President Donald Trump’s arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was one of the most dramatic spectacles of his second term in office — but now former federal prosecutor Elie Honig claims he’s about to blow the case.
The CNN legal expert claimed the pace the case against the strongman will be a major cause of frustration for prosecutors as they were set to go into a hearing Wednesday.
“The first order of business today will very likely be to set the pretrial motions briefing schedule,” said Honig, adding the prosecutors should want the motions calendar as short as possible. “Second of all, sometimes you can sound out what the defense motions might be. The judge often turns to defense and says, what types of motions do you have? You can get a little intel from the prosecutor’s side.”
When Honig was working cases, he continued, “I was frenetic about not letting trials drag on and on, because delay is bad for prosecutors. And remember, the charge conduct here goes back to the 1990s.” In all that time, he said, “witness memories fade, witnesses die, documents disappear, things get deleted. And so the longer a case dragged out before a trial would always put me on edge, I’d always be pushing for as quick a trial as possible.”
Host John Berman interjected that it doesn’t help that 92-year-old Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein “is not a young man,” to which Honig agreed.
“I think it’s a struggle for him to keep up with this case. He has not moved it along efficiently,” said Honig. Furthermore, reportedly during his last trial, “he fell asleep at times on the bench. I think that’s a real challenge. He could have reassigned the case. He’s a senior judge. He could have sent it to any of the other 40 to 50 judges in the courthouse. He’s opted to keep it for himself. He’s not showing me that he’s up to the task at this point.”
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