Could Trump Criminal Indictment End in Exchange for Deal to Drop Out of Presidential Race?

After it was revealed that Donald Trump has been charged in the classified documents case, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow raised an interesting point — could the indictment be dropped in exchange for the businessman, 76, dropping out of the 2024 presidential race?

“You have to wonder if the Justice Department is considering whether there is some political solution to this criminal problem,” the commentator said on the Thursday, June 8, episode of The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC, while citing the 1973 resignation of former Vice President Spiro Agnew, who made headlines after the U.S. Justice Department uncovered widespread evidence of his political corruption.

"Whether part of the issue here is not just that Trump has committed crimes, but that Trump has committed crimes and plans on being back in the White House. Do they consider as part of a potential plea offer, something that would proscribe him … proscribe him from running for office again? I don’t know," she continued.

Host Lawrence O'Donnell said if Trump were to drop out, it "would have to come from the defense side of the negotiation. That the Trump team would say, ‘Oh, by the way, and with this, we will also, you know, drop out of the race for president.'”

“Otherwise, it would put the Justice Department in this position that Donald Trump claims they’re in,” he added. "So my guess, given those dynamics and the change in the way the Justice Department sees this in those 50 years since Spiro Agnew, it just seems unlikely that they would reach into the political zone of the solution. Our politics does have to find a solution to this, but it might have to find that solution separate and apart from the criminal process."

Maddow pointed out how Agnew resigned in the hallway and upon walking into the courtroom, his indictment "effectively went away," and he was able to avoid "facing 40 felony counts."

The TV star made it clear that this isn't what she is suggesting Trump should do, "I’m just saying that is the closest allegory that we’ve got in history.”

Never miss a story — sign up for the OK! newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what OK! has to offer. It’s gossip too good to wait for!

As OK! previously reported, Trump took to Truth Social on June 8 to announce he'd been indicted after he allegedly kept classified documents after leaving the White House, violating the Espionage Act.

"The corrupt Biden Administration has informed my attorneys that I have been Indicted, seemingly over the Boxes Hoax, even though Joe Biden has 1850 Boxes at the University of Delaware, additional Boxes in Chinatown, D.C., with even more Boxes at the University of Pennsylvania, and documents strewn all over his garage floor where he parks his Corvette, and which is 'secured' by only a garage door that is paper thin, and open much of the time," he wrote.