CNN Legal Guru Reveals Why Trump’s Pardon of 2020 Election Conspirators Is ‘Symbolic’
CNN’s Elie Honig explained why President Donald Trump’s pardon of those who helped him try to hold on to power after the 2020 presidential election was “largely symbolic” on Monday morning.
Anchor Sara Sidner opened up the segment by observing that Trump was “rewarding the loyalty of some of his staunchest allies by pardoning them for their alleged efforts to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election” before asking Honig: “What is the practical implication of this?”
“Right Sara, so this is a presidential pardon, so it only impacts federal criminal cases. So, as you said, several of these people are currently being prosecuted at the state level relating to the fake electors scheme in Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Georgia, and Arizona. So the pardons have no impact on those state prosecutions. Now it’s worth noting, those state prosecutions are largely in the process of collapsing or have collapsed in their own right, but the pardon has no impact. Also, pardon has no impact on any civil lawsuits. So, for example, Rudy Giuliani has been found liable for millions of dollars in defamation for statements that he made against Georgia election workers. That verdict, that liability is completely unimpacted, no impact by this pardon,” replied the former federal prosecutor. “The only thing it could impact is federal criminal cases. None of these people has been charged federally with any crimes. It’s, I think, very unlikely they would have been charged during the rest of Pam Bondi’s term as attorney general. And even if they were to be charged by a hypothetical next DOJ, that would be in 2029, way beyond the statute of limitations. So in that respect, Sara, I think they’re largely symbolic.”
“Can you talk about the larger trend that seems to be happening here when it comes to the DOJ and what happened on January 6?” followed up Sidner.
“Well, I think there’s an unmistakable trend here to rewrite and sanitize January 6. It’s been going on since day one of the Trump administration,” answered Honig. “First, let’s remember we had pardons of 1,500-plus people who were at the riot on January 6. Then we had firings of dozens of career prosecutors and law enforcement agents who were simply doing their job in prosecuting those cases. Then a week or two ago, we saw two veteran DOJ prosecutors suspended because they happened to reference January 6 as a mob and as a riot. And now we have this. And if you look at the preamble to this pardon, it specifically says essentially this is intended to make people think differently and look differently back at January 6. So I don’t think there’s any way to ignore that trend.”
Watch above via CNN.
