CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig asserted on Tuesday that he does not completely “understand” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against former President Donald Trump.
Bragg indicted Trump in 2023 on 34 felony counts for allegedly falsifying business documents pertaining to reimbursing his former attorney Michael Cohen for the payment he made for a nondisclosure agreement with porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. Honig said that even he is struggling to get a grasp on the case, particularly the “unlawful means” Trump used to “influence” the 2016 election.
“Just so people can follow along at home, ’cause the crime here is not easy to explain and understand,” Honig said. “It’s basically a three-step here for the prosecution, which is not great, but they can still do it. First of all, falsifying a business record under New York state law, that in itself is a misdemeanor. If it’s done to commit some other crime, it jumps up to a felony. The some other crime here is New York state election law, which says you cannot try to influence an election by unlawful means.”
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“Now you’re thinking, well, what are those unlawful means?” he continued. “That takes us to step three, where the prosecution has offered up three unlawful means … that would be a federal campaign finance law, stay with me, a tax fraud, which I don’t understand, I’m interested to see how they explain the tax crime. And then, get this, falsification of business records. So that one also is tough for me to understand. Falsifying business records in order to falsify business, right? It’s like it feeds on itself.”
To charge Trump with a felony, Bragg claimed the purpose of the alleged falsification was to conceal or commit another crime, but the district attorney did not specify the aggravating offense in the 2023 indictment.
Trump’s defense attorney Todd Blanche, in closing arguments Tuesday, targeted Cohen’s credibility, reminding the jury of his past lies. Blanche dubbed Cohen the “MVP” of liars and “the human embodiment of reasonable doubt,” according to multiple reports.
Cohen was the sole witness to directly link Trump to the charges at the heart of Bragg’s case.
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