Mary Trump Predicts Donald Trump Will 'Never' Be Held Fully Accountable

Donald Trump may "never" be fully held accountable for all of his alleged crimes, at least according to his niece, author and political commentator Mary Trump.

Trump is currently facing the first-ever indictment of a former president in United States history after a grand jury on Thursday voted in favor of charges stemming from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's long-term investigation into his alleged 2016 "hush money" scheme. He is accused of unlawfully concealing a payment that his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, made to adult film star Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about an affair she allegedly had with Trump in 2006, as she was prepared to go public with the story in the weeks before the 2016 presidential election.

The former president has denied having an affair with Daniels and has maintained his innocence in the case, accusing prosecutors of engaging in a politically-motivated "witch hunt." Prosecutors, however, believe the payment violated campaign finance laws. Despite his pushback, Trump is still expected to surrender himself for arraignment in New York on Tuesday.

The former president is also staring down a handful of other serious investigations. In Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is investigating allegations that he tried to tamper with the state's election process in 2020 to overturn Joe Biden's win there. At the federal level, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and special counsel Jack Smith are investigating Trump's alleged mishandling of classified documents that were found by the FBI at his Mar-a-Lago residence last August and his alleged involvement in plans to overturn the 2020 presidential election by inciting the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Trump has maintained his innocence in those cases as well.

Appearing on MSNBC on Sunday, Mary Trump, the only outspoken critic of the former president from his own family, discussed the indictment against her uncle and was asked by host Katie Phang if he was about to face "true accountability."

"I certainly hope so, Katie, I think this is a long time coming," she said. "And there are a lot of people who have been waiting on the edge of our seats for years now to see the dam finally begin to break. And I think New York is a really good place for this to start."

She continued: "Now, I think it's fair to say Donald will never truly be held accountable for many of his crimes, including his egregious and malicious mishandling of COVID for example, but I don't think that we should diminish the potential seriousness of what is happening in New York right now. Obviously, we don't know what the charges are, but we will know soon enough...These series of alleged crimes that Donald may finally face are foundational to every other charge that he might be looking at out of Georgia and out of D.C."

When reached for comment on the ways in which the office might follow examples set in Manhattan by Newsweek, a spokesman for the Fulton County district attorney's office declined to comment.

On Friday, Mary Trump explained what the former president's mindset could be like after the indictment during a discussion on The Dean Obeidallah Show. She said her uncle's "defiance" on social media is likely a way of masking his true feelings about the indictment.

"The defiance is just a way to deflect from the way he is really feeling, which is terror," she said.

Trump has lashed out at legal authorities following news of the indictment. In one Truth Social post, he attacked New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, who will preside over the case, writing that the judge "hates" him. Merchan presided over last year's tax fraud trial of The Trump Organization and Allen Weisselberg, its former chief financial officer.

Newsweek reached out to the DOJ press office via email for comment.

Updated, 04/03/2023, 10:05 a.m. ET: This article has been updated to reflect a response from the Fulton County district attorney's office.