Adam Schiff Says Donald Trump Will Run in 2024 to 'Keep Ahead of the Jailer'

Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA) has suggested that Donald Trump will run again in 2024 in order to "keep ahead of the jailer," with the former president facing a number of lawsuits and criminal investigations.

Speaking to The New York Times podcast Sway, the chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence said he "absolutely" believes that Trump will announce his intentions to run again, but ultimately will not become president once more.

"It would be intolerable to him to see anyone else get the attention. I mean the idea of Donald Trump sitting at home watching Mike Pence become the nominee, or Nikki Haley, or Chris Christie, or any of these people," Schiff said. "He would go out of his mind. And so I think he feels a compulsion, it's a pathology."

Schiff, who led the prosecution for Trump's first impeachment trial in 2017 and is part of the House Committee panel investigating the January 6 attack, also suggested that the former president will want to get back in the White House as he thinks it's a "great way to make money" and "may keep him one step ahead of the jailer."

"As long as he is a president, or a presidential candidate. Maybe he can keep ahead of the jailer," he added.

Trump faces a number of criminal investigations, but has not been formally charged in any of them.

In Georgia, the Fulton County District Attorney's office is investigating Trump's phone call to secretary of state Brad Raffensperger in which he asked him to help him "find 11,780 votes" in an apparent attempt to overturn the election results in 2020.

In May, New York Attorney General Letitia James confirmed that a long-running investigation into allegations that the Trump Organization altered property values to avoid tax liabilities is "no longer purely civil in nature."

The probe is running alongside an investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr into alleged criminal conduct at the organization. The investigation is also looking into Trump's longtime chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg.

Vance's office is investigating if the Trump Organization inflated the value of some New York properties to obtain better loans from banks, as well as claims some failed to pay taxes on a number of company benefits.

Elsewhere during the interview, Schiff told Sway that he doesn't think Trump will ultimately win in 2024 as the country does not "want to go back to that nightmare."

He added: "With every passing day, when we gain more and more perspective on what we've been through, I think people will recoil more and more every day at the idea of ever going back to that.

"They're not going to want to go back to the days of a president calling everything a hoax and attacking the media as the enemy of the people."

Trump's office has been contacted for comment.

trump adam schiff
Adam Schiff told a New York Times podcast that Donald Trump will run again in 2024 in order to "keep ahead of the jailer." Scott Olson/Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

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Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, domestic policy ... Read more

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