and that the charges he’s being sentenced for “may be” unconstitutional.

Hours before Trump was scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 10 for the 34 felony counts he was found guilty of in the Stormy Daniels hush money trial, the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to deny Trump’s emergency petition.

On Thursday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, Collins asked Honig for his analysis of the decision, and Honig volunteered that he thinks Trump’s appeal has merit and could wind up succeeding:

COLLINS: Everyone is waiting to see what it said. Even people in Trump-world that I’ve been talking to were kind of divided on whether or not the Supreme Court was going to take their side.

Were you surprised by this?

HONIG: I was surprised it was this close, Kaitlan. We were one vote away from the U.S. Supreme Court, preventing Donald Trump from getting sentenced, by Zoom, to nothing. I mean, that would have damaged the Supreme Court’s credibility beyond all recognition.

And I think the opinion that came down, 5-4, letting the sentencing go, I think it was perfectly sound. Basically, the justices in the majority said two things.

First of all, they said, What’s the harm? You’re going to get sentenced to zero. You can do it by Zoom. You can roll out of bed and do it.

And second of all, You do maybe have substantial issues — I think he has substantial issues on appeal — But you can handle them through the full appeal process that will follow your sentencing.

COLLINS: They’re saying, You don’t need to do this right now. There are normal channels to handle this there.

HONIG: Yes.

COLLINS: But Trump just doesn’t want it to happen before he becomes president.

HONIG: And you know what’s maybe ironic about it. Trump actually gets a benefit by being sentenced tomorrow, which is once that sentencing is over, as of tomorrow morning, then he can take his full appeals. He can go up the New York Courts of Appeals, he can go maybe to the U.S. Supreme Court, and say, The charge against me was unconstitutional. Which I think it may be. He can say that the jury was not properly instructed.

But if he had gotten his way, if he was not sentenced tomorrow? He would not have been able to appeal. That would have been it. So this sentence would have sort of died in netherworld.

COLLINS: Well, and part of their argument had been that it was going to be too tough for him to get sentenced tomorrow, that he couldn’t show up to the sentencing in New York.

HONIG: Yes.

COLLINS: The justices made a point, the five who ruled that he — that he — this could happen, and said that it was relatively insubstantial, in light of what the court is saying that they’re going to do, which is to impose that sentence of unconditional discharge.

HONIG: Yes.

COLLINS: And it’s a brief virtual hearing. He doesn’t have to be there in-person, tomorrow.

HONIG: So, this was a smart move by Judge Merchan. Because he said, last week, I’m going to sentence you to essentially nothing, and you can do it by Zoom.

If Merchan had not done that, if he just said, Appear for sentencing, Friday, it will be like any other sentencing. You don’t know what you’re going to get until I tell you? That might have changed the Supreme Court’s calculus.

Watch above via CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins.

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