first nick valencia who is outside of the courtroom in georgia and also the senior legal analyst elie honigand we saw it play out. sidney powell walked into the courtroom and she had to answer questions, and she said, yeah, she is agreeing to the plea deal laid out to us. >> and yes, sorry, john, there is a live situation here with police cars going by. but it is a stunning reversal for us here in court, and it is stunning for us watching the case throughout, and stunning if only because brian rafferty, the attorney for sidney powell had been maintaining the innocence, and said that the d.a. had evidence that she was not the driving force behind the breach here in coffey county, georgia, but today, the former attorney for former president donald trump did plead guilty to the data breach in rural georgia, and she has to as part of the plea deal write a letter of apology and testify against the 17 co-defendants including former president, and other trials to the former president. it is a blow no former president only because she is inextricably linked with the president. she filed meritless l

let's bring in elie honig.lain to our viewers what exactly this most recent airing of grievances is about and what you think he -- this will result in if there is a penalty or not? >> yeah, so let me try to clarify this, jake. so what donald trump is talking about here is the testimony of michael cohen. michael cohen over the years during his congressional testimony and at this trial has explained the instructions that donald trump gave him in different ways. at times michael cohen has said, no, donald trump never specific told me to inflate the value of assets and other times he said it was generally understood. donald trump knew to make his will known without specifically saying it. there is a bit of a discrepancy there. that is fair game for cross-examination. that is fair game for trump's lawyers to argue to judge ultimately here. michael cohen is not credible. his testimony has been inconsistent. here is where donald trump is off the rails, though. this does flotnot mean the case over. witnesses sometimes

back with us, eli honig and law school professor, just a rod.li, does the former president have a chance of getting the federal election case thrown out? >> he does, anderson, and some of donald trump's motions, including the impeachment one, are ridiculous. you can dismiss them of hands. that is not this. this immunity argument has real consequences, and their eyes a lot of unknown territory here. let's clarify what we do and don't know. we do know that a president has civil immunity, meaning he can't be sued for anything he did with broad parameters of his job. what we don't know, the supreme court said we don't know whether that applies to criminal charge, so this could be a moment where we find that out, and whether trump was in fact acting within the broad parameters of being president. i don't think trump will win at the district court. i don't think judge chutkan will grant the dismissal, but he is not planning for judge chutkan here. he is looking at the u.s. supreme court. i think there is a reasonable, non-zero chance that he winds up

elie honig, also back here with us.hear from giuliani, there you see his defense against this article as he is filing that lawsuit, what do you make of the position he finds himself in? >> i can tell you that in the time that i work for, him in the early 90s, i never saw him during. i only saw him during that coke. so that is my frame of reference in terms of his alcohol consumption. i have seen him at the cigar bar on occasion, a closed in 2020, i saw him have a casual drink with other people. so i don't -- i was not in the room when he allegedly told trump to say you won. drunkenly. so, it was very good reporting, i must say, very in-depth. a lot of sources. most of them anonymous. but it was well researched and reported. >> but they're kind of look into this window, they know, that then you look into this window where that was amplified and they have all these people who are not anonymous who are on the record saying that is part of what we are seeing today in the grand scheme of all these issues. >> can you imagine

back with us is elie honig and joined by law school professor jessica roth. does the former president have a chance of getting federal election interference case thrown out? >> he does. and some of the motions, including the impeachment part of this one are ridiculous. and you can dismiss them out of hand. but not this. this has real consequences and there is a lot of unknown territory here. let me clarify what we do and don't know. we do know that a president has civil immunity, meaning he cannot be sued for anything he did within the broad parameters of his job. what we don't know, the supreme court has said we don't know whether that applies to a criminal charge, so this could be the moment when we find that out, and whether trump was in fact acting within the broad parameters of being president. i don't think trump is going to win at the district court. i don't think judge chutkan is going to grant him this dismissal. but he is not playing for judge chutkan here. he is thinking of the u.s. supreme court. i think there is a reasonable nonzero chance that h

join us now, cnn senior legal analyst, elie honig. elie honig, obviously, a disgusting smear by donald trump. but do you think that statement, the smear about the judge and his clerk warrants a gag order? >> i do, jake. because what donald trump did here was he violated a courtroom commandment. you do not go after the staff. you do not go after the clerks, you don't go after the deputies, you don't go after the court reporters, the marshals. when you are a prosecutor or judge you take on that role knowing you may sometimes be attacked verbally, that there may be insults and criticisms thrown at you. find, as part of the job. but these folks who work in the courtroom, they are public civil servants. they did not -- i think this gag order was very much appropriate. >> and need we remind our viewers that there is a trend. donald trump does this. he puts this information out. and these individuals, quite frequently, then start experiencing the threats and the just trash talk on social media, but actual, legitimate death threats that requi

