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CNN’s Elie Honig Breaks Down Likelihood Of Special Counsel Investigating Handling Of Epstein Files

CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig casted doubt on Monday that a special counsel will be formed to investigate the Department of Justice's (DOJ) handling of the files surrounding the death of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig casted doubt on Monday that a special counsel will be formed to investigate the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) handling of the files surrounding the death of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The White House has considered appointing a special counsel or removing redactions to already released documents in order to diffuse the anger the public is holding toward the administration over its handling of the Epstein case, according to Axios. Honig said on “CNN News Central” that a special counsel being appointed in this case would be unprecedented.

“If there were a special counsel appointed, it would be unlike any other special counsel in our history really for two reasons,” Honig said. “First of all, if you look back at the history, going back to Watergate when it was called independent counsel and through the ensuing years, the law tells us that there’s not supposed to be special counsel just because there’s a messy situation or just because the attorney general has done a bad job. It’s supposed to be reserved for when there’s a conflict of interest or another extraordinary circumstances and historically, those conflicts of interests have always touched upon the president himself or other powerful people around the president.”

“Now whether there is such a conflict of interest, presumably [Attorney General] Pam Bondi might know, we wouldn’t know at this moment,” Honig continued.

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Honig further explained that special counsel appointments are supposed to be reserved for “actual prosecutorial scenarios” where there is reason to believe there should be criminal charges. The FBI wrote in its memo about the case that there is no reason to believe that anyone else should face criminal charges.

“[A] special counsel, historically and under the law, is not supposed to be appointed just to tell a story [or] just to get to the bottom of something. It’s supposed to be reserved for actual prosecutorial scenarios where there is some reason to believe there should be criminal charges. The FBI last week, in its memo looking at the situation said, ‘there’s no basis to think anyone else should be charged.’ So this Pam Bondi’s decision, and it’s gonna be a tough one.”

The DOJ and FBI concluded there is no evidence that Epstein blackmailed powerful figures, kept a “client list” or that an outside figure murdered him inside his jail cell. Attorney General Pam Bondi told reporters that she “no knowledge” Epstein potentially being an intelligence asset for U.S. or foreign intelligence agencies, though previous reporting indicated otherwise.

Former U.S. attorney Alex Acosta, who granted Epstein and his associates federal immunity as part of a plea deal in 2007, allegedly indicated that the disgraced financier was tied to intelligence, according to Vicky Ward, who covered Epstein in a 2003 Vanity Fair story. In return for agreeing to Acosta’s plea deal, Epstein pleaded guilty to state-level charges and spent 13 months in a county jail with work release privileges for most of the week.

Bondi told Fox News in February that the so-called “client list,” along with many other documents, were sitting on her desk awaiting review. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and the DOJ said that Bondi referred to the “entirety” of paperwork on her desk, rather than the client list specifically.

At the time of Epstein’s death, the prison had him under psychological evaluation at the time after he had attempted suicide on July 23, 2019, according to a CNN timeline of Epstein’s death. Two correctional officers, Tova Noel and Michael Thomas, did not perform the required 12 a.m., 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. counts and completed a form falsely saying that they did.

The DOJ initially charged Noel and Thomas in November 2019 with one count of “conspiring to defraud the U.S.” by “impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful functions of the MCC” and for falsifying records. The charges were subsequently dropped after they had complied with their deferred prosecution agreement, which required them to admit to falsifying records.

Dr. Michael Baden, a forensic pathologist hired by Epstein’s brother, told “Fox & Friends” in October 2019 that Epstein’s autopsy was more consistent with homicidal strangulation than suicidal hanging. Recorded evidence was only available from one camera due to a malfunction at the prison, causing recordings to be made for only about half of the cameras, according to a DOJ Inspector General’s report.