The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – When You Come at the King: Inside DOJ’s Pursuit of the President, from Nixon to Trump by Elie Honig

Episode Date: November 3, 2025

When You Come at the King: Inside DOJ's Pursuit of the President, from Nixon to Trump by Elie Honig https://www.amazon.com/When-You-Come-King-President/dp/0063447363 "[A] deeply researched, keenly analytical, and frequently provocative chronicle of this singular judicial entity. . . . A senior legal analyst for CNN and former assistant U.S. attorney, Honig is well-suited to the task of providing a historical overview of the special counsel's function with the ever-evolving context of politics, partisanship and political skepticism." —Booklist (STARRED review) "A fascinating, fast-paced insider’s account....[a] riveting, deeply reported book.” —Anderson Cooper “Every page hums with gripping anecdotes and breaking news journalism." —Douglas Brinkley Imagine you’ve been put in charge of investigating your own boss—who also happens to be the most powerful person on the planet. You might unearth information that will be politically, professionally, and personally devastating to your subject, and you alone hold the power to indict and potentially imprison him. At the same time, the boss can fire you and end the case—and might even turn the tables and launch an inquiry aimed at you. As the lone-wolf assassin Omar put it in The Wire: “You come at the king, you best not miss.” That’s the crucible for any Special Counsel. For decades, the Department of Justice has appointed outside prosecutors to handle our highest-stakes cases. But do these independent investigations lead to just results? In When You Come at the King, CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig delivers a fast-paced, insider’s account of the most important Justice Department investigations of the past fifty years, based on dozens of on-record interviews with firsthand participants. A Watergate prosecutor reveals she hid copies of key documents at home to guard against potential destruction of evidence by the president’s allies. A member of the Iran–Contra prosecution team explains why they made a shocking election-eve revelation. A defense lawyer for Donald Trump details his private meeting with Jack Smith just days before Trump was indicted. From Ken Starr’s investigation of Bill Clinton to modern cases involving Patrick Fitzgerald, Robert Mueller, Jack Smith, and more, Honig charts how the Special Counsel system developed and evolved over time. We know the maxim that a nation can be measured by how it treats its weakest members. This book explores an inverse corollary: A nation reveals much about itself by how it holds accountable its most powerful leaders when they’ve done wrong. Now, with the future of Special Counsels in doubt, When You Come at the King addresses the most important question of all: Can the system evolve to better serve the call for justice?About the author Elie Honig is CNN's Senior Legal Analyst. He previously worked for 14 years as a federal and state prosecutor. Honig provides on-air commentary and analysis for CNN on news relating to the U. S. Department of Justice, major criminal trials, the Supreme Court, Congressional and grand jury investigations, national security, policing, and other legal issues. In 2022, Honig was nominated for an Emmy Award by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in the category "Outstanding News Analysis: Editorial & Opinion." Honig is the national bestselling author of two prior books published by HarperCollins: "Hatchet Man: How Bill Barr Broke the Prosecutor's Code and Corrupted the Justice Department" (2021) and "Untouchable: How Powerful People Get Away With It" (2023). His third book, "When You Come at the King: Inside DOJ's Pursuit of the President, from Nixon to Trump," publishes in September 2025. Honig writes a weekly column on legal news for New York magazine and CAFE. He hosts the popular true-crime podcast, "Up Against the Mob," and a weekly legal podcast, "The Counsel," both productions of Vox Media. Honig graduated from Rutgers College (where he ...

