CNN legal analyst says Trump indictment 'underwhelming'

CNN legal analyst Carrie Cordero said Tuesday during special coverage of the Donald Trump indictment that she found the charges "underwhelming" and not much more than the public had known for the last seven years.

Anchor Jake Tapper asked Cordero, “The frailties of the case, what I’ve heard other people, including you, talk about, um, how strong this case may be or may not be, um, your reaction now that you’ve had a chance to go through it. Is it what you thought it was going to be? And are you unimpressed?”

Cordero said:

It is what I thought it was going to be in terms of focusing on the payments that were made. The falsification of the records is really tied to the payment that was made to Stormy Daniels in terms of a case that’s being brought against a former president. It’s a little underwhelming. There’s not more to it. There’s no more violations — tax violations. There’s not an incredible new set of facts that we didn’t know about publicly. It’s really the facts of this case, as they have existed for basically almost seven years.

Trump was indicted Tuesday on 34 counts of falsifying business records, which could get him a maximum of 136 years in prison, although it is highly unlikely he would be sentenced to that kind of time for those charges, even if he is convicted.

Cordero is not the only legal analyst who thinks the Trump indictment is dubious at best and politically motivated legal malpractice at worst.

Jonathan Turley said it was done "for the purpose of influencing the election," while Alan Dershowitz said it was "weaker" than he thought and "laughably flawed."