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Seriously, what the hell do you even sentence a man to for this?
Honestly, I would be shocked if he does any jail time
I'd be fine with 30 days per FELONY. That's nothing compared to what you or I would get, but I doubt he'd be alive after serving that time. The only reason he's running for president is to keep his fat incontinent orange ass out of jail and to steal more top secret shit to pay off the half a billion he owes in foreign loans.
I have heard judges can have a defendant serve their sentences concurrently. So if Trump did serve prison time for this it would probably only be four years for thirty-four concurrent sentences of business fraud. It's likely Trump will serve prison time for these convictions.
For Trump to appeal this he still needs grounds to appeal. He can't just say he doesn't like the jury's ruling. He needs to argue an actual case to the appeals court that the trial was unfair in some way. For example, that his right to a fair trial was violated because something the prosecution or judge did. I don't see any higher court siding with Trump that his right to a fair trial was violated. I could have missed it, but considering how much coverage the trial got, there didn't seem to be anything obviously wrong with the trial. I honestly doubt the judge would delay the start of Trump's hypothetical prison sentence for the appeals process for that same reason.
He can't claim presidential immunity for this, because it was something he did before becoming president and thus falsifying business records cannot fall under the scope of Official Acts. I think the Supreme Court wouldn't be interested in taking the case as there isn't going to be a constitutional question for them to rule on.
Even if Trump became president, he wouldn't be able pardon these convictions because they are from the state of New York. The president can only pardon federal offenses.
I don't see Trump getting out on parole. He's going to be posting the whole time about how he did nothing wrong.
The judge could choose to fine him instead of giving him prison time or put him under house arrest. Given Trump's conduct during the trial I don't see why the judge would feel the need to give him a more lenient sentence than a four year prison sentence in prison and a $170000 dollar fine.
With an internet connection he could serve his presidential term from a New York prison, pardon himself for federal offenses or simply direct the AG to stop the federal investigations, and have his cronies steal all the secrets he could want for him. He could sign legislation and executive orders while in prison as long as someone delivered the documents to him. The only reason to get out of this is that it might hurt his election chances. At this point the convictions probably only make the race closer. He could probably even do the debates remotely, but he could just as easily use the prison sentence as excuse to not show up.
I feel like people are trying to not get their hopes up. It's likely he will serve prison time for this. It just probably won't be the deciding factor in this election or inhibit his ability to hypothetically serve as president. edit: typo
I appreciate your optimism and hope you are proven to be correct.
I hope he sees prison time for this. I haven't been able to think of a way for him to get out of this that doesn't involve a mask off fascist, subverting the rule of law, moment involving numerous people in positions of power, including Trump. Such as, having the military extradite him from prison if he hypothetically took office, or the SC choosing to rule on a case with no constitutional question, or the judge just fine him after his conduct in the trial. Also, that last one doesn't seem plausible to me because the judge knows who Trump is and the judge is unlikely to believe 34 counts are a small lapse in judgement. If someone does figure out a way he could get out of this legally, given what happened with the trial and the convictions, I would probably inclined to believe them if they could show their math, so to speak. I think Trump will of course take any legal means necessary to get out of this, but the fascists aren't going to want to make it even more obvious that the MAGA movement is a fascist movement. Especially not when it only amounts to an inconvenience for Trump if he is hypothetically elected.
Personally I find thinking about these kind of edge cases to be fun. It's unfortunate that this edge case has to do with a possible fascist takeover of our democracy.
I found this article that explains why he would be fined but not given prison time. I think the legal experts didn't account for the fact that these 34 counts were upgraded to felonies because of their ties to an election conspiracy. These are not typical financial crimes or even typical upgraded financial crimes, so I don't know why the judge would treat them that way. Cohen was sentenced to three years, I think in part, because his offenses had to do with the 2016 presidential election, and these hush money payments, as well. I would be interested to see a case in New York state where someone was convicted of financial crimes that were connected to a conspiracy to influence an election and they did not receive prison time. If such a case has happened before this one.
Also, there need not be a White House arrest because Trump is not president currently. There is no rule that I'm aware of that a person gets to wait for their appeal because they are running for president. Especially since Trump can run his campaign entirely behind bars with internet access.
They could give him four years on each count.
Up to 20 years according to cnn.
A harsh sentence could be justified because the fraud was done to help steal an election.
Melania would love that
Which would be served simultaneously so somewhere before zero and four years.
Seriously! But I wouldn't be surprised if he won an award from the RNC over this.
Presented by Kyle Rittenhouse.
Some fines.