Prosecutor details step-by-step account of how Trump’s 'inept' DOJ 'overplayed its hand'

Former prosecutor Elie Honig provides some excellent examples on how to destroy a prosecution, and he’s got the Trump DOJ to make the case.

“Fellow prosecutors, if you ever want to p——— off a judge, I recommend overstating your case during the earliest phases of the litigation,” Honig tells New York Magazine’s Intelligencer, using the Kilmar Abrego Garcia Prosecution as an example. “Come out with a self-congratulatory bang, declare your case overwhelming and an all-but-guaranteed winner, and then enjoy your loss of credibility as it dawns on the judge that she’s been hoodwinked.”

And if you really want to lose the judge, Honig suggests you “do your overhyping in public view. Maybe issue a splashy press release. Or perhaps convince the U.S. attorney to make a public announcement.”

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Even better, Honig says, tell U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to get behind a podium and proclaim your case a slam-dunk conviction. And then “poison the public with inflammatory allegations about the defendant that go far beyond the actual charges in the indictment.”

Then, “sit back and watch as the judge turns fully against you. It is a sure bet,” says Honig.

A federal magistrate judge recently ruled that Abrego Garcia is entitled to pretrial bail while also giving a “sharp rebuke” to DOJ prosecutors who Honig says appear to have grossly overstated their claims.

The indictment is actually only two counts: knowingly transporting illegal aliens across state lines and conspiring with others to do the same. But Honig says the DOJ buttered its indictment and press statements with contentions that Garcia was also an MS-13 gang associate, that he transported guns and drugs, and that he “abused” female passengers. They also casually suggested he was an accomplice to murder. But then the prosecution turned around and failed to back most of it up.

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“All that stuff about guns and drugs ... and murder just hangs out there in the public ether, but none of it is actually charged,” says Honig. Indeed, the magistrate judge granting bail declared much of the prosecution’s allegations resting upon “multiple layers of hearsay, linguistic contortion, and evidentiary sleight of hand.”

What of Abrego Garcia's purported victims? The prosecution could not find them. What of the cop making the claim? They didn’t call him to the stand. Prosecution’s witnesses are both felons, with one of them cutting deals for a softer sentence — and they’re related to one another. The star witness, says Honig, is an “acknowledged ringleader of the human-smuggling operation” deported five times.

“Suddenly, the prosecution looks wobbly,” says Honig, which is no way to have such a “politically supercharged” case. The jury pool in Tennessee night be tempted to send a “political message” about “inept, overzealous immigration policies.”

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“Little about this case is normal,” says Honig. “It’s prosecution as political cover now, and the Justice Department seemingly has overplayed its hand.”

Read the full Intelligencer report at this link