‘OK, Well, That’s a Lot of Crazy’: CNN Panel Aghast at Trump Spokeswoman Accusing Prosecutors of Hating America
After Donald Trump’s spokeswoman Alina Habba launched a tirade outside of the courtroom where the ex-president was under arrest for the second time this year, a CNN panel soundly denounced her comments.
Last Friday, the Department of Justice unsealed a federal indictment stemming from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation of the ex-president with 37 criminal counts spelling out how Trump retained boxes of documents that “included information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign counties; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to foreign attack.”
Some of the most shocking allegations in the indictment relate to communications from Trump, his family members, his attorneys, and other staffers acknowledging that he had retained classified information that had not been declassified — plus the now-viral photos showing boxes of documents that allegedly contained classified information, stacked up in bathrooms, ballroom stages, storage rooms, and other nonsecure areas.
Trump traveled to Miami to appear in the courtroom for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, where the charges against him were read and he pled not guilty to all of them. Habba, who is not representing Trump in this case, was outside the courtroom and delivered a statement for the reporters gathered there.
“In recent years, we have seen the rise of politically-motivated prosecutors who don’t care for impartiality, who don’t care for due process, or equal protection of laws,” said Habba. “They have been quietly but aggressively cultivating a two-tiered system of justice where selective treatment is the norm. From the ‘Russia hoax,’ to the attorney generals, to the corrupt DAs in Georgia and New York, and now this. The people in charge of this country do not love America. They hate Donald Trump.”
“OK, well, that’s a lot of crazy,” said Tapper in reaction, and then asked CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig for his thoughts.
“This type of attack on the motivations and the integrity of these prosecutors is completely unfounded and completely destructive,” Honig replied. “And especially when we look at this case, because, to Jack Smith’s credit, he has taken every step to charge this on Donald Trump’s turf.”
Honig, himself a former federal and state prosecutor, explained that Smith could have brought the case in Washington, D.C. “where he would have had a much more favorable jury pool.”
“Instead, he’s said I’m charging this in a red state on your turf, Donald Trump, and on top of that they filed the case in a district where it was very likely and they did get Judge Aileen Cannon, who is a Trump nominee to the bench. So there’s absolutely nothing underlying that. There’s no foundation for these attacks; they’re destructive of our whole system.”
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe agreed Honig was “absolutely right,” saying there was “no politics” in the indictment. “It is replete with facts, with not just bold-faced accusations, but claims that are backed up by evidence.”
“Read the indictment,” McCabe urged. “That’s the Justice Department speaking about the terrible decisions that Donald Trump made around the retention of these documents.”
According to McCabe, it was a “sad day,” not for the reasons Habba claimed, but “because a former President of the United States made such a series of disastrous and terrible decisions, conducted himself in such a way as to prompt a grand jury of his peers to determine that there was probable cause to believe that he committed several very serious crimes.”
“It is a majestic thing that our institutions and our justice system,” he added, “despite [Trump’s] status, despite his many followers and supporters, has the independence and the wherewithal to try to hold him accountable.”
Dana Bash straight out called Habba’s statement “outrageous.”
“You can make political arguments,” she argued, “but to say that the people prosecuting Donald Trump hate America — they’re doing this within the confines of what makes America, to quote a phrase, great — and that is our justice system.”
Watch above via CNN.