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Because you're about to go on a moment. monster education rollercoaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks of Oz, here from thecris Foss Show.com. There you go, Lacey. I'm currently sings that makes a visual. Welcome to 16 years of the Chris Foss show. 2,500 episodes, and we just keep bringing you more of the smartest minds,

the most brilliant people, the billionaires, Wales, Press, Central, advisors, the great journalists, the, you name it. They've all been on the show, even the romance novelists, and people who just write jokes for funny. As always, for the show, you're really friends and relatives. Go to Goodrease.com, Forge's Christmas, Facebook.com, Forge's Christmas, LinkedIn.com, Fortezs, Chris Foss. And YouTube.com, Forge's Chris Foss. Oh, my God, we need to have somebody record that, so I don't have to do it anymore. We have an amazing young man on the show. He's joining us for his third appearance on the Chris Foss show. You may know him from lots of TV, media, and all that good stuff, including the big old CNN, as Ted Turner used to like to call it.

Was it Ted Turner? I pulled the right reference right at the top. He is the author of the latest book. to come out. When you come at the king inside DOJ's pursuit of the president from Nixon to Trump. Wait, was there something that went on? Anyway, September 16th, 2025, it came out. Ellie Honig joins us on the show. We're going to be talking about his book, his insights, and all the stuff we're going to be learning. Ellie is CNN's senior legal analyst. He previously worked for 14 years as a federal and state prosecutor. He provides all their commentary analysis for

CNN on news relating to the U.S. Justice Department, major criminal trials, the Supreme Court, Congressional Grand Jury, Investigations, National Security, Policing, and other legal issues. In 2022, he was nominated for an Emmy Award by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in the category, Outstanding News Analysis, Editorial, and Opinion. He's the national bestselling author of two prior books published by Harper Collins, Hatchet Man, and let's see untouchable. His third book is just out and here he is. Welcome to show, Ellie. How are you? Chris, I have to fact check you. You referred to me earlier as a young man. The reason, if your viewers are wondering, why is this guy indoors wearing a vest? It's because I'm an old man and hence

I'm cold all the time. So I just want to clarify guys. It's an old Jenny Carson trick we do to butter up the gas and make it feel really good. Oh, so you mentioned sarcastically. I got it. No, no, not sarcastically. We do it to sincerely butter you up because we want people to feel special. We want our guests to be special. But I am like, are you at the phase of life where you just wear jackets or sweatshirts indoors because you're cold? Pretty much. I have, there's socks season and then there's no sock season. My kids, my kids don't like it. My kids think it's weird, but I'll say you'll do it someday, I promise. Yeah, yeah, just wait until you grow up. So, Ellie, give us to any dot coms. Where do you want people to find out about you on the

interwebs? Oh, gosh. I don't know, just, just Ellie Honig on Instagram and all the usual suspects. or Amazon, best of all Amazon. There's only one person with this name. You're not going to find which L.A. Honig is this. Actually, let me correct that. I did a piece for CNN a few months ago. Another guy named Elie Honeg reached out to me.

Not to get overly serious here, but he's a wonderful guy. He's 83 years old. He survived the Holocaust as a baby because his neighbors, he was a Jewish baby, Jewish man now. His non-Jewish neighbors in France hid him away from the Nazis so he could

survive. So there are two of us now. There's a, there's a book there maybe. I don't know. I mean, it's, check out the pieces. You can, you can find it on the internet. We did a little mini documentary piece about it. Pretty cool. All right. Give us a 30,000 overview. What's a sign of new book, sir? So what I do in this book is I go back and I get first person accounts on the record, by the way, no one's anonymous in this book. It's three dozen or so people who were involved as prosecutors, defense lawyers, white house officials, you know, cops, law enforcement, defendants in some cases, who were involved. involved in all of the major DOJ prosecutions that have sort of defined the last 50 years,