. >> and now joining us is legal analyst elie honig, and a small question of what kate was talking about there, and how important was it whether sidney powell was officially a lawyer for donald trump or not? >> it doesn't matter at all, and it actually might help him if she is not his attorney, and it does not matter if they were formally lawyer and client, but what does matter is she was in the room, and eyes and ears and heard what she heard, and if anything, if she is not the attorney, the prosecutors don't have to worry about the attorney/client privilege, and the prosecutor says, thanks. >> and now, thanks for clearing it up, and we don't have to get through the attorney/client privilege. and so, bigger picture, how threatening is she to donald trump? >> any way you slice it, it is bad news that sidney powell has split and kenneth chesebro has split, and it is what the prosecution wants and how the prosecution builds cases, but the big question is they fully in as cooperators and we know that she going to say, well, we accessed this information in coffey county. >> would you make a

let's bring in senior legal elie honig for some perspective and what can happen next. on a saturday morning, it's good to have you. what do these pleas mean for donald trump? give us more on that. >> any way you cut this, this is bad news for donald trump because prosecutors now have two new witnesses, two people with respect lawyers for or in favor of donald trump, people who were to varying extents present for key conversations, people who rt prosecutors are going to be able to put them on the stand and have them walk a jury through exactly what was happening on the inside of these criminal conspiracies. and importantly, as part of these deals, both of these folks have had toed a mutt that, yes, what i did was criminal, and yes, it was part of a broader conspiracy. so these are two more problems that donald trump has to worry about. it's been a rough couple days for thim him. >> they have to admit what they did was wrok. they have to write letters to the people of georgia. no jail time, small fines in restitution. in the case of chesebro, he pleaded guilty to a felon

>> shout-out to elie honig for the pink floyd reference. because it's really important to think about how it all stacks up. remember, and i understand and believe that people can have a kind of epiphany in what they've done. many plea deals and plea offers are about people realizing what they have done wrong. the consequences, the gravitas of their decisions. and then holding themselves to be held accountable for that very notion. but one of the things that she did in her colloquy, which is called her statement that she would make to tell the court about what she has done wrong, is that she says she relied on the experience of older, more experienced attorneys. it doesn't take a genius to think about, she's drawing a line to perhaps rudy giuliani who, of course, was once a federal prosecutor, a lawyer for many, many decades. i think in part she's accepting responsibility, but you're seeing a bit of a snag signal to what she may be suggesting as her own defense, then who she is willing to implicate as a part of that plea discussion. so think

let's bring in laura coates and former prosecutor elie honig. laura, let's start with the key legal argument for the legal team. the banks go the repaid with interest, so really this is a victimless crime. there are no victims. everybody got paid back. even if -- and i don't know that they're granted the idea that they're assets were over infla inflated, even if they were, where is the victim. >> alls is well that ends well does not bode well in a courtroom of law when you have a number of things on the books that are victimless. imagine if you will somebody who is soliciting to take drugs. they want the drugs and somebody sold it to them. who is the victim here. you might have a john and a prostitute, where is the victim. a society is built by a number of laws because society is offended and even though shun was not been a victim, it is still nonetheless against the law and that is the core of the prosecutions argument. is it doesn't matter if there wasn't an insurance issue or a tax benefit, but they claim there was. that you engaged in fraudu

we have cnn's katelyn polantz in new york, nick valencia is outside court and elie honig joining us as well. nick, you broke the news about the plea deal being on the table. any news on what is in that offer and what is happening in court as we speak? >> reporter: good morning, kate. the source with knowledge of these discussions didn't give me the details of this plea deal, only to tell me that ken chesbro was offered the deal by the fulton county district attorney's office and those discussions went well into the evening last night. the source familiar with these discussions tells me it was not clear whether or not ken chesbro would take the deal but the likelihood of them cutting this deal with the district attorney's office increased after his co-defendant sidney powell surprised everybody with her about face, doing a complete 180 and pleading guilty herself to six misdemeanor counts. ken chesbro linked with the former president, the former attorney of the president and the architect of the fake electors scheme, offering an alternate slate of electors to keep trump's hope alive of

elie honig is with us as well. and what is she pleading guilty to what she just admitted to doing. >> well, kate and john, there are two parts of this misdemeanor deal with quite a few stipulations including her testifying in future trials including that of donald trump. the parts of what she had been previously accused of taking part of the racketeering and conspiracy, and that is something likely she would be testifying to, but what she is pleading guilty to in this case in fulton county, georgia, is coffey county, the rural county where there were voting machines, and she is accused of being a part of the group of people hacking them. this is a misdemeanor deal, and it is not her pleading guilty to the specific felony charges that she was charged with, but she is admitting to taking part in that portion of what had happened there in coffey county, and very likely will be speaking in a way where her words can be used against the other defendants accused of the hacking conspiracy in coffey county, trying to get ac

