Former federal prosecutor tells CNN there are '6 or 7' possible crimes committed by Trump in Cohen's opening statement alone

Michael Cohen will accuse President Trump of 6 or 7 potential crimes just in his opening statement to Congress, according to one former prosecutor.

CNN legal analyst Elie Honig, a former prosecutor, said on Wednesday after reading the opening statement Cohen plans to deliver, "I see 6 or 7 different areas where if true, if proven, would make out crimes committed by the president."

Honig said Cohen shouldn't just be taken at his word, though, so with each of these areas, the question is how much corroboration exists. For example, Cohen will allege that Trump spoke with Roger Stone on the phone in July 2016 about WikiLeaks' impending dump of hacked emails from the Hillary Clinton campaign, and that's a phone record prosecutors could obtain.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin further broke down what he called the "panoply of legal issues" for Trump in this opening statement, including "issues of campaign finance law, bank fraud, crimes involving the use of his foundation." Toobin adds that Trump "is implicated in all of that here," and although this "is not proof in and of itself," the testimony does present "a wide variety of legal problems."

Watch Honig's comments below. Brendan Morrow