Elie Honig Knocks Trump for Fumbling ‘Easiest Question in Human History’ with Ghislaine Maxwell Pardon Answer

CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig argued President Donald Trump fumbled the “easiest question in human history” this week when he kept the door open to pardoning longtime-Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell.

Honig joined Michael Smerconish on Saturday where he expressed shock over Trump keeping the door open to pardoning Maxwell, who is currently serving 20 years for sex trafficking. Maxwell has met with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche multiple times, and the House Oversight Committee has subpoenaed her in the face of calls for more documents related to Epstein to be released.

While speaking to press on Friday morning, Trump kept the door open to a Maxwell pardon, saying, “I’m allowed to do it.” Trump said at the time that he hasn’t “thought about it.”

Honig on Saturday recalled that as a prosecutor he relied on violent criminals, including murderers, as witnesses, but Maxwell is a “bridge too far.”

On Trump’s response to the pardon question, Honig said it should be the “easiest question in human history to answer.”

“It’s the easiest question in human history… our colleague, Kevin Liptak, asked a great question, ‘are you kidding me?’ A pardon for the single worst, or number two after Jeffrey Epstein, worst child sex trafficker in modern history? Absolutely not,” he said.

Honig doesn’t believe a pardon in in the cards, but said he’s heard from people close to the president that the possibility is real.

Maxwell was the longtime associate of Epstein, who died of an apparent suicide in 2019 while being charged with sex trafficking. A Department of Justice/FBI memo recently dropped that dumped cold water on theories of high profile client lists of Epstein associates who took part in decades of alleged abuse. Trump has lashed out at his own supporters over Epstein calls and dismissed the existence of a “list” as a “hoax.”

Check out the exchange below:

ELIE HONIG: Ghislaine Maxwell to me is a bridge too far. I cannot imagine, and again, I’m not sensitive about this, I cannot image calling a convicted child sex predator like Ghislaine Maxwell, who has done nothing but lie about this when asked in the past, including under oath, putting her in front of a jury and saying to a jury, she’s ours now. You own a witness. When you put a cooperator on the stand, for better or worse, you own that person. And I think to put Ghislaine Maxwell on a stand and to ask a jury to convict someone else and send someone else to prison, based on her word, A, is a prosecutorial disaster, and B, would be a public relations and political disaster for the Trump administration.

MICHAEL SMERCONISH: And you would think that when asked about whether you’re going to cut some slack to a child predator, the immediate response from any elected official, including the president, would be a “hell no” and not a “I haven’t really thought about it. Of course, I have the power to do so.” So what do you read into the clip that we played in terms of how the president responded yesterday?

HONIG: Yeah, it’s the easiest question in human history that our colleague, Kevin Liptak, asked a great question. It’s, “are you kidding me?” A pardon for the single worst, or number two after Jeffrey Epstein, worst child sex trafficker in modern history? Absolutely not. And oh, instead we get the, “haven’t thought about it, I have the right.” He’s right, he has the right. And look, Michael, there’s a history here. I mean, Donald Trump is a habitual pardon dangler. You can go back and look at the clips of him saying almost word for word the exact thing about Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, right? “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it.” And what did he do? He pardoned them all. Now, it’s still hard for me to believe that Donald Trump will actually pardon or commute Ghislaine Maxwell for similar reasons that we talked about, but other people who I know who are closer to Donald Trump and who have worked with them in the past say it could well happen. So I’m not going to bet either way on that, but boy, that’s hard to imagine, isn’t it?

Watch above via CNN.