Watergate, Iran-Contra, Ken Starr, and Bill Clinton, on through the more modern Mueller and Robert Herr and Jack Smith, all the Trump and Biden-type investigations that have happened over the last seven, eight years. So you kind of give us a compilation of how special counsels were used, attorneys, and some of the curfuffles that happened around these people. I mean, I do. It's more than a compilation. it's not just like a listing. I mean, these are, what was so fun about reporting and writing

this book is I talked to the people who lived these cases and they were candid with me. I mean, they wanted their versions to be told for history. And at times, those versions were consistent. At times people disagreed. You know, you talked to a prosecutor and a defense lawyer on a case that happened a few years ago, they're going to remember things differently. They're going to argue amongst themselves. And, you know, having been a criminal prosecutor for 14 years, I love those courtroom stories, the strategic stories, but there's also the additional overlay of politics and all this because typically the person who's in the who's the focus of the investigation is going to be the president or some other powerful person close to the president so

hence the title when you come at the king right i mean it's it's a reference to the famous saying when you come at the king you may best not miss as omar said it on the wire although it goes back apparently well before him but the stakes of these things were basically life or death for all the folks involved yeah sometimes career sometimes other things yeah politics careers reputations, fortunes, you name it. Yeah. I mean,

we've kind of seen with Donald Trump here in 2025, you're watching this 10 years from now, 15 years from now, some Hubble as Terminator AI bots roam above you. We've seen the punishment. I mean, they recently,

what was it, a couple days ago, they released or they put on leave to attorneys who were trying to get a good sentence on a January 6th person. So. Yeah, they meant,

it wasn't, I mean, that person had already been pardoned for January 6. This, this defendant you're talking about commit a whole new set of crimes and basically is caught wandering around the neighborhood near where the obamas live with a van with firearms and ammo that he illegally obtained and prosecutors mentioned the fact that he was involved in January 6th and they got suspended as a result wow that is just amazing i mean i shouldn't be

amazed it's 20 i keep waking up to new amazing every day not in a good way so you what were some of the things that stuck out in the research you did and the things you wrote about in the book what were some of the high points that you were just to like, wow. I liked talking to the people who are involved in some of the oldest cases, which I don't have direct memory of. So, for example, I spoke to two Watergate prosecutors who were 26 and 30 at the time. You can do the math. I mean, now they're in their 70s and 80s.

Jill Wine Banks and Jim Quarles, they're both sharpest tax now. But, you know, I was born in 1975. So I, you know, that's post-Nixon resignation. Skip all the fun. Yeah, exactly. I missed. I missed it. I was in, actually, what was I? Gerald Ford baby, I guess. Yeah. But, you know, hearing their perspective, for example, what it was like, you know, we all know about the Saturday Night Massacre, the infamous incident where Nixon basically gets rid of the special prosecutor, Archibald Cox, and then the AG and the deputy AG also resigned. So it's this famous moment where the leadership of DOJ and the Watergate prosecution has all been basically beheaded at the exact same time.

and I talked to these prosecutors about what happened the next morning? What did you do? And they told these amazing stories. Joe Weinbanks was in a wedding that Saturday night. She said she couldn't get a day off. She was working six and a half days a week. She goes to a wedding.

She gets back to a hotel in New York at midnight and they hand her a message, one of old-fashioned phone messages written out. You remember, Chris. And it said the office has been seized, return immediately. So they go back the next morning and they're figured, what do we do?

Have we all been fired? We know all the bosses have been fired. Are we out of business? Are we continuing? And Archibald Cox, who had been fired, he was sort of the hero of this group, comes in. And they're sitting on the floor because the rest of the office have been marked off with police tape. And he tells them, do not give him, meaning Nixon, do not give him what he wants. You stay here, you do the work and you finish the job. And they did. They were allowed to do that. Political forces sort of coalesce behind them. So I love getting that inside view of these famous moments of history. And there's also, there's just humanity to it. I'll tell you a quick story. Archibald Cox was this sort of like Bowtie wearing former Harvard Law Professor, very patrician and trim and very formal and there was a

place across the street from their office the Watergate Prosecution Office is in D.C. called Archibald's. And Archie Cox said to the team at one point, you know, we should go there for lunch someday. It has the same name as me. Like it's calling out to us. And they had to tell him, yeah, Archie, so that's actually a strip club

across the street. Oh. Yeah. It's about, by the way, I'm told, Chris, it's still there, and it's still controversial. You know, I mean, where's the best way to be undercover if Nixon's Goon Squad is looking for you? Exactly. Maybe a strip club, I don't know. It would never suspect it. You know, I love those kind of human moments as well.

