Former President Donald Trump compounded his legal troubles by making reckless comments during his CNN town hall event on Wednesday, according to former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner.
during a episode from his justice issues podcast on Thursday, the legal analyst and MSNBC contributor maintained that the former president had made “straight incriminating” statements while appearing alongside CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins during the town hall in New Hampshire.
Kirschner also echoed the criticism of the event. He argued that CNN had acted irresponsibly by “giving a microphone and a platform to a man” who “tried to end American democracy”, while saying that “something good came of it” because of Trump’s allegedly incriminating statements.
“Someone probably should have pushed Donald Trump aside and said, ‘You know, dude, you have the right to remain silent,'” Kirschner said. “Donald Trump gave prosecutors and plaintiffs some directly incriminating and actionable evidence.”
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Kirschner went on to say that Trump was digging “his own deepest legal grave” after highlighting several of the former president’s comments during the town hall.
During one point on the broadcast, Collins asked Trump if he had shown the classified documents he kept after his presidency to “anyone.”
Trump responded by saying “not really” and “not that I can think of,” while erroneously stating that he would have had “the absolute right to do whatever he wanted with them.”
“I predict that those incriminating statements will be entered into evidence in the future trial of the United States of America against Donald Trump,” Kirschner said.
The former prosecutor then turned his attention to Trump, incorrectly claiming that he never asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” votes that would help him reverse his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden.
“We’ve all heard that phone call on an endless loop, when Trump pressures Brad Raffensperger to get 11,780 votes,” Kirschner said. “I predict this incriminating statement will be entered in the future criminal trial titled Georgia v. Donald J. Trump.”
Kirschner continued his analysis by arguing that Trump’s “determination to continue to directly incriminate himself” had also led him to tell “more slanderous lies about E. Jean Carroll” during the town hall.
Trump was ordered to pay Carroll, a former elle columnist accusing him of rape, $5 million Tuesday after a New York jury found him responsible for sexually abusing and defaming her. The jury did not find Trump responsible for the alleged rape of her.
Kirschner noted that the jury award was intended to be punitive. He suggested that justice would only be served if the former president were sent to jail, even though the Carroll case was not criminal.
“The punitive damages are designed to deter Donald Trump from telling defamatory lies in the future,” Kirschner said. “Within days of the jury’s verdict, Donald Trump goes out and does it all over again.”
“Donald Trump will not be deterred by a jury verdict or punitive damages,” he continued. “You know what will deter Donald Trump? A jail cell. And that’s precisely where our federal prosecutors and our state prosecutors should be working their hardest to try and put him.”
Kirschner concluded by saying that despite CNN’s town hall producing the “by-product” of the former president continuing to “incriminate himself,” Trump should not be given a “platform to continue spewing his lies at the most gullible of our nation”.
news week has reached out to Trump’s office by email for comment.
In a statement prior to news weekTrump spokesman Steven Cheung denounced Kirschner as an “influence-chasing MSNBC contributor” and “a notorious peddler of wild conspiracy theories and dubious legal analysis” who had “been shunned by the broader legal community.”