MSNBC Legal Analysts Join Frivolous Attack on CNN’s Elie Honig, Accuse Him of Spreading ‘Lies’
MSNBC legal talking heads Andrew Weissmann and Barbara McQuade are not taking well to CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig’s criticism of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against former President Donald Trump.
In a scathing column published in New York Magazine on Friday, one day after the guilty verdict was handed down in Trump’s hush money trial, Honig took Bragg to task for bringing an “ill-conceived, unjustified mess” of a case against the ex-president.
“The charges against Trump aren’t just unusual. They’re bespoke, seemingly crafted individually for the former president and nobody else,” Honig argued. “Here, prosecutors got their man, for now at least — but they also contorted the law in an unprecedented manner in their quest to snare their prey.”
Honig’s case against the prosecution has irked many left-wing legal commentators who have sought to poke holes in his argument.
On Sunday, Ryan Goodman, co-editor-in-chief at Just Security, suggested that Honig had misled his readers about whether the prosecution had properly disclosed what crimes Trump was accused of falsifying business records in furtherance of, prompting Honig to point out that Goodman had seemingly deliberately left out his next two sentences.
“This is sloppy ‘gotcha’ that is unfair and betrays a lack of actual criminal experience. You highlight one sentence of my piece, obscuring the next two sentences which make clear that I mean notice *by indictment* (which, as any actual criminal practitioner knows, is constitutionally and practically quite different than ‘mentioned at some point’),” wrote Honig in reply.
I truly like you Ryan and respect your scholarly work tremendously but this is sloppy “gotcha” that is unfair and betrays a lack of actual criminal experience. You highlight one sentence of my piece, obscuring the next two sentences which make clear that I mean notice *by…
— Elie Honig (@eliehonig) June 3, 2024
Notably, both Weissmann and McQuade delighted in Goodman’s confused attack on Honig.
“I truly have no problem with folks raising good faith issues with the law,” insisted Weissmann, “But can you please do your homework first.”
In a since-deleted tweet, McQuade even went so far as to thank Goodman for debunking “lies.”
I truly have no problem with folks raising good faith issues with the law, but can you please do your homework first, as noted by @rgoodlaw ⬇️ https://t.co/7qJf8bAYfe
— Andrew Weissmann (weissmann11 on Threads)🌻 (@AWeissmann_) June 2, 2024
The MSNBC crew’s attempt to pounce on Honig follows disgraced felon turned Resistance hero Michael Cohen’s claim that “there’s something very wrong with Elie Honig. To be honest with you, there’s something really fundamentally fucked up with this guy.”
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
