A legal expert called out President Donald Trump's top prosecutors for making an easily avoidable mistake that could jeopardize the case against an alleged would-be assassin.
White House Correspondents Association dinner shooting suspect Cole Tomas Allen pleaded not guilty Monday to charges that include attempting to assassinate the 79-year-old president at the Washington Hilton, and CNN's Elie Honig expressed surprise that Attorney General Todd Blanche and Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, were remaining on the case.
"The right and easy thing forprosecutors to do here for Todd Blanche and Jeanine Pirro is torecuse themselves," Honig said. "It's notpunishment, it doesn't meanthey've done anything wrong.It's simply a bedrock principleof prosecutorial ethics that ifyou are a potential witness or apotential victim, you're goingto have a conflict of interest,or at least the appearance of aconflict of interest, and so thesafe thing to do is to pullyourself off the case."
"But Pirroand Blanche have made clear theyhave no intention of doing that," Honig added.
Honig criticized Judge Trevor McFadden at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for his handling of the matter.
"I think the judge is wrong todaywhen he says, well, they didn'tsee anything, the shooter nevermade it into the ballroom, hencethey're not witnesses orthey're not victims," Honig said. "First ofall, they heard gunshots, they've confirmed through awitness, and with respect to theclaim [that] they're not victims,Jeanine Pirro herself said in aninterview on May 2 to Fox News, she said, quote, 'I was inthe line of fire, I could havebeen killed.' So sounds like atleast a potential victim to me."
"I think it's a mistake if theyleave these two on the case," Honig added. "Itcould give him an appeal issuedown the line."