CNN’s John King Says Trump Is ‘Innocent Until Proven Guilty’

CNN’s John King said Tuesday that former President Donald Trump should be afforded the assumption of innocence amid a flurry of lawsuits.

King was discussing a possible 2024 bid for Trump, who is expected to announce his run Tuesday night at Mar-a-Lago. King said Trump is facing several suits, such as whether he had any role in trying to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia and his alleged role in January 6th.

King said that “some people think [the Georgia case] is the place where you can actually prove because of the phone calls to the Secretary of State and other pressure put-on state officials, you could actually prove a direct effort to steal an election. Others will say, ‘wait a minute, state, federal boundaries, it’s murky.'”

Former federal prosecutor Elliot Williams said there is “proof” that Trump called state officials and “possibly” violated Georgia law but that “he’s got a decent case here to go into court and say, number one, as a former president you ought to charge me in federal court. Number two, I’m immune under the First Amendment and so on.” (RELATED: ‘Political Hit Job’: Bill Barr Rips Letitia James Over Trump Lawsuit)

WATCH:

“Until proven guilty belongs to everybody in America, including Donald Trump, but look at these investigations. There’s two federal investigations, one about did you try to disrupt the procedures in Congress January 6th. One is about the classified documents. There’s a January 6th select committee, there’s the Georgia investigation,” King said. “There’s a House Ways and Means tax investigation, there’s a Manhattan criminal investigation of the Trump organization. There’s a New York attorney general fraud lawsuit. Again, innocent until proven guilty, but different to announce a presidential campaign with that all around you.”

The Washington Post published an alleged transcript in January of 2021 that accused Trump of telling Frances Watson, the chief investigator of the Georgia secretary of states’ office, to “find the fraud” and lauding her a “national hero” if she did. While Trump did claim he won the 2020 election and suggested Watson would be “praised” after the “right answer” was revealed, The Post’s original quotes were fake.

“Correction: Two months after publication of this story, the Georgia Secretary of State released an audio recording of President Donald Trump’s December phone call with the state’s top elections investigator,” The Post’s update reads. “The recording revealed that The Post misquoted Trump’s comments on the call, based on information provided by a source. Trump did not tell the investigator to ‘find the fraud’ or say she would be ‘a national hero’ if she did so.”