let's talk about the constitution with eli honig and john avlon. morning. >> morning, guys. this is. a discipline problem, really, first and foremost, by the judge. he can't help himself. it's like if you have kids, you all know this situation. sometimes you have a big punishment that they know you really won't impose, and then there's a bunch of smaller punishments that the kids aren't really afraid of. and that's what we have here. the big punishment is imprisonment. any of these judges can theoretically imprison donald trump, but he knows that's almost certain not to happen. the small punishments, which he doesn't really care about are the financial punishments. he violated the other gag order twice so far and has been fined $5,000 and $10,000. i think in donald trump's mind, it's great. i'll keep doing this. so i'm not exactly sure what these judges do other than hit him with really, really severe financial sanctions. >> the infantization of donald trump continues, literally in that argument. this is a case where you feed to apply the law fairly and equally, and adjust i

and joining us now to discuss, cnn senior legal analyst elie honig. an obviously, a disgusting smear by donald trump. but, do you think that that statement, the smear about the judge, and his clark, warrants a gag order? >> i do, jake. because what donald trump did here is, you violated a courtroom commandment. you do not go after the staff, you don't go after the clerks, you don't go after the deputies, you don't go after the court reporters, the marshals. when you are a prosecutor, or a judge, you take on that role knowing that sometimes you may be attacked verbally, that there may be insults and criticism. that is part of the job. but these folks who work in the courtroom, they are a public civil servants, they did not sign up for this. the need to be protected. i think this gag order was very much appropriate. >> and, need we remind our viewers that there is a huge trend, donald trump does this, and puts this information out. and, these individuals quite frequently, then start experiencing death threats in not just trash talk on social media, but a

let's bring in elie honig. i want to start by ticking through some of the elements of the abc reporting. the idea that meadows reportedly told federal prosecutors that he had never seen any evidence of fraud. is that important here? >> yeah, a huge change in what we've heard. mark meadows if he is fully telling the truth, he is the single most important witness prosecutors could have. who was closer to donald trump during those key moments leading up to and during january 6 than mark meadows? if we now have the chief of staff, person close toast donald trump, the person who all the information filters through to get to the president, and he says i knew there was no fraud, i knew this was nonsense, that is a huge win for prosecutors. >> and what is really interesting according to this reporting meadows told jack smith's team that he wanted to resign over this stuff, over his concerns that the allegations of fraud were not true. but he didn't. he didn't resign. he kept doing this. and there is even part of the re

take a listen to cnn's elie honig. >> we do know that a president has civil immunity, meaning he cannot be sued for anything he did within the broad parameters of his job. what we don't know, the supreme court has said we don't know, is whether that applies to a criminal charge. if he wins, this case goes away. >> if he was successful in the immunity case for this, would this have ramifications for the georgia trials. >> oh, yes. if trump wins this one, gets the supreme court to say you're immune from prosecution for jack smith's face, fani willis' case is all but gone. >> interesting. do you agree with elie? could this work? >> if you're talking about trump's likelihood of success between -- zero and zero. if you're talking about whether he's able to maneuver into the united states supreme court, there's a better chance. he would have an outside chance of getting the united states supreme court to rule in his favor, which, as we noted, is an untested question that's never before been answered in our nation's constitutional history. >> obviously if he gets to the u.s. supreme court, he'

with us now, elie honig, and sarah flack. great to have you both. i thought this was interesting. so chesebro's attorney was on cnn over the weekend and asked all about this. here is part of what he said when asked if this guilty plea implicates former president trump. listen. >> it made it his role in preparing documents that at the time he could acknowledge were false documents. he admitted to a conspiracy to commit the filing of false documents. but i want to be clear about something. i did not implicate anyone else. and listen, ken chesebro is not interested in defending anyone. you say is he defending trump. he's not interested in defending trump but he also didn't implicate anyone. he implicated himself. >> he didn't implicate anyone but he won't defend anyone else. >> he did implicate people because he admitted that he was part of a conspiracy which definitionally involves more than one person. and the prosecutor named off the other people that the prosecutors believe were part of the conspiracy. it may well be that chesebro is not able to say i ever spoke directly with don

>> with us is jessica roth former federal prosecutor from the southern district of new york and elie honigmer assistant district attorney also for the southern district of attorney, he also happens to be cnn's legal affairs analyst, also with us legal affairs consultant paula reid. trump does not have to be in the courtroom this morning but legally speaking why would his team want him there or not? >> so a couple reasons that you would want a party present. first of all, you may want to ask questions of your client as a lawyer, as testimony is given, as the judge asks questions, oftentimes you need to lean over and go, is that true? what should we say in response? the other thing is you want your client there generally as a lawyer as a show of respect for the proceedings, as a show of respect for the trier of fact, for the judge. there is not going to be a jury in this case but ordinarily you would want the jury or judge to see the person there to say they care and are invested in this. there will be political calculations but those the strategic reasons you would want your client to be pr