With opening statements due to begin on Monday, I suppose every news organization wants to publish a piece on what happens if Donald Trump is convicted on felony counts in the Stormy Daniels hush money case, and Julia Mueller provides that for The Hill. Most of the piece revolves around how a conviction will be perceived and how it affect Trump’s chances of winning the election, but in the twenty-fourth paragraph Mueller does finally get to the idea that Trump might actually go to prison.
Prison time is a sentencing possibility if the jury decides to convict, though experts suggest it would be an unlikely sentence for the judge to go for in this case. If it happens, it still wouldn’t bar Trump from running in 2024, but it would further hamper his efforts to get back to the White House.
“It is certainly true that being convicted or even being in prison doesn’t prevent you from running for president or even from being elected,” said Ilya Somin, professor of law at George Mason University and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. “Assuming the office, though, would be a difficult situation if the president were in prison.”
As I’ve written before, a prison sentence is only unlikely under these charges because Trump has no prior convictions. It’s really up to the judge, and one thing he’ll want to see in an acknowledgement of guilt and some genuine remorse. That’s setting aside that countless ways Trump and his lawyers have irritated this judge. Consider the amount of time Judge Merchon has to spend worrying about security for himself, his family, his coworkers at the courthouse, and for the jurors and spectators. Consider also the possibility, even likelihood, that he’ll have to slap sanctions on Trump for violating court orders, perhaps numerous times.
I don’t think it’s far-fetched to think that Trump will get some prison time if he’s convicted, and I know that will make his supporters go berserk, but I think it’s at least even money. The possibility shouldn’t be buried and largely dismissed in the twenty-fourth paragraph.
I don’t even want to contemplate him winning while he’s in prison, but I guess it could happen. So, what then?
I don’t know what happens if Trump is elected while imprisoned. (The most likely scenarios seem to be either the governor could pardon him/commute his sentence, or he could begin his presidential term by working from NY state prison.)
I do know there’s precedent for a candidate running for president from prison because Eugene Debs did it in 1920 on the Socialist Party ticket. He got 3.4% of the popular vote, a significant decrease from his previous candidacy (1912, 6.0%).
Trump could, to use the famous example, be filmed killing random people on 5th Avenue, tried and convicted, and still get over 30% of the popular vote. But the cumulative impact of the arrest, trial, and conviction would chip away at his public support so that he’d lose (again) the presidential election.
We’ll see what happens in the coming weeks, but I think the most likely scenario is that the trial wears away at his base of support, as would a conviction (let alone a prison sentence).