President Donald Trump's administration escalated his ongoing efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss by raiding an office in the Georgia county where he was indicted for racketeering.
The 79-year-old president has insisted the election was stolen from him and has faced charges in Fulton County and the District of Columbia for his efforts to overturn that loss, but CNN legal analyst Elie Honig said the Department of Justice's investigation hasn't necessarily turned up evidence of fraud – a claim that has been repeatedly rejected by previous examinations.
"There are some things whenyou're a prosecutor, you don'tneed anyone's permission to do," Honig said. "If I want to serve a subpoena, Idon't need to get a judge'spermission, I just serve thesubpoena. There are some thingsyou need to just sort of run bythe judge. There's somethingcalled the pen register, whereyou look at what phone numbers a different phone number'scalling. You need to just tellthe judge, hey, judge, we'redoing this, we have good reason, but you don't have to say whatthe reason is. Then there's asearch warrant, and there youneed to establish probablecause, and you need to do itwith specificity and in detail.You have to write up anaffidavit."
"I've done a lot ofthese – it's a pain," he added. "You bringit over to the judge, the judgereviews and says, okay, I findprobable cause. Now, a couple ofimportant caveats. Probablecause is a low standard. It'snot nothing, but it's a [low]standard, and judges are not inany position to question thecredibility of the evidence youbring them. So if you say inyour affidavit, I have a witnesswho tells me that some crimehappened, the judge is not inposition to cross-examine thatwitness or to say, gee, I don'tknow if I believe that witness.So all you have to do as aprosecutor is make a facialshowing. But, yes, a judge issupposed to give it, and in thiscase, a magistrate judge didreview this and find there'sprobable cause that a crime wascommitted and that you'll findevidence of that crime in theplace you're searching."
Judges tend to defer to prosecutors on search warrants, but Honig said local officials in Fulton County had no way to challenge the warrant they have protested as faulty.
"There's no way,really, for Fulton County to putin a motion to a judge and say,we didn't like that searchwarrant, something was improperabout it, cancel it and give usour stuff back," Honig said. "There's just noprocedure for that. So you'resort of at the mercy of thegovernment until the point ifand when there's ever a charge,then you can challenge."
Honig argued that the statute of limitations for any alleged crime committed around that election had likely run out by now.
"The normal statute oflimitations on almost allfederal crimes is five years," he said. "Sothe 2020 election was over fiveyears ago, the transition periodwas over five years ago. So theonly way they get around this,there are some crimes that havea longer statute than fiveyears, but I can't think of onethat might be applicable here.But the other thing is, if youcharge a conspiracy, as long asyou can show some act thatcarries on into your five yearperiod, then you're okay. Butthey're going to have I thinkthere's going to be a statuteof limitations here."
The presence of Trump's intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard also raised Honig's eyebrows.
"No idea, totally bizarre," he said. "There's no reason for the DNI,I mean, we heard the presidentsay, well, she's there, she'strying to ensure that the nextelection is safe. Why would sheneed to be on the ground asagents are wheeling boxes ofballots out of Fulton County, Georgia? I think it's just forshow, and it's not somethingI've ever seen before."