'A mess!' Legal expert aghast Trump could face indictments in 3 jurisdictions at once
Former President Donald Trump has already been indicted in two cases — state charges of business fraud brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg related to his alleged hush payment to, and federal Espionage Act and obstruction charges for hoarding highly classified national defense secrets at his Mar-a-Lago country club. And he could possibly be charged as part of the January 6 investigation as well.
One indictment against a former president and presidential candidate is already unheard of in American history; but having to juggle three would be complete chaos, said former federal prosecutor Elie Honig on CNN Monday.
"If special counsel Jack Smith does indict Donald Trump on this, how on earth do courts manage three different indictments?" asked anchor Jake Tapper. "You have in the hush money case in New York, in the classified documents case, you also have January 6th and potentially the Georgia election meddling. How does a court maneuver this?"
"I've never heard or seen anybody who has been under three different indictments, if we get one more, never mind four, from four different jurisdictions at the same time," said Honig. "This will be a mess."
"Because classified documents is in Florida and January 6th would theoretically be in D.C.," Tapper cut in.
"Right, and then we have the state charge here in Manhattan," said Honig. "Some of this could play to Donald Trump's advantage because his best defense here, his best strategy is delay. We will not try three or four cases between now and the election. I think it's not even 100 percent certain that we would try one of them. And can't these prosecutors get together and prioritize? I think we can all agree if you take the allegations as true, January 6th is the most important, the documents are second, and Alvin Bragg's case is the only one who has a concrete trial, and he's taking up the prime trial real estate in April."
Watch the segment below or at this link.
Elie Honig says juggling three Trump indictments would be a "mess" www.youtube.com