Don Lemon insists DOJ could charge Trump with conspiracy, skeptical CNN analyst says 'heck no'

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CNN's Don Lemon argues with CNN analyst on Trump being tried for conspiracy: 'You're wrong'

On CNN, primetime host Don Lemon and CNN analyst Philip Mudd got into a heated debate over where the Department of Justice should charge President Trump with conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election after the January 6 Capitol riot, based off of testimony at committee hearings.

CNN host Don Lemon got into a heated argument with a counter-terrorism expert over whether the evidence presented in the January 6 committee hearings showed the Justice Department should charge former President Trump with conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results.

Reacting to Thursday's hearing, Lemon suggested the legal case could be made that Trump was "willing to accept violence to stay in power." Former CIA analyst Philip Mudd immediately shot that notion down.

"Heck no," Mudd began. The CNN analyst argued the Department of Justice couldn’t win a conspiracy case against the former president because his motives couldn't be proven in court.

"That's a really difficult case to prove. Not only what happened but what people were thinking when they went down the path that happened on January 6th. Very difficult to prove. That's going to take a lot of people and millions of dollars to pursue," he began.

CNN counter-terrorism analyst Philip Mudd argued with CNN host Don Lemon over the possibility President Trump would be charged with criminal conspiracy to overturn an election, on CNN June 17, 2022.

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Mudd noted that Attorney General Merrick Garland would be perceived as having "partisan, political" motivations if the DOJ lost. "The risk of losing that case is high. I wouldn't pursue it if I were the Attorney General," he said.

But Lemon kept pushing the idea as viable, resulting in a lengthy and heated debate.

Mudd was adamant that the president could argue his advisers told him that he won the election, so it wasn’t a "conspiracy," which Lemon disagreed with. "None of his advisers told him that he won!" Lemon said. "So on this one, you’re wrong," he scolded Mudd.

The Jan. 6 committee hearing is investigating whether President Donald Trump can be criminally charged for the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot over the 2020 election results. (Getty Images)

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"No, Don, you’re wrong, you’re wrong!" the CNN analyst shot back as the pair balked at one another's arguments. 

"Don't you think the defense can find witnesses to say that the president thought he won [the election]?" Mudd asked Lemon.

Lemon pushed back on Mudd's assertion, arguing that would've already happened in previous lawsuits related to the 2020 election.

"You're not making sense right now, Phil," Lemon told Mudd, who insisted Lemon had "lost" the argument.

WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 09: The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th hearing in the Cannon House Office Building on Thursday, June 9, 2022 in Washington, DC. The bipartisan Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack On the United States Capitol has spent nearly a year conducting more than 1,000 interviews, reviewed more than 140,000 documents day of the attack. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Lemon maintained there was "not one" "legitimate adviser" who testified to the committee that Trump had won the election. But the CNN analyst claimed reports showed these testimonies conflicted with what they told Trump two years ago.

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The January 6 hearings have dominated cable news airwaves since they began last Thursday, even as inflation hit a 40-year-high for May.

Leading into the first hearing, CNN spent three times as much reporting on the upcoming hearing as they did on record high inflation, according to a NewsBusters study.