You can get those expenses at the DOJ, can't you, write off? So when you're turning those receipts, right? Research or something. I think I had what kind of case, you know, I did. I mean, we laughed, but I did a case involving the Gambino family when I was an organized crime prosecutor. They were shaking down a strip club in Manhattan. Now, we never did go to the strip club. Club. We never did do a field trip. But I don't know. If there's ever a case where you can

expense it, I guess that would have been in. There you go. Jill's been on the show and she's amazing. I remember she talked about the time that they figured out that her phone was bugged at home. I believe if I recall. I wish I had gotten that story from her. Yeah, yeah. I think it's in her book. So you cover everything. Clearly, there's something going on with this Trump guy still. There was the original, you know, investigations of him in his first term. But There's some other kerfuffle with, and he's been in the news. It's kind of interesting. Jack is trying to get, I believe, a hearing with Congress.

Jack Smith. Yeah, Jack Smith. There's a lot of issues swirling around Trump. Let me pause first. I mean, one of my theories in the book is what we see happening now with Trump's second term is different in kind from anything we've seen before in history going back to Watergate. Because every president up to now, including Trump's first in his first term, look, nobody. likes being investigated. Nobody loves special counsel. Nobody relishes that. But they've all understood and respected that there needs to be an independent justice department. And sometimes there needs

to be an outside process here brought in. Now, they've tried to undercut it, abstract, delay, undermine in the public eye. But now Trump has taken us to a whole new point where his perspective is there will be nobody investigating me or anyone close to me or any of my allies. And we're going to use DOJ in a payback way, in a retributive way. And part of that, that is, you know, Jack Smith is one of the people that Trump has said he wants to see prosecute. Now, look, I'm critical of Jack Smith in the book to an extent. I think some of the things Jack Smith did were over the top were not what ordinary prosecutors would do in the interest of fairness. However, I see no zero evidence that Jack Smith committed a crime or anything

resembling a crime. You can be critical of a person's performance as a prosecutor without believing they need to be prosecuted themselves. This whole thing with the back and forth with Congress is like a chicken, a game of chicken both ways. Congress has said, we demand your testimony, but we want it behind closed doors. And Jack Smith has said, I want to testify, but only in public, and also only if you grant me these other things that I want, I want you to tell me. He's being careful. He said he doesn't want to, you know, if he coughs during his testimony, they'll probably charge him with some sort of crime. So he's trying to be careful. I don't think you should, I'll put it this way. I don't expect to see a day, could well be wrong, but I don't expect to see a day where

Jack Smith testifies publicly in front of Congress. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think either of them really want that in their heart of hearts. It's a bold move on his part, I think, because it kind of throws the gallant down and maybe offsets any attack to come from them. I don't know. That's the appearance. I mean, you know, he's definitely trying to give a, you know, like a bold appearance that I'm not afraid of you and I want to come tell the truth. But he has attached certain conditions that I think he knows they won't grant him. So there's posturing both ways here. Plus, he should ask for the Epstein files, too. They're always swirling. It seems to be like there's something about those files that no one wants to see what's up. What's up with that?

