Elie Honig Books In Order

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Elie Honig is a published author as well as a Senior Legal Analyst with CNN. He also worked for over a dozen years as a federal and state prosecutor.

He is someone who is able to provide on air commentary and analysis for CNN on the news, covering all types of topics on everything from large criminal trials to the U.S. Department of Justice to the Supreme Court, national security, Congressional and grand jury investigations, policing, and different legal issues. Honig was nominated in 2022 for an Emmy Award in the category of ‘Outstanding News Analysis: Editorial & Opinion’ by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

Elie is also the author of two nationally bestselling books. These are Hatchet Man, which came out in 2021, and Untouchable, which was released in 2023. He came out with yet another book in 2025, titled When You Come at the King.

The author also writes a weekly column revolving around legal news for New York magazine and CAFE. As if that were not enough, Elie also works to host the true crime podcast Up Against the Mob as well as The Counsel, a weekly legal podcast. He attended Rutgers College and graduated in 1997, following that up with a session at Harvard Law School in 2000.

Hatchet Man: How Bill Barr Broke the Prosecutor’s code and Corrupted the Justice Department is a 2021 novel written by Elie Honig. Inside this book, he analyzes how Attorney General William Barr has destroyed all the norms as well as the faith in the Department of Justice. Along the way, he has turned one of the most respected and apolitical institutions in America into a private law firm that works to support and protect its client, who happens to be none other than Donald Trump.

As America’s top law enforcement official, Barr is different from those who came before him at the Justice Department. Throughout the course of his tenure, he has done a lot of damage, managing to trample the two core virtues that have defined the department and its mission for a long time across administrations both Democratic and Republican– independence and credibility.

Barr has done all types of things, asserts this book, from distorting the law to bending the truth to undermining the prosecutions of the Department. All of it leads up to one more consistent outcome, which is to both protect and advance Donald Trump’s political interests.

The first thing that Barr did as AG was to distort the various findings of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, which ended up leading to a public rebuke for being dishonest from Mueller and then a federal judge. Barr attempted to manipulate the law to put down the complaint of a whistleblower regarding what Trump did in his dealings in Ukraine. This was the same report that led to Trump being impeached.

Barr also intervened when it comes to the prosecutions of Michael Flynn and Roger Stone, which undermined the work of his prosecutors to help the loyal Trump advisers. He was caught lying about his effort to displace the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, who had an office that was investigating the Trump family as well as their business. He has denigrated opponents of the Democrats and Trump, while amplifying baseless theory about mail-in ballot fraud while also making sure that there was the chance of a battle over the election results of 2020.

When Honig was working at the Justice Department, he was instructed that the most important assets that a prosecutor has in his toolkit are his credibility and his independence. If you don’t have those, as a prosecutor, you are lost. While he fought for justice along with his colleagues, to charge righteous cases and convict lawbreakers, they also knew that there was nothing out there that was worth sacrificing character or integrity. Barr gave up both, to the detriment of America.

This book goes into Barr’s vast abuse of power while performing as Attorney General through the politicization of his position and his power.

Untouchable: How Powerful People Get Away With It is a 2023 book written by Elie Honig. This book looks into the two tier justice system of America, explaining how the famous, rich, and powerful, including the company of Donald Trump, work to manipulate the legal system to get away with huge misdeeds and evade justice.

How is this man able to get away with this? This question is so annoying for observers and participants in the American criminal justice process. How is it that people with power end up weaponizing their political power, wealth, and fame so that they can beat the system, and how can prosecutors work to fight back?

In this book, Elie Honig uses his experience as a CNN senior legal analyst to show how the powerful and the rich are able to harness the system and use it to benefit them. Along the way, it shows how the figures of Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump, Bill Cosby, and Harvey Weinstein have been able to avoid justice for decades.

He also shows how the Trump children were able to dodge an indictment for fraud and shows how various CEOs and Wall Street titans have been let off of the hook without consequence, getting financial penalties for what they have done without getting any criminal consequences, something that doesn’t just happen.

In this book, the author shows the reader how the system is designed to allow those with power to avoid being touched whatsoever. It not only takes the reader inside their heads but gives solutions on how to make the system more fair and honest in the process. This way it will ensure true justice for all, and work to hold all people despite whatever status they have accountable for the misdeeds that they have done. An interesting look at real topics and people that you won’t want to miss!