Former federal prosecutor Elie Honig had much to say on CNN Thursday evening about President Donald Trump's latest loss in court over his use of the military to keep order in U.S. cities.
A federal district judge in Illinois, April Perry, put Trump's plans to send the National Guard to Chicago — long threatened as he has escalated his rhetoric against America's third-largest city — on hold for two weeks. And she did so while tearing into Trump's reasoning for the planned deployment in the first place.
"Not only did the judge say that that she didn't see a credible evidence of rebellion, she also said the Homeland Security Department's perception of events are unreliable, which is incredibly damaging," said anchor Anderson Cooper.
"Yeah, that's a stinging rebuke right there," agreed Honig, who frequently offers insight into Trump's legal controversies.
"So what this judge did is really dig in over the last several days and gather facts," he continued. "And the judge said the president's claim that it was necessary to deploy these troops in order to protect federal assets and federal resources was simply untrue, unverified and questionable. And the judge gave as one example. She said, the largest protest that we've had involved, 200 protesters, and there were 100 local cops. So you have a 2-to-1 ratio there. No one got hurt, no one got injured. So this judge has put a pause on what the president has done now."
"I do have to say, Anderson, all of this that's happening in Oregon, California, here in Illinois, it's brand new," Honig added. "We have no history on this. We have no prior case law because no president has ever tried to use this emergency law in this way. So we're learning history as we go."