As the federal grand jury hears evidence in the Justice Department's Jan. 6 probe, former President Donald Trump's legal team is alleging to federal courts that calling his former White House special assistant, William Russell, who was with him on the day of the Capitol attack, to the stand is a breach of executive privilege. But Trump has tried and failed to use executive privilege to shield himself from investigations before, and will likely fail again this time around, former federal prosecutor Elie Honig told CNN's Anderson Cooper and Kaitlan Collins Thursday.
During the "AC360" segment, Cooper and Collins speculated that Russell could corroborate aspects of White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony before the House Jan. 6 committee and even testify to Trump's frame of mind on Jan. 6. Honig agreed: Prosecutors are "trying to get those conversations. And I should note, Donald Trump has challenged a lot of testimony on executive privilege. I think his batting average is .000. He has lost every single executive privilege argument that he has brought. I'm sure he'll lose this one," he said.
"And also, to Kaitlan's point, sometimes the boldface names aren't the most important witnesses," Honig added. "We're very focused understandably on Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani, what are these folks doing. But Cassidy Hutchinson was unknown until she stood up a year ago in Congress, and it turned out she had really important testimony. We shouldn't discount someone perhaps because they are a low-ranking aide or a bystander. Sometimes they have the best testimony."
