A lawyer for former President Donald Trump says no one should be worried about Mr. Trump spending time in jail.
“He’s protected by Secret Service, period. So, I always tell people when they’re panicked, ‘Listen, he’s protected by Secret Service, No. 1. No. 2, he did nothing wrong,’” Alina Habba, who is one of Mr. Trump’s lead defense attorneys on his civil cases, said Tuesday on Newsmax.
“So, when people go to jail, it’s because they’ve done something wrong. Do we have crooked situations in and out of court? Absolutely. Could they try? Probably, but it won’t work because there is still [a] trial process, there [are] still facts, and unfortunately, they’re not going to win on the facts.”
Her comments come after the former president was fined $10,000 last week for violating a gag order in his New York civil fraud case over a comment he made in a courthouse hallway about the judge and a clerk. Just days before, he was fined $5,000 for having a social media post that violated the gag order still up on his campaign website.
Former White House lawyer Ty Cobb said that some time in jail for Mr. Trump might be the only way to get him to follow the gag order imposed on him by U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan for his election subversion case in Washington, after the order was reinstated Sunday.
“Well, the New York judge fined him $10,000,” said Mr. Cobb, who worked under the Trump administration, in a CNN interview Monday. “That’s a civil case. That’s not as consequential as Judge Chutkan’s case.”
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“I think she’ll come in with a much heavier penalty, and ultimately, I think he’ll spend a night or a weekend in jail,” he said. “I think it’ll take that to stop him.”
Ms. Habba said that Mr. Trump going to jail is “not even something we think about.”
“This is all political,” she said. “There’s no criminal acts that he’s done. There’s no civil wrongs that he’s done, unless making money for banks is a civil wrong all of a sudden….It’s Trump derangement syndrome at its best. I’m not worried about him, he’s not worried, and the American public shouldn’t be worried.”
Besides his civil fraud case in New York, Mr. Trump also faces four criminal cases for allegedly mishandling classified documents in Florida, trying to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia and Washington, and giving hush money payments to cover up an affair in New York. He has pleaded not guilty to all criminal charges.
• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.
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