Anyway, so what were some of the, can you share some of the failures that Jack Smith did so I can know why my democracy is disappearing? So look, the first part of it is not Jack Smith's fault. The first part of it is Merrick Garland's fault for taking almost two years to appoint Jack Smith. And I opened the Jack Smith chapter with the sentence, Jack Smith never had a chance. And by the way, Chris, my last book, which I wrote in 2022 before Jack Smith was appointed, I already said it's already too late. There were these odd defenders, bizarre defenders of Merrick Garland, most of whom never were really a prosecutor, so I don't understand this stuff, who were saying, oh, no, you know, the people who've been at DOJ were mostly saying, Garland's not doing anything towards

Trump here. He's play acting like he is, but he's not meaningfully going after Trump. And they said, yes, he is. You just don't know it. He's a stealth ninja. Of course, it turned out he was doing no such thing. There's been extensive reporting. And he wasted almost two years doing nothing. He finally appoints Jack Smith. My criticism, so Jack Smith was put in a sort of impossible position where there was no way he was going to be able to investigate, indict, deal with all the appeals issues, and then try his cases before the 2024 election. Now, Chris, let me ask you, It sounds like you're somebody who supports Jack Smith and isn't a particular fan of Donald Trump. Do you think that Jack Smith was trying to get Donald Trump's trial in before the 2024 election?

And do you think, let me ask you differently. Do you think Jack Smith was cognizant of the 24 election and trying to get Trump tried before it? You know, I don't know about that. I do know he, you know, he had all those speed bumps with the basically the, the, the, the, The judge in Florida who was kind of in the value. Put that one aside. Let's focus on the January 6th case in December because, yes, the one in D.C. in the January 6th case, do you think, just as an observer, as an informed member of the public, Jack Smith, was trying to accelerate that trial because he wanted to try it before the 24 election? I wouldn't know either way based upon, you know, I'm not that, you being a lawyer, you guys are pretty familiar with you guys.

That's sort of move beyond, move beyond the realm of opinion. opinion in fact. I mean, every single step that Jack Smith took was speed, speed, speed, expedite, expedite, expedite. He took all the, he asked for all these sort of special emergency procedures to speed it up. Here's, here's, so look, whatever one thinks of Donald Trump, do we agree that as a criminal defendant, a person charged by the United States whose individual liberty is at stake he is entitled to protect the same constitutional protections any other defendant would be entitled to. Okay, the average person in an average case, and usually it's a simple drug or gun case, who gets charged federally in district court in D.C., the same place, Jack Smith charged Trump, gets 28 months

between indictment and trial to prepare for the lawyers to go through the discovery, for the lawyers to investigate. Do you know how long, do you remember how long Jack Smith demanded a trial for Donald Trump? How many months after indictment? The average gets 28. What did Jack Smith demand initially? I don't know, what? Five months. Really? On a case involving 13 million documents. Now, put yourself in that position. You are charged or trying to basically lock you up for what amounts to the rest of your life. They hand over 13 million documents and tell your lawyers, you need to be ready to try this case in five months. There's no way they could have physically gotten through that discovery and done adequate preparation. That's one example. Several times, Jack Smith, at one point, when the immunity issue came up, Jack Smith won in the district court and he asked for emergency relief. He said, I want to skip the middle court and I want to go right to the U.S. Supreme Court. And they said, Why? What's the mad rush? This is very rarely granted. Jackson didn't want to admit that he was thinking about the election because he knew that would look political. So he didn't answer them. He just said, speed is good. And the Supreme Court said, if you're not going to give us a reason, we're not going to do it. And so he lost that. Then he goes to the Court of Appeals. He wins. And then what does he say to the Supreme Court? He completely does a 180. He says, rather than you have to take this case right away. Only you Supreme Court can take it. He says, no, Supreme Court, you shouldn't take this case at all because all he cared about was speed. Finally, I'll give you. one more example, Chris. A year ago right now, October of 2024, shortly before the election, the case finally comes back down to the district court. It goes all the way up to the Supreme Court.

Now it's back in the district court. When you do motions in criminal trials, the defense goes first. That's in the rules. That's the way it works. And then the prosecution responds. You don't even know what the defense motions are going to be until, right? I did motions a thousand times. Every single time the defense goes first, that's what the rule said. However, Jack Smith realized there was only enough time before the election for one party to go. And so the way it was going to play out was Trump was going to get to put in his motion, like now, like October, you know, mid-October. Trump would have said these charges are bullcrap, whatever. And then Jack Smith, going second, wouldn't have been able to respond until after the election. Jack Smith went to the judge and said, judge, you know, I'd like to reverse that.

