‘Strong’ But ‘Not Perfect’: CNN’s Elie Honig Breaks Down DOJ’s Trump Classified Document Charges

CNN’s senior legal analyst Elie Honig explained how the classified documents indictment against Donald Trump, which now includes three additional charges, is “quite strong, but it’s not perfect.”

On CNN News Central Friday, anchor John Berman asked about the strength of the case now that prosecutor Jack Smith has filed a superseding indictment that allows for the addition of the three new charges.

“When you look at it, it occurs to me that the strength of the allegations, and then there’s the quality of the proof. Where do they line up here?” Berman asked.

“Well, it’s a really important distinction to draw here,” Honig answered. “If you take everything in the indictment as gospel, if prosecutors prove everything in there beyond a reasonable doubt, this is an overwhelming open-and-shut case. But we have to dig a little bit further because some of the allegations are rock solid. For example, the audio recording of Donald Trump showing what we now know to be an actual document to people at Bedminster. That’s on tape, Donald Trump’s own voice — that is very, very strong.

“However, if we look at some of the allegations about the tampering with the surveillance video. The way they’re going to have to prove that is with testimony from this “Trump Employee Four” about what he was told by De Oliveira about what Donald Trump said — that’s admissible, but it’s a couple layers of hearsay, the admissible kind of hearsay. And so, not everything is locked in, but the indictment overall strikes me as quite strong, but it is not perfect.”

On Thursday, Smith announced the new charges against Trump and added a third defendant to the case, Carlos De Oliveira, a maintenance worker at Mar-a-Lago who allegedly helped defendant Walt Nauta move boxes containing classified documents around the resort grounds. Oliveira is scheduled to be arraigned Monday in Miami.

“Trump has been charged with three new counts, including one additional count of willful retention of national defense information and two additional obstruction counts, related to alleged attempts to delete surveillance video footage at the Mar-a-Lago resort in summer 2022,” CNN reported Thursday.

The 37 original charges against Trump included allegations the former president violated the Espionage Act by possessing the documents. Trump continues to call Smith’s investigation a “witch hunt” and said he would not drop out of the 2024 presidential race.

Watch the clip above via CNN.

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