Trump Would Love an Indictment | Opinion

The following is a lightly edited transcript of remarks made by Jeff Charles during a Newsweek debate about the possibility of Donald Trump facing indictment. You can listen to the podcast here:

Trump knows how to play the public relations game. He's been doing it since forever. I don't know how he reacted when he first got the news that an indictment could be coming, but I could see the marketer in him having a very big ear to ear grin because he knows that he can spin this and use this in a way that makes him appeal more to the base. We have seen that the government has come after him before, and in the large part it's been unfair and it has seemed like there were elements within the Justice Department that were out to get him, and they gave him that ammo and he is going to use it to the fullest extent of his persuasive ability, which is considerable. Whether you love him or hate him, you have to admit that Trump knows how to persuade. He knows how to work the media, he knows how to work the public. He is going to use this to his advantage. And I think that the nature of this case against him, when I first heard that he was going to be indicted over the Stormy Daniels case, I couldn't fathom what they were thinking. I think Chris Rock had it, right. Alvin Bragg might be wearing a MAGA hat behind the scenes because if they indict him, it's only going to work in his favor.

I'll even go further. There's absolutely no way this would be coming up. You were not running for 2024, which everybody knows. Even the people who hate him know this, which means that this is very much politically motivated, which again, works in Trump's favor. Again, love him or hate him. You have to admit that this whole thing is motivated by a desire to keep him out of office after 2024. That that's all this is. It's a very flimsy case. I would've thought that they would've had something better to go after him with. But if they indict him, this isn't going to go where they wanted to go. He is not going to go to prison. He's not going to go to jail. We've had Hillary Clinton who committed a similar alleged offense. She got slapped with a fine at most, that's what he's going to get. But the DA's office is trying to upgrade this to a felony using some weird legal wrangling. Even left-wing media outlets are questioning this. So, I really don't understand the strategy here, but one thing is for sure, this is 100% motivated by politics. This is bigger than Trump. I come from more of a liberty perspective. So, anybody who values liberty should be outraged by this, regardless of who the target is.

Jeff Charles is the host of "A Fresh Perspective" podcast and a contributor for RedState and Liberty Nation.

The views in this article are the writer's own.