CNN: Why Trump could be facing at least one felony charge

A yearslong probe into a hush money scheme involving former President Donald Trump and adult film star Stormy Daniels has led to him being indicted by a Manhattan grand jury for his alleged role in the scheme, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. CNN legal analyst Eli Honig reports. #CNN #News

Transcript

Let’s turn now to the Justice Department’s probe. This is a separate investigation into classified documents found at Mar a Lago. The Washington Post yesterday reporting this, that federal investigators have, quote, amassed fresh evidence pointing to possible obstruction by former President Trump. Here’s what The Post is reporting, that investigators now

Suspect the boxes of classified documents were moved from a storage area at Mar a Lago. This is after and this this matters the timing after the DOJ served a subpoena to recover those documents from Florida and that Trump personally, investigators believe, examined at least some of those boxes again after the subpoena.

Trump’s team only returned some documents with classified markings. An FBI search at Mar a Lago would later find more than 100 classified items that were not turned over, including top secret documents. The Post reports investigators have obtained emails and text messages of a former Trump staffer, and they give a detailed understanding

Of what was happening during those months. At Mar a lot. But more on that as we get it. Now, let’s get perspective on what’s happening, especially here in New York. CNN senior legal analyst and a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Mr. Elie Hoenig. Joins us now.

And we should point out that he also knows Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg personally here. So we just want to disclose that. Good morning to you. Let’s start with New York and Diamond we’re going to see this week. What are we learning about the charges that he might be facing? Basically,

What’s in the indictment, right. So we’ve not seen the indictment yet, but we’re getting really important indicators that give us a sense of what could be in there. First of all, Don, on Friday, the judge in this case issued the first official order in the case, basically just saying Alvin Bragg,

The D.A., can disclose that there’s an indictment. It will be unsealed on Tuesday. But this is really an important moment because we saw for the first time the case captured people of the state of New York against Donald J. Trump defendant. This is real. We also learned over the weekend

That there will be at least one felony charge in this indictment. There better be, by the way, if this is just a bunch of misdemeanors. The D.A. is going to have some serious questions to answer. But here’s what that could mean. It looks like some of the charges will relate to falsification

Of business records. The idea is they falsely log these payments as attorneys fees. But that would just be a misdemeanor. The less serious type of charge with a one year maximum. The dividing line between a misdemeanor and a felony, by the way, is one year. If it’s one year or less,

It’s a misdemeanor as the max. And if it’s above one year, then it’s a felony. How could they make this a felony if they can tie those business records to some other crime, to some second crime? And the theory here is that second crime could be a campaign finance violation. If prosecutors charge

And prove that it’s a Class E felony, the lowest level of felony in New York state, which has a maximum of four years. And finally, Don, we know from our reporting from John Miller and others here that the indictment is expected to have. 34 counts. That’s a lot. But each individual

Entry in the business records could be its own count. You’ve heard a lot of the Trump folks out this week in the attorney saying that they’re going to fight this, they’re going to seek to dismiss this. What kind of legal tactics will they use to do that? They’re not playing this one

Very close to the vest. They spent a lot of the weekend talking to Dana Bash and others about their strategy. They are going to argue that legally we are in state court here in New York state court. You cannot charge a violation of a federal election law. This is a presidential election

Under state law. And if they do that, by the way, they could knock out this because that other crime is the federal election violation, leaving them with only a misdemeanor. So that’s going to be a really important argument. We also know from listening to Trump’s lawyers this weekend, they’re going to argue

There was no intent to defraud here. Meaning in most business records cases, somebody takes a record, falsifies it, gives it to somebody else in order to steal money. That’s not the case here. It’s a little different scenario. They’re going to argue that as well. Trump’s team is also going to argue

Statute of limitations, meaning you typically have five years from the time of felonies committed to charge it, two years for a misdemeanor. Now we’re beyond both of those time periods. However, they are going to be rescued here because prosecutors are going to be rescued because there’s a New York law

That says you can pause that time period when someone’s living continuously out of state. Trump has lived in the White House and Mar a Lago. And then finally, I am certain that Trump’s team and they’ve more than signaled this is going to argue selective prosecution. They’re going to say he’s been singled out

For political purposes. That’s a really difficult argument to succeed using their John Edwards argument, right? Yes. This case. Right. What about the judge? Because Trump has talked about the judge. What about the judge in this case? We know. So the judge here, Juan Mershon, by the way, let me just point out

This is called New York Supreme Court. A little bit confusing. That’s what they call the trial level court here in New York. The judge is a former prosecutor. He was with the DA’s office, same office. It’s prosecuting this case. And the AG’s office let me say, nothing unusual or inappropriate about that.

Many judges are former prosecutors. He’s been on the bench since 2006, best known before this because he presided over the case against Allen Weisselberg, who pled guilty and the trial of the Trump Organization. Trump’s lawyers, by the way. They object to this because the way this judge got put on

This case is prosecutors said it’s related to these cases, so he should get it as opposed to just going to the wheel for random assignment. Watch for Trump’s lawyers to challenge that and say this should not be related to that. We should get a randomly assigned judge. And finally, don,

The judge has to make his first really big decision probably today about whether he’ll allow cameras in the courtroom for tomorrow’s proceeding. We at CNN are part of a group of media outlets that have asked the judge, let us see it open up the courtroom. It’s a public proceeding. Let the cameras in.

He’ll have to decide that soon. Do you think that will happen? You know, he has a history of not allowing cameras in, but given the level of public interest here, I don’t see how he says no. I think it’s I think he look, if I can opinion for a second,

He should let cameras in because the public interest in this is through the roof. Really. All right. Ellie Hoenig, thank you very much. Appreciate that.

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