Maggie Haberman: Advisors Bluntly Telling Trump He Has to Win the Election to Avoid Jail Time

As Donald Trump faces potential indictment over his culpability for the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol, Maggie Haberman reported those in his orbit have determined that his winning re-election is his best chance of avoiding prison time.

The New York Times Trump scribe joined CNN on Wednesday morning to discuss the letter the ex-president received from Special Counsel Jack Smith, which — according to Trump — warned him he is a target of the DOJ’s investigation into his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Since this indictment follows the other indictments Trump faces for his alleged hush money schemes and mishandling of classified documents, Phil Mattingly asked Haberman “Does Trump view these things differently? View these cases differently? View one as more of a threat than another?”

Haberman answered that “Trump views broadly all of these cases as a threat to him,” especially the federal cases since he faces significant jail time if convicted. While she acknowledged that Trump hasn’t been charged yet, Haberman noted that Smith’s target letter signals he will be.

“He is looking at this broadly as a political threat,” said Haberman. “The documents case, in particular, had very much upset them for a variety of reasons; because it was an FBI search on his home, it was a different type of thing. In this case, he is upset about it.”

Haberman went on to report that Trump was “not in a great mood” on his plane ride to Iowa yesterday for his town hall with Fox News’ Sean Hannity. Haberman also explained that “even if it’s not the thing that voters say that they are voting on… Republicans are aware that in 2022, candidates who espoused Trump’s election lies ended up basically paying the price at the ballot box in November.”

At the moment, he is seeing this broadly as a threat to his freedom, and his advisers have been — in private conversations — pretty blunt that they see it as he has to win the election, and that is how he guarantees that he does not face jail time.

Now, again, it only takes one juror in any of these cases. He has not been convicted of anything. But the fact that they’re looking at an election to the highest office in the land as some kind of an insurance policy or an out for him, really affects and, I think, colors the entire presidential race.

Watch above via CNN.