CNN’s Elie Honig Dives Into Potential Charges Relating to ‘Dramatic, Outrageous, Bananas’ Trump Oval Office Meeting
CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig dove into the potential criminal charges that could stem from a December 18, 2020 Oval Office meeting that special counsel Jack Smith is reportedly honing in on in his investigation into the January 6 Capitol riot.
The meeting, which was attended by prominent advocates of the theory that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump, including Sidney Powell, Michael Flynn, and Rudy Giuliani, as well as Trump himself, involved discussions of martial law being declared, voting machines being seized, and other drastic measures being used to prevent Trump from having to leave the White House.
Honig said that while the meeting was undoubtedly “dramatic, outrageous, bananas — choose your word here,” that doesn’t necessarily mean that it could be the basis of criminal charges.
“Here’s what prosecutors would have to show in order to charge this as a crime,” he began:
First of all, that any of the people in the room, especially the lawyers, understood that the plans of action that they were offering were not legal, were not constitutional, and that they knew that in good faith. And second of all, you’d have to show that the objective here, what they were trying to do, was something illegal. So that could be a couple of things. One, if they’re trying to block or delay the counting of the electoral votes by Congress, that would do it. And second of all, more broadly, if they’re trying to defraud the United States of a free and fair election, then that would be criminal. So just being in this meeting isn’t necessarily incriminating, and you have to show more than just there was a heated, crazy dispute.
Honig went on to say that it would not be easy to prove criminal intent, but also that those in the meeting would not have to come out and admit to wrongdoing in order to be found guilty. “It’s not a clear-cut case necessarily based on that meeting alone,” he concluded.
Zeroing in on Trump’s criminal liability, Honig said that the former president was likely to argue that he could not be held responsible for following the advice of some of his lawyers. Testimony from some of those close to Trump that he knew that he had lost the election, however, could prove problematic for him, argued Honig.
“If you can piece that together and make the same showing as to Donald Trump that he knew that this was illegal, he was somehow conspiring or collaborating with some of the lawyers in the room, and he had an illegal objective, then you can charge him with a crime,” he explained.
“But as you can see,” continued Honig, “This is not cut-and-dried. This is not black-and-white. You can’t just point to that meeting and go ‘Oh my goodness, I can’t believe the chaos. Who are we charging with crimes.”
Watch above via CNN.
