Ex-prosecutor reveals his biggest worry in Trump Jan. 6 case

Prosecutors should be concerned about the prospect of former President Donald Trump‘s fans becoming jury members and ignoring the law in order to acquit him, according to former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann.

Weissmann, the former lead prosecutor in Special Counsel Robert Mueller‘s investigation of the Trump 2016 campaign and Russian election interference, revealed during a Pod Save America interview released on Thursday what would “keep him up at night” if he were prosecuting the ex-president in a jury trial.

Trump, who is already facing dozens of federal felony charges stemming from Special Counsel Jack’s Smith’s classified documents investigation, announced earlier this week that he received a “target letter” indicating that he could soon be facing additional charges related to the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

The former prosecutor said that his biggest concern would be “jury nullification”—the process of a juror refusing to follow the law in order to acquit a defendant based on the juror’s personal beliefs. He suggested that Trump loyalists might attempt to “lie” their way onto the jury of a potential January 6 trial, while having no intention of actually considering the evidence.

“The problem in a high-profile case [is] jurors who want to get on a jury and who are less than candid,” Weissmann said. “Which is a nice way of saying, ‘lie.'” You know, usually most jurors don’t want to be on a jury. But in high-profile matters, you have that problem of people really trying to sneak on who [are] not intending to adhere to their oath of office as as a juror.”

“It only takes one juror to have a hung jury,” he continued. “There has to be a unanimous jury to either to convict or to acquit. [A hung jury] is the kind of thing that Donald Trump will claim is a huge victory, even if it’s 11 to 1 for conviction. So, that would be the thing that would worry me the most. The evidence seems incredibly strong, so that’s the biggest thing I would worry about.”

Newsweek reached out via email to Trump’s legal team for comment on Thursday.

Smith’s office declined Newsweek’s request for comment.

During an MSNBC appearance on Thursday, Weissmann also discussed reports that a grand jury deciding on whether to charge Trump in the January 6 investigation met on the same day and heard testimony from former White House aide William Russell, who was said to be with Trump during the Capitol attack.

Weissmann said that Russell, who works for Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, was an “absolutely logical person” to speak with the grand jury, explaining that the panel may have heard valuable testimony because Russell was “so close to the former president.”

The ex-prosecutor went on to say that he thought Smith would hit Trump with multiple charges in the January 6 case in order to prove that the former president was involved in an “overarching conspiracy.”

“I think that if Jack Smith is going to bring a charge like this—which I think he is definitely going to do—that he is going to charge everything,” he said. “I think he’s gonna charge big … he’s going to want to make sure that the indictment reflects that overarching conspiracy.”