An assistant U.S. attorney and former Watergate prosecutor told CNN on Wednesday that leaked videos of witnesses will benefit former President Donald Trump in the ongoing Georgia case.
Fulton County prosecutors are asking a judge to seal discovery materials after videos of four witnesses’ depositions were leaked. The CNN guest, Nick Ackerman, said the leaks are good for Trump because they open up the witnesses to harassment and potential violence.
“The person who benefits most from all this is Donald Trump,” Ackerman told CNN host Sara Sidner. “Because it really threatens these witnesses it puts out the fact that three of these four witnesses have direct information on Donald Trump that is highly incriminating and is gonna be part of what is likely to be a guilty verdict in that Georgia RICO case.”
“So you’ve got these people out there, these wild, whacko, MAGA crazies that will take this upon themselves to try and do something. That’s what the concern is. You had this happen in Cincinnati after the search warrant that was executed at Donald Trump’s estate, and what happens? Some guy goes to Cincinnati to try and kill an FBI agent. This is extremely dangerous,” he continued.
Ackerman referred to an Ohio gunman who died in a shootout at the FBI’s Cincinnati office following the Aug. 2022 raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence.
Trump and eighteen others are charged in Fulton County over their alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state. The former president faces charges of violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, conspiracy to impersonate a public officer, conspiracy to commit forgery of the first degree and conspiracy to commit false statements and writings, among others. (RELATED: ‘Intended To Intimidate’: Fulton County Prosecutors Deny Leaking Videos Of Trump Co-Defendants To Media)
The trial has no set start date and may not conclude until after the 2024 election, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said Tuesday, according to Reuters.
The leaked videos show former White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino and former Trump lawyers Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell giving confidential interviews to prosecutors before pleading guilty to lesser charges, The Hill reported. The Washington Post later released information about an exchange between Georgia bail bondsman Scott Hall and Kenneth Cheseboro, another Trump lawyer. All four of the witnesses whose depositions leaked were co-defendants in the case and have taken plea deals.
The videos reportedly showed the witnesses identifying Trump as the mastermind behind their alleged attempt to overthrow the 2020 election, according to The Hill. Powell allegedly described a call with Trump on Christmas Eve 2020, during which she apologized for the failure of Trump’s legal efforts following the election.
Ellis testified that Scavino told her at a 2020 White House Christmas party that Trump was “not going to leave [office] under any circumstances,” while Powell discussed her plans to seize voting machines and said she had been in constant communication with Trump amid her efforts to overturn the results, ABC News reported.