After Kyle Rittenhouse acquittal, MSNBC analyst cuts down anchor's idea of federal prosecutionof federal

An MSNBC guest quickly cut down an anchor's seeming hope for federal prosecution of Kyle Rittenhouse after his acquittal on Friday, calling the case difficult to make either way.

"It’s possible," former federal prosecutor Paul Butler said. "But typically we see those in civil rights cases, and this isn’t a civil rights case. The truth is this is a tough case for prosecutors because some of the state’s own witnesses testified in favor, or their testimony advanced the government’s case. One witness testified that the first person who Rittenhouse shot, a man named Rosenbaum, tried to grab Rittenhouse’s gun. Another witness said that Mr. Rittenhouse shot a second person who was attacking him with a skateboard, and a third person who Mr. Rittenhouse shot was pointing a gun at him. So I think this will be a difficult case whether the prosecution is state or federal."

Rittenhouse claimed self-defense after he shot three people, killing two, during unrest last year in Kenosha, Wisconsin, He was found not guilty on all charges, including first-degree reckless homicide, two counts of first-degree intentional homicide and two counts of first-degree reckless endangerment.