The alleged gunman charged in the storming of the White House Correspondents' Dinner last week may have just put President Donald Trump's Justice Department in an awkward position, according to a new legal analysis in MS NOW.
If the Cole Allen assassination case goes to trial, prosecutors working for Trump's DOJ may find themselves in the uncomfortable position of reading accusations that the president is a "pedophile, rapist, and traitor" out loud to a jury to prove Allen intended to kill him, legal analyst Jordan Rubin laid out this week
Allen's alleged manifesto, which prosecutors have cited in court filings to establish his intent, describes a "pedophile, rapist, and traitor" in a passage that DOJ lawyers have treated as a reference to the president, even as it never directly names Trump.
Rubin pointed out that the same language Pirro called "outrageous" when Jake Tapper raised it on CNN Sunday was the very language her prosecutors are quietly leaning on in court.
Rubin noted that when pressed on whether Pirro thought Allen was referring to Trump, she said, “You’re gonna have to ask him that. I don’t really care.”
"But Pirro has reason to care. The incendiary language has legal relevance in the case her office brought against Allen. The top charge he faces is for allegedly attempting to assassinate Trump at the White House Correspondents’ dinner in the nation’s capital last month," noted Rubin.
"As I wrote last week, Allen’s unnamed but unmistakable reference to the president puts federal prosecutors in a strange spot. It’s potent evidence of the defendant’s intent, but it’s intertwined with potent claims about the would-be assassination victim: Trump."
Trump has told reporters he is "not a rapist" and "not a pedophile."
Pirro’s attempt to "parry" Tapper’s question illustrates the "delicate task" facing prosecutors who have to use that evidence while trying not to "unduly anger the president," Rubin noted.
"Again, the question in Allen’s case is not whether the president is any of those things. But if the case goes to trial, then prosecutors may find themselves in the unenviable position of having to explain that to a jury, while Pirro may find herself having to explain to Trump why he keeps hearing about it," Rubin said.
