Former President Donald Trump said this week that he would testify under oath at his trial related to hoarding top-secret government documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort — but CNN legal analyst Elie Honig argued on Friday that no sane lawyer would allow him to do so.
After playing a video clip of Trump telling NBC News’ Kristen Welker that special counsel Jack Smith was a “lunatic” who made a “fake charge” about him ordering the deletion of security camera footage at Mar-a-Lago, Honig argued that the only way for Trump to make this argument legally effective way was to say it under oath.
“If he says he’s… willing to testify under oath he never gave that order to delete the footage, the only way to do that: You have to take the stand,” he said. “There’s no other venue or forum for him to do that.”
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Honig then outlined why this would be a horrible idea on Trump’s part.
“Taking the stand in any defendant’s own defense is rare and very risky,” he said. “Here I think it would be completely self-destructive. I know Donald Trump has been saying he wants to testify. I assure you his lawyers are saying, ‘Please do not do that.’ It would be extraordinarily dangerous for you to take the stand and testify in your own defense.”
Watch the video below or at this link.