We are learning new
details in the investigation
into hush money payments to adult film
star Stormy Daniels
and Donald Trump's alleged involvement.
Federal prosecutors
even discussed potentially charging the
then president once he was out of office.
The revelations
coming from the new book Untouchable
How Powerful People Get Away with It,
which looks at
how Trump
and other powerful people
have managed to evade
the legal consequences of their actions.
It was written by our very own CNN
senior legal analyst and former
federal prosecutor Elie Hoenig,
who joins us now.
Lee, setting aside
the question,
how in the world can you write a book
being as busy as you are?
I won't put you on the spot
and ask you that question.
You do have some very good
brand new reporting in this book,
taking us
inside the Department of Justice,
including the real story
of how Donald Trump became
individual one. Tell us more.
Yeah, Jim,
I got the behind the scenes story
here, and I found it
fascinating how Donald Trump
ended up as individual one.
So if we go back to 20, 18,
the Southern District of New York,
my former office is getting ready
to indict Michael Cohen
on those hush money payments now
because Donald Trump
was the sitting president at the time.
They knew they could not indict him.
However,
the Southern District of New York
prepared an indictment of Michael Cohen
that laid out chapter and verse
on Donald Trump's involvement
in that hush money scheme
that went into great detail
Donald Trump was the driver of it,
the beneficiary of it,
and really made clear
that in their view,
Donald Trump was criminally liable.
However, the bosses
down at DOJ in Washington
D.C., what we used to call main justice,
found out about this.
And they stepped on it.
They said, absolutely not.
We're not putting all that detail
in Michael Cohen's indictment
about Donald Trump.
And then there was the question of, well,
what do we call Trump then?
Now, originally,
the FDNY considered calling him
coconspirator one,
which would have been the first time
since Richard Nixon.
That label was applied to a president
that was shot down.
Then the Southern District said, well,
how about candidate one?
That was even shot down
as being too much.
And then they settled
on the completely innocuous
individual one.
And Jim, as a result,
we got this
sanitized indictment of Michael Cohen
that barely mentioned individual one.
And the end result,
it was only Michael
Cohen was ever prosecuted for that.
Interesting.
And you mentioned
that Trump could not be indicted
while he was the sitting president
under that longstanding old memo,
the Justice Department guidance
that we talked about
so much during the Trump presidency.
What happened, though,
once he left office in January?
20, 21, because that is fascinating.
So I've
revealed for the first time
in this book
that the Southern District of New York
did have a series of meetings
starting in January of 20, 21
about
what do we do when he leaves office?
Do we indict him then?
I will tell you the end result
we all know, no, he was not prosecuted.
But the reasoning that went
into the Southern District decision
I found really interesting and people
I guess, can decide for themselves
if they agree or disagree.
But among the reasons was,
first of all, they believed
it would be politically fraught
to charge
a controversial former president.
And strangely enough,
the fact that Trump had had all these
other scandals and potential crimes
between those two things
the Mueller investigation,
the Ukraine impeachment,
January six, that happened.
The Southern District
felt like at that point
the hush money
payments
were sort of too old or even too low
on the list of his infractions.
And so they sort of
left it to others to do it.
And as a result,
only Michael Cohen
was ever charged for this whole scheme,
which is really hard to defend, I think.
Yeah.
And it all goes
to the point of your book, which is why,
you know, sometimes powerful people do do
get away with things.
And in Donald Trump's cases,
because there are
all of these other questions
swirling around him.
And speaking of that.
We just had some new information come in
to us here at CNN.
The Justice Department has told lawmakers
on the Senate Intelligence Committee
it is working to satisfy
their demands for information
about classified documents
found at the properties
of President Joe Biden and former
President Donald Trump
without harming
ongoing special counsel
investigations into both matters.
That's according to a new letter
obtained by CNN.
We're just reporting on this
this afternoon.
What's your reaction to that?
So I think DOJ has to draw a line
in the sand.
And it sounds to me like
they are doing a good job
drawing that line in this case.
And the line is this
We will help you
Senate Intelligence Committee
or House Intelligence Committee
figure out what was in those documents
to figure out whether there's
a national security risk.
But what DOJ cannot do
and Merrick Garland is critical,
as I am of him at times in the book.
Merrick Garland has done a very good job
of saying
what we will not do is crack
open the records on our pending
ongoing investigations,
whether it's a Donald Trump or Joe Biden.
Or anyone else,
because if DOJ were to do that,
they would expose those investigations,
they would jeopardize the case.
They would even jeopardize really
the reputations of people
who are under investigation.
So I do think
DOJ is handling this exactly right.
They're drawing the line,
and we'll see if Congress respect that.
All right, Ali Hoenig, thanks so much.
And let's let's put up
Ali's book one more time
if we can is a great book.
I can't wait to pick it up.
Individual,
not individual, an untouchable.
And it mentions individual untouchable,
how powerful people get away with it.
Written by Ali.
Ali, great work, as always.
Thanks so much. We appreciate it.