Mary Trump, the niece and outspoken critic of former President Donald Trump, said Thursday on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” that her cousins Ivanka, Eric, and Donald Trump Jr. would not be loyal to their father if they are facing indictment.
Maddow said, “His children may be in the line of fire here. I mean, one of the — I think, the important threads to pull from that Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting at The New York Times, based on Trump-financial records, is that, among others, it appears that Ivanka Trump benefitted from the type of scheme that’s described within the end of the indictment today — that Trump executives were compensated in ways that were deliberately designed to help them evade taxes and to help the business evade taxes, on their behalf. Allen Weisselberg is being charged for benefitting from that scheme. The indictment says other executives also benefitted from that scheme. And now, we have got solid reporting that the investigation continues. That raises the prospect that further charges could be brought against his children.”
Trump said, “Yeah, it does. And again, I think they should be quite anxious right now. Donald, on the other hand, will expect the same kind and level of loyalty from them as he expects from Allen.”
She continued, “You know, as far as Donald’s concerned, they have what they have because of him. And they should be willing to take whatever hit they are going to take. He doesn’t understand, I guess, how these things work. Prosecutors won’t stop at my cousins. They will be going for the bigger fish, which would be Donald, who’s been running this organization for over-30 years now.”
She added, “So I think he would be surprised to learn that I don’t believe my cousins would exert that kind of —exercise that kind of loyalty towards him because his relationship with them and their relationship with him is entirely transactional. So — and conditional, I should say, they’re not going to risk anything for him, just as he wouldn’t risk anything for them. So, it could get really, really interesting as these things unfold. because there are so many-more documents that New York prosecutors have at their disposal.”
Maddow asked, “So, you have more confidence that Allen Weisselberg wouldn’t cooperate than you do that the former president’s children wouldn’t cooperate?”
Trump said, “Yeah, I think, as far as I understand it, and, you know, I’m not a lawyer, but it seems that as serious as these charges are, they may not end up with jail time or any significant amount of jail time and the downside of cooperating with prosecutors, for Allen Weisselberg, might be larger than the downside of going to jail if it’s for a short enough period of time. So again, it’s going to be very interesting to see just the case that can be made and the sentencing, if it comes to that because I think that will factor in, for sure, but I’m much less sanguine about my cousins’ loyalty to their father.”
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