‘Have They Apologized to You at All?’ Jake Tapper Takes a Swipe at MSNBC Legal Analysts Over Exchange With CNN Legal Expert
Jake Tapper took a swipe at MSNBC on Friday over its guests’ criticisms of CNN legal analyst Elie Honig.
Appearing on Friday’s edition of The Lead, Tapper noted Honig predicted weeks ago judge would rule in favor of former President Donald Trump.
Trump sought the appointment of special master to review documents seized from his Mar-a-Lago estate last month. FBI agents seized several boxes of government documents, some of which are classified. The former president claims agents took some personal records. A U.S. District judge ruled in his favor on Monday.
Last month, Honig tangled over the appropriateness of a special master with occasional MSNBC guests and legal experts Andrew Weissman and Renato Mariotti:
CNN blows legal analysis. Any exec priv docs (if they even exist) belong to the Archives not Trump. And the privilege belongs to current president, not Trump. And executive privilege does not apply to the executive branch which did the search. https://t.co/jCLHSKbzr5
— Andrew Weissmann 🌻 (@AWeissmann_) August 23, 2022
The filing from Trump’s team was focused on executive privilege. There was only a single throwaway line about other privileges.
I don’t understand the other point you’re making. The docs themselves are evidence of the crimes at issue here.
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) August 23, 2022
“On this show a few weeks ago, you predicted Trump had a reasonable chance of this judge granting his request for a special master,” Tapper stated. “I noted that a bunch of MSNBC legal commentators attacked you. Have they apologized at all? Have they acknowledged that were wrong and you were right?”
“No, Jake. I have thick skin,” Honig replied. “If you strip out the politics and look at this thing objectively, and we had this story as it broke, and if you understand how real district courts, trial courts work, to me it seemed like Donald Trump’s request was not unreasonable, was not unprecedented, and that he had a reasonable chance to succeed.”
Honig added, “We’re trying to call it down the middle and that’s all I ever aim to do.”
“I guess some legal commentators have a difficult time stripping out the politics,” echoed Tapper.
Watch above via CNN.