And the judge even said, who's very pro-jacksmith, very anti-Trump, said, that's procedurally irregular. And then she let him do it. And then he puts in a quadruple length brief, four times the normal amount. And he dumps on the American public weeks before the election. Here's everything bad I found about Donald Trump because he reversed the rules. So Jack Smith is not a Boy Scout. I miss the meeting where every other legal analyst was ordered, thou shall only shine Jack Smith's boots. But the guy went out of his way in ways that undermined the constitutional rights of his defendant to rush this case to trial before the 2024 election. Now, look, I know what the response has been, people go, shut up, Ellie. Liberals say, shut up Ellie. He was right to try to try

Donald Trump before the 24 election. We had to know before the 24 election, to which I say, you're proving my point here. We can argue about whether it was smart or not smart right or wrong. And there's a debate. And I can see both sides of should Jack Smith have been rushing, but you're agreeing with me inherently that Jack Smith was rushing because of the election, which I argue is inherently political. You can't tell me a prosecutor who's in a mad dash to get something tried before an election is not being political. So Jack Smith's no Boy Scout. Sorry to burst this bubble. I should also say another thing, do you know, Chris, fun fact, the four biggest cases Jack Smith ever handled before the Trump cases were all rejected by judges or juries because he overreached or overcharged or violated constitutional rights of his defendant.

All four biggest ones, all rejected. Nine zero by the Supreme Court in one case, liberals and concerned. everybody like agreed that he overcharged the case. He had a death penalty case involving a guy who murdered two NYPD undercovers where Jack Smith made comments to the jury that violated that defendant's constitutional rights and that death penalty got thrown out because Jack Smith went overboard. There needs to be some accountability here for him, too. Hang on a second, Kelly. Hey, guys, can you take down my Jack Smith poster and fan club, but get me resigned from the fan club?

Listen, but it's funny. It's actually, I want to talk about that. You know, there was this cartoonization of Robert Mueller of John Durham, the other way. Conservatives did it. And then of Jack Smith weren't like, you remember all the, Chris, you remember all the internet memes and justice is coming and Mueller bobbleheads and Jack Smith podcast and Jack superhero. So it's interesting because I talked to members of Mueller's team. And they hated that. They said nothing could have been more out of line with who.

Robert Mueller is an American patriot. He's wounded in Vietnam. He's a purple heart recipient. He served under four different presidents, two Democrats, two Republicans, both appointed him to different high-ranking jobs. He was confirmed by the Senate unanimously all four times, and he did not view his job as a prosecutor as being some political avenger of the left's fantasies. He viewed his job as, let me get in here, do a fair and full investigation and do whatever I need to do the right thing. And they hated that. Mueller's own team members, Mueller himself hated it. And they said, by the way, it also fueled Donald Trump in his lashing out at us.

saying, look at all these liberals who are, you know, hoping this guy takes me down. So, you know, and that sort of memeification happens, it tends to happen now with whoever, you know, whoever's rooting for the prosecutor takes off with the memes. I don't know if you research this in your book, but I've always been kind of curious that Robert Mueller and no slam to him, but evidently shortly after he came down with Alzheimer's. Oh, I don't know about that. I mean, I don't think that's ever been confirmed, but Robert Mueller, it's clear that, when he gave his testimony in 2019 you remember he was a little bit you know he was a little bit sort of soft spoken and he didn't really have much to say and people who know knew him say look he he you know at that point he was in his 70s and he was not in his peak form there I don't want to speculate about what his medical condition but but he certainly has been you know out of the public eye since then I stand corrected Parkinson's but yeah we don't know exactly yeah we don't know but that wasn't the the peak Robert Mueller in 2019 yeah I mean it

And I'm saying that because I remember how it seemed like he was very bothered when who's the, who was the, you wrote about him in your first book. Bill Barr. Bill Barr. It seemed like he was really bothered when Bill Barr kind of whitewashed his report. So was I. I mean, and so were Mueller's team members. I talked to him about it. I mean, that's exactly what happened.

