Former federal prosecutor Elie Honig warned Friday that Justice Department officials may be actively undermining their own case through inflammatory public comments, as outrage continues to ripple through Minnesota following last week’s fatal shooting of 37-year-old mother of three Renee Good.Honig’s comments came Friday during an appearance on CNN, where the network’s senior legal analyst issued a blunt assessment of DOJ’s conduct as he reacted to federal officials publicly floating a potential criminal investigation against Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.“I don’t know if DOJ even realizes this, but by making these public statements, they’re sabotaging themselves,” Honig said Friday on CNN’s “The Source.”“If they ever were to indict any of these folks who they’ve singled out explicitly,” Honig added, “any one of these people who gets indicted will have a very strong vindictive prosecution case that could get this thrown out.”Honig, a former assistant U.S. attorney, went on to say that while he has been critical of certain comments from the Democratic elected officials, their remarks are “core, protected First Amendment political speech.”“If you have public officials, as we do here, making political speech, even if it’s explosive, inflammatory, aggressive, and then that causes people to protest or to call 911, that is simply not obstruction of justice,” Honig said. “If they bring an indictment for obstruction, I promise you they will lose.”At one point during the segment, the CNN legal analyst said the Trump Justice Department’s approach in the days following Good’s death reflected a stunning deviation from what is expected of the agency.“DOJ has lost its damn mind,” he said bluntly as he recounted the series of events and public statements from the department that followed the fatal shooting. “They’re just off the rails at this point.”
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