Donald Trump's niece Mary Trump dismissed the idea that the former president would sacrifice himself to save his children from legal trouble.
During an appearance on CNN's Cuomo Prime Time on Monday, she said her uncle would actually expect his children to take the hit for him.
"What's good for him has always been his only calculus," Mary Trump told Chris Cuomo. "Really, that's the only calculation he makes ever."
Cuomo then asked: "What would it mean to Donald Trump if they came after his kids... Would that change his disposition, do you think? Would he take one for his kids?"
"The only way [Trump] can continue to perpetuate the myths ... is to continue to lie. There is no truth here and there is no endgame," says former Pres. Trump's niece, Mary Trump. "...It's about maintaining power and using that in the event that he gets indicted." pic.twitter.com/f0Y0qNXCFE
— Cuomo Prime Time (@CuomoPrimeTime) June 8, 2021
"No, he wouldn't," she said. "I think if that were to happen, if prosecutors were to go after his children, he would fully expect them to take a hit for him, to benefit him."
She continued: "What he probably doesn't understand is that's not really how it works. You know, they always try to get people to flip so they can go after the bigger target. But Donald would never imagine in a million years that his children would do that, although I'm fairly sure they would. So if that indeed happens, it's going to be fascinating, because he would never do anything to protect them if it were at his expense."
"How do you know?" Cuomo asked.
"I've known him my whole life," Mary Trump replied. "And unfortunately, I've had to analyze him pretty closely over the last four or five years.
"This is somebody who's never changed. He doesn't evolve, and as you said earlier, he has one thing he cares about and that's himself. That will never, ever change, no matter who gets in his way, no matter who gets hurt, even if it's his kids."
In May, the New York attorney general's office announced that its investigation into Trump's business empire would no longer be solely civil in nature, meaning Attorney General Letitia James' investigators would be working with the criminal probe led by the Manhattan district attorney's office.
The latter has been probing allegations of tax and insurance fraud and falsification of business records at the Trump Organization since 2019.
Both of Trump's adult sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, are executives in the Trump Organization.
Mary Trump, the daughter of Donald Trump's late brother Fred Trump Jr., is an outspoken critic of the former president and her family. She offered a scathing portrayal of her uncle in a book, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created The World's Most Dangerous Man, that was published in 2020.
She followed it up by suing Trump and two of his siblings, alleging they cheated her and her brother out of millions by devaluing inherited real estate business interests.
"Knowing what you know about the organization through your own attorneys, what do you think the chances are that they're going to find something that [Trump] knew about that is demonstrably criminal?" Cuomo asked Mary Trump.
"Even though my case on its own isn't, in the grand scheme of things, very important except to me, what it does do is help prosecutors hopefully establish intent, and state of mind," she replied.
"Because we know that the behavior that's being looked into, tax fraud, tax evasion, etc., has been going on for decades. So we're looking at setting precedent, and we're looking at state of mind and intent and that's incredibly important when we're talking about criminal cases."
A representative for Trump and The Trump Organization have been contacted for comment.