Bill Barr got Mueller's report. Did not release it for a month. And if you look historically, usually AG's immediately released the reports. Barr holds it for 27 days and completely distorts what's in it by the time it came out a month later it was like it was over already. People already have drawn their conclusions. And Mueller did write

a pointed letter to Barr where he said you've misrepresented my conclusions. Why didn't they see that coming? Everybody knew Bill Barr was in the can for Trump. It's a great question. What I say, I think in my second or first book is why didn't he see it coming?

I guess he just assumed that like Mueller assumed that like Mueller assumed that like Mueller himself, Barr would generally play by the rules, which was wrong. But I say it's kind of like if you had a fight, a street fight, and one of the boxers was going by Marcus of Crensbury rules, you know, big puffy gloves and boxing. And the other guy was in there like an N&A brawler, right? And that's, you know, Mueller's the proper, we do things properly, and Barr's the political brawler. And it was a mismatch. Yeah. So I need you to settle a bet for me. My attorney friends, and we've mentioned this before the show, we've invited a

Caroleneg on the show again for a book injustice. And I guess some of the reporting in there, if I have this accurate, is that Jack Smith had the option to try that case in Washington, D.C. The classified documents case. They knew the risk of going to Florida. They knew the percentage of the risk of going to Florida that would get with that one judge. And what are your thoughts on that? So I read the excerpt. I haven't read the book yet, but I read the excerpt, which I think was in the post. First of all, Carolinick is a great reporter. I will tell you I came across some similar. I'm sure she has the story exactly right because I actually came across some similar stuff for my book.

It's a really interesting strategic call there because Jack Smith definitely, so when you have a federal case that happens in multiple districts, you can choose which district. But there has to be some link of the crime to the district where you charge it. No question Florida would have been proper. He would have had no problem. There wouldn't even have been an argument about can he charge it in Florida. But the risk is you get worse judges and a worse jury pool, by the way. If you're going after Trump, you'd much rather try him in D.C. I mean, he won the state of Florida.

He lost 85% of the vote in D.C. There were people on his team who wanted him to charge the documents case in D.C. Not Florida. However, D.C. would have had risk. I don't know that he would have had venue in D.C. Because you could say he took the documents from D.C. But the problem is he took the documents when he was president. He took them in his last couple days as president.

So it's not a crime yet until he's no longer president. So they did the safer thing. This, in a way, actually runs against what I was saying previously with Jack Smith, where I was saying he was so gung-ho to get him. He actually did the safer thing by charging in Florida. But there were people on his team who were even more aggressive who said, screw it. Like, we have to take a chance by bringing this in D.C.

Because we have a way higher chance of convicting him in D.C. So I think Jack Smith did the right thing. there, but may have undermined his own chances of success in the process. I just lost the bet then. My attorney friends are right. Look, they're right. D.C. would have been judge shopping. I mean, there's no question. Like 98% of the activity happened in Florida. I think he was probably aware of that, too. I would guess somebody said, look, if we bring this in D.C., it's going to be pretty obviously, like, we're shopping for a favorable forum here, which we're not really supposed to do.

