NCS senior authorized analyst Elie Honig believes President Donald Trump might need simply tanked his Department of Justice’s prison case towards former FBI Director James Comey after the president vacillated on Wednesday about whether or not Comey had actually threatened his life in a seashell message.
Comey was indicted earlier this week after sharing a now-deleted picture on social media of seashells organized on a seaside to learn “86 47.” (Trump is the forty seventh U.S. president.)
Trump advised reporters on Wednesday that the time period “86,” generally utilized in eating places to sign to workers to discard a meals merchandise, was a “mob term for ‘kill him.’”
“The Source” host Kaitlan Collins adopted up by asking the president if he actually thought his life was at risk.
“Probably, I don’t know,” Trump responded. “Based on what I’m seeing out there, yeah. People like Comey have created tremendous danger, I think, for politicians and others.”
“Right there. That’s an acquittal,” Honig said on Collins’ present in a while Wednesday. “Because prosecutors have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the victim believed that his life was in jeopardy, and if the jury comes back at ‘probably, I don’t know,’ that’s a not guilty right there. I thought that was a really important moment.”
Comey has maintained his innocence and stated he assumed that the numbers in his seashell association mirrored a political message, not violence.
Honig, who stated he had expertise prosecuting members of the mob, disputed Trump’s mobster terminology argument, saying he’d by no means heard “any real-world gangster use the term ‘86’ to refer to a murder or anything.”
“I don’t know where the president is getting this from,” Honig continued. “He said from some movie. They don’t use that term in ‘Godfather’ or ‘Sopranos’ or ‘Goodfellas,’ maybe some way old-timey movie, but that’s not reality.”
Honig advised Collins that Trump’s “probably, I don’t know” remark can be “an interesting tack” if used within the case.
“I don’t think it’ll ever get to a trial. I think it’ll be tossed out before that on other grounds, but I’d be fascinated to see how that played out,” Honig stated.
This can be the second time Comey faces a federal case from the DOJ, and Honig predicted Comey will argue that the case introduced towards him now could be considered one of “selective prosecution,” as a result of others have made related feedback concerning the president with out going through prosecution.
“I mean, look at Donald Trump’s social media posts saying ‘I want him indicted,’” Honig added. “Look at the fact that they tried once, and Comey beat him on that case. So to me, it’s a textbook case of vindictive prosecution. Maybe selective as well.”