CNN’s Elie Honig Warns Outcome of Trump Trial Could Depend on ‘Crucial’ Closing Arguments

CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig is warning that the outcome of former President Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York City could hinge on next week’s “crucial” closing arguments.

In an appearance on CNN Wednesday, Honig said that closing could take on a heightened importance because of the week-long break in between the parties resting their cases and closing next Tuesday.

“Typically what happens is the the evidence closes as it did yesterday. And then you go right essentially into closing argument,” Honig told Wolf Blitzer. “Here we have a week between the end of evidence and the closing arguments.”

“I think the judge did the right thing by moving all the closings to after the Memorial Day weekend, because otherwise the risk would be you split up the deliberation around the weekend, which is not a good idea for anybody,” he continued. “But I think what this does, Wolf, is it really heightens the importance of closings. And closings are always crucial, but here the parties are going to have to really bring the jury back to the evidence, some of which is over a month ago that the jury heard it. So closings are always crucial, but especially here when you have this kind of gap.”

Honig went on to speculate that while the defense team would seek to stress the burden of proof needed to convict Trump and star witness Michael Cohen’s credibility issues, the prosecution would point to corroborating evidence for Cohen’s account.

“They’re [the defense] going to say, you cannot convict unless you believe Michael Cohen. They’re going to say he has no credibility. He has a history of lying. He has a financial motive. He has a strong personal bias against Donald Trump. And I think they’re going to attack the testimony he gave in this trial,” said Honig, who predicted that the prosecution would say “you don’t have to believe Michael Cohen in a vacuum. You don’t have to take his word for anything because there’s crucial documents that back him up.”

Watch above via CNN.