Mick Mulvaney, the former chief of staff under Donald Trump, said on Monday that the former president's chances of facing jail time after being federally indicted "are pretty high."
Trump was officially indicted on federal charges on Thursday stemming from the Mar-a-Lago classified documents investigation, led by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and special counsel Jack Smith. Among the numerous criminal charges approved by a federal grand jury are 31 counts of willfully retaining documents containing national defense information in violation of the Espionage Act, including "information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its Allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack."
The indictment, which was unsealed on Friday, has been called damning for Trump by a wide variety of legal and political experts, including one-time allies and members of his presidential administration. Trump, meanwhile, has maintained his innocence in the case.
Mulvaney, who served as acting White House chief of staff for Trump from January 2019 to March 2020, told the conservative British news network GB News in an interview that the details in the indictment do not bode well for the former president.
"I think the chances of a guilty verdict are fairly high, and the chances of real jail time are pretty high," he said on Monday.
Newsweek reached out to Trump's press team via email for comment.
The host then pressed Mulvaney about what amount of jail time Trump might receive for the charges, to which he said that at his age, 76, it is unlikely to matter. The former chief of staff further estimated that the maximum amount of time possible for all of the charges could be around 500 years.
Former Trump chief of staff Mick Mulvaney on Trump's federal indictment: "I think the chances of a guilty verdict are fairly high, and the chances of real jail time are pretty high." pic.twitter.com/BCCYFHnfkN
— Republican Accountability (@AccountableGOP) June 12, 2023
Similar numbers have been tallied by various sources, though some have disputed that method of calculating Trump's possible jail time, arguing that the charges would likely be grouped together under one sentence. In a tweet from Thursday, the official account for the legal analysis podcast, Mueller, She Wrote, suggested that the former president's maximum sentence could be 35 years if all of his Espionage Act and conspiracy charges were grouped together.
On Sunday, Bill Barr, who served as U.S. attorney general under Trump during the latter half of his presidency, offered a similarly dire outlook for the former president.
"If even half of it is true, then he's toast," Barr said during an appearance on Fox News Sunday. "I mean, it's a very detailed indictment, and it's very, very damning. This idea of presenting Trump as a victim here—a victim of a witch hunt—is ridiculous."
Trump will be arraigned on Tuesday in a federal courthouse in Miami.
About the writer
Thomas Kika is a Newsweek weekend reporter based in upstate New York. His focus is reporting on crime and national ... Read more