Four reasons Donald Trump might want to campaign from jail

It appears former President Donald Trump will be indicted again this week, adding to his already impressive list of post-presidency criminal charges.

Prosecutors are expected to go before a grand jury in Georgia starting Monday seeking indictments in an election interference case involving Trump and others in his orbit.

Clearly laser-focused on the legal peril he faces, Trump spent the weekend coming up with a nickname for the woman seeking the charges, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. He arrived at “Phoney Fani.” Everybody clap.

Defrauding the US?Trump’s third indictment might be his best yet

Trump seems to already be defying a federal judge’s order

The man who at one point was somehow the leader of the free world also shared something another user on his Truth Social social media site posted about U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, the judge overseeing the case in which Trump is charged with trying to overturn the 2020 election. The post, which included a picture of the judge, referred to her as a “leftwing activist judge” who “openly admitted she’s running election interference against Trump.”

That’s all nonsense, of course, but it seems to defy Chutkan’s specific warning to Trump during a hearing on Friday: “Even arguably ambiguous statements by the parties or their counsel – if they can be reasonably interpreted to intimidate witnesses or to prejudice potential jurors – can threaten the process. I caution you and your client to take special care in your public statements about this case. I will take whatever measures are necessary to safeguard the integrity of these proceedings.”

Trump attacks judge in Jan. 6 case:Trump’s weekend of unhinged rants, attacks on judge should earn him a gag order

Trump may well see advantages to getting locked up

That could be exactly what Trump wants. He’s a former president with a Secret Service detail, so it’s not like they’re going to toss him in a seedy county lockup. He’d have to be detained in a special facility, far away from the commoners.

Why would GOP primary candidate Trump want to become “jailed GOP primary candidate Trump”? Here are four reasons.

It would allow him to reach peak-victim status

Since he first descended an escalator to declare his candidacy and make America irrevocably worse, Trump’s entire schtick has been playing the victim. Everyone is out to get him, and if they’re out to get him, he suggests to his followers, then they’re out to get YOU.

He gets investigated while in office and it’s a “witch hunt.” He loses the 2020 election and cries that he’s a victim of a “rigged election.” He gets indicted and he’s the victim of a political prosecution.

So what better way to reach the mountain of victimhood than to be “jailed.” Trump can whine ad infinitum about being “locked up by radical leftists” and bemoan the unjust horrors of life behind bars. He’d probably be comparing himself to Martin Luther King Jr. after the second day and posting an all-scraps screed mimicking “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

Another Trump indictment?As Trump election probe continues, if Georgia’s fake electors get busted, so could Arizona’s

It would be way easier than actually campaigning

I have bad news for Trump supporters – your hero isn’t one of you, not even a little bit. The former president is a wealthy New Yorker who lives at a country club he owns. Putzing around and pressing the flesh with regular folks at the Iowa State Fair or sweating through a campaign speech in Alabama is not something the man enjoys, regardless of what he says.

By spending the GOP primary and even the 2024 presidential campaign in a specially designed cell, all Trump would have to do is sit around and write out angry, aggrieved missives for his staff to release. No more spending time with people he would never allow into one of his clubs.

Melania might visit him, out of sympathy

One person rarely seen around Trump these days is his wife, Melania. She never seemed particularly fond of him while he was in office, but now, on the campaign trail and in the courtroom, Trump seems to be flying solo.

I can’t imagine why she wouldn’t want to spend time with someone who whines constantly, but it is what it is. If Trump is locked up, maybe his wife will feel sorry for him and visit. Or, at the very least, her team might see a jailhouse visit as an opportune way to cast the former first lady in a more compassionate light.