Maggie Haberman Says Trump Sees ‘Advantage’ In Keeping Mar-a-Lago Raid Affidavit Sealed – To Be Seen as ‘Victimized’

New York Times correspondent and CNN analyst Maggie Haberman said that former President Donald Trump sees an “advantage” in keeping the Mar-a-Lago raid affidavit under seal, suggesting that unsealing it might not be “unalloyed good news” for Trump.

On Thursday night’s edition of CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, anchor Anderson Cooper hosted Haberman to discuss documents that were seized during a search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort home, which we’ve learned is part of an investigation of Trump for crimes involving the Espionage Act.

Haberman ticked through her list of possible reasons Trump might have kept the documents, but added “I don’t want to sound as if we’re minimizing the potential harm or potential law-breaking or anything else in saying that he simply treated this all as if it was about himself, and then where it went from that, we don’t know.”

Then, Cooper asked about the Justice Department’s court fight to keep the affidavit for the search under seal. Haberman said that while Trump allies argue to unseal it, Trump would rather keep it sealed and play the victim rather than risk more damaging revelations coming out:

COOPER: Politically, what is the former President to gain or lose if the affidavit is released?

HABERMAN: So it depends, Anderson, because we don’t know what’s in it and obviously, several media outlets, including my own have argued that it should be released, the Justice Department is arguing against it. Trump’s folks, I think gain more by arguing, see, the Justice Department won’t unseal it because if they thought there was advantage to this, to him in a real way, I think he would be getting into this fight himself.

You’ll notice his lawyers have not filed anything in this case. His lawyer was there observing the proceedings today, but it is allies of Trump who are going about arguing the same case as the media.

I think he sees more advantage in being seen as somebody being victimized because as we saw with the warrant when the warrant was unsealed, it was not unalloyed good news for Trump as a lot of people around him had been intimating; if not good news, at least neutral news that the, you know, the statutes there are problematic for him and so I suspect that the warrant or the affidavit would have similar issues.

Watch above via CNN.