Yeah. Let me play devil's advocate here, because wouldn't, is it possible that maybe Jack Smith was rushing because normally with classified case, I mean, the government has, what, a 99.9% conviction rate where usually you settle because, I mean, there's like people have just taken classified documents home by accident in their purse, White House, and they still probably spent a day in jail and paid a fine. It's pretty cut and dry. It's surprising he survived that. So you're saying maybe Jack Smith was just trying to get him to settle? Maybe. No, first of all, the conviction rate in all federal cases is high 90s. So a lot of people don't get prosecuted for minor classified documents type violations. Joe Biden, look at Joe Biden. I mean, Joe Biden was more major than what you said

and, you know, less major than Trump, but he was not chart that. There's a chapter in the book about that. No, I don't think there was ever any hope of Donald Trump pleading. When you say settled, you mean, that means pleading guilty. There was a zero point. I think Jack Smith understood correctly. There was a zero percent chance Donald Trump was ever going to say, yeah, Sharano, I admit I'm guilty of these. No way. Yeah, the story about how the Justice Department tried to cajole Donald Trump and, you know, be nice and play nice and, hey,

before charging the, oh, look, they gave, DOJ, before, this is pre-Jack Smith, DOJ gave Donald Trump a thousand chances to do the right thing and just turn the docs over and do it the easy way, and he refused. Yeah. That's why I moved my classified docs from the bathroom, because

evidently that's bad. To the garage, like Biden? Yeah, like Biden. If they're next to an anti-corvette, It's okay. No, it's okay. I mean, Biden himself, do you remember Biden said, oh, come on. That's where I keep my precious Corvette. Like, of course it's secure.

It's funny because Trump also was like, oh, no, you can't just walk into Mar-a-Lago. Like, they both have the same argument. Yeah. You can't just walk in any bathroom. Oh, you can. Okay. All right. There's all sorts of, wasn't there that crazy lady or somebody who was

impersonating to some richness and she was gotten all over? That rings a bell. There was someone who snuck into Mar-a-Lago. Yeah. She got past the secret service and everything. Yeah. Just some fraud. So anything more we want to tease out on the book before we go,

what do you hope people come away with when they read your book? First of all, I hope people will enjoy the stories because there's so many firsthand stories. I mean, I'll put you at the table when Bill Clinton is getting examined. You'll be in the strategy room, the trial room with Trump's team, with Biden's team, with, you know, with White House officials, with, you name it, with Mueller's team. But the big picture takeaway is this. what we're seeing now in Trump 2.0 is different. It's fundamentally different than anything we've seen before.

And there's a plea at the end to sort of the next president. Look, I'm under no illusion where we are. Now, Trump has weaponized, has politicized and weaponized DOJ. There's no question about it. And the fact, by the way, that I argue some of the prosecutions of Trump were overdone, in no way excuses or authorizes what he's doing now. But I see, I argue to the next president that when you get in office, so many of our guardrails and structures and protection,

are going to be in rubble. And it's going to be tempting for you, whether it's, you know, Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, J.D. Vance, or, you know, Ron DeSantis or Stephen A. Smith, you're not going to like these things. What president likes being investigated? What president likes ethics rules that, you know, restrict the way he can do his business. But this is too important.

This, an independent DOJ and some meaningful means of bringing in an outside prosecutor, even Richard Nixon or even whether whatever side you're on Richard Nixon to Bill Clinton to Bush and Reagan to Biden to Trump one have all acknowledged that there is some need for some independence and we do have to bring that back and if we don't it's at our own peril no one is about the law or it's supposed to be we aspire to that I don't know if it's true but yes that is that is an important goal it's been fun Ellie to have you on the show I'm going to replace a poster of you over my jack poster because you've you've tainted me i seek no such adulation but thank you've tainted i'll be joining the ellie honing fan club but i do have my CNN paid subscription folks pay and support all access great great product really is yeah yeah really do all right chris thank you very much and ellie your dot coms as we go out just ellie honing e l i e hong i g at instagram facebook i don't so much do what used to be twitter anymore i'm kind of off that but That's the best place.

Or not as book, folks, whatever fine books are sold, called When You Come at the King, Inside the DOJ's Pursued of the President from Nixon to Trump out September 16th, 2025, and pick up us other two books as well. Thanks to Ellie for showing up. Thanks to all our audience for being here. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time.

That shows out. Great show.