‘You’re 0 for 2’: Elie Honig Swats Down CNN Guest’s Case for Indictments Against Obama Officials

CNN Senior Legal Analyst and former federal prosecutor Elie Honig swatted down arguments about officials in the Obama administration committing crimes while “interfering” in the 2016 election.

As President Donald Trump faced a barrage of questions about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein after his decision not to release government files related to the dead child sex trafficker, the president sought to redirect the media’s focus on baseless allegations of “treason” against former President Barack Obama. On Monday, Fox News reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered the Department of Justice to present evidence to a grand jury for possible criminal indictments of Obama officials for allegedly undermining Trump before and after the 2016 election.

On Monday’s CNN NewsNight, guest host John Berman noted that a Trump-appointed special counsel and a bipartisan Senate committee found no such anti-Trump conspiracy.

“So, Elie, a grand jury investigation into what?” Berman asked Honig.

Here is Honig’s response and his subsequent exchange with conservative attorney Brooke Goldstein:

HONIG: Well, so that’s my question. I know I’m here to answer questions. What’s the crime? I mean, what’s even the potential crime? I mean, seriously, I’m not trying to be confrontational here. Can anyone at this table even articulate what the potential crime might be?

GOLDSTEIN: I mean, election interference, manufactured intelligence–

HONIG: Not a crime, not a crime. You’re 0 for 2.

GOLDSTEIN: –deprivation of voter rights, obstruction of justice.

HONIG: Ok, how? You’ve said a crime now. What is [the] obstruction of justice?

GOLDSTEIN: Anything the grand jury says it is.

HONIG. No. And to that point, let me further–

GOLDSTEIN: But most of these crimes have a statute of limitations.

HONIG: There you go. That’s where I was going next.

GOLDSTEIN: So, that’s the problem.

HONIG: I mean, this is ancient history, legally. The statute of limitations on almost every federal crime is five years. This stuff was nine years ago.

GOLSTEIN: But they say there’s an ongoing conspiracy, and so–

HONIG: Sure, if there’s an ongoing conspiracy that stretches into five years ago, then you would not have a statute of limitations problem. The crimes that Tulsi Gabbard has articulated – I don’t know if she’s a lawyer, she’s definitely not at the Justice Department – are treason and sedition. That means trying to overthrow the government and waging war against the United States. We are so far out over the edge here with this. And look, you can convene a grand jury as a prosecutor. If you’re investigating, the bar is low, but there’s not no bar there. You have to have a reasonable good faith belief that what you’re investigating could lead to the discovery of a prosecutable crime. I just do not see it at all.

Watch above via CNN.