I happened to be in my mother’s house when she called me to look at it live and there was zero mention on CNN of whether or not he would serve time over it. Sentencing in July.
This needs to be brought up every damned time this subject comes up. Cohen served time for the exact same crime - so what argument is there that Trump shouldn’t?
The American justice system has been successfully boiled down to a pay to play system and it’s unfair to not let other rich people go for more serious crimes, but not Trump .
I mean I don’t think they would be honest enough to run with that, but it’s the only argument I can think of that would be based on an unfortunate truth.
Everyone consciously or subconsciously knows the justice system works differently for different classes. The only reason anyone who leans right actually believes it could be a “witch hunt” is because no one has an iota of faith in the justice system. Sending a “billionaire” to jail is so rare that the possibility of it happening seems suspicious.
Everyone is reporting he won’t see jail time, which in my view is giving the court a pass on giving him a light sentence.
In my opinion, Trump gained so much, and could gain so much from a repeat offense, that jail is the only compelling punishment for him. He is unrepentant, and would do it again in a heartbeat.
You are correct, but nevertheless, a court so cowardly they cannot hold him accountable for blatant violations of court orders will not jail him either.
He could never go to a traditional jail, not with the amount of classified information he was exposed to.
He would need a separate area of Leavenworth with no interaction with other humans except the guard and secret service detail unfortunately assigned to him.
100%, how is this not more significant when people guess whether or not Trump will serve time?
Cohen got jail time for this, and he turned himself in, and cooperated.
Trump did nothing redeeming, and he was the guy giving the orders, how is it even conceivable that Trump should be punished less?
He did not. Cohen pleaded guilty to 5 counts of tax evasion (class B felony), one count of making false statements to a federally insured bank (class C felony), one count of causing an unlawful corporate contribution (class D felony) , one count of making an excessive campaign contribution (class D felony).
His felonies are nonviolent, so no, they’re not equivalent. While I’d love see him in prison, it’s far more likely that he’d serve time for conviction in his other trials than this one. I hope I’m wrong.
If one is being objective and not paying attention to his former job or publicity, he’s a first time offender convicted of non-violent offenses with a business footprint that makes him low risk for probation violation.
He would also place a burden on the penal system if incarcerated, and his current state of having round the clock law enforcement presence further lowers the likelihood that he goes to prison.
On the flip side, he has done a lot to actively antagonize the person who will be mostly in charge of his fate, and he’s got a good month to build a body of evidence that says he’ll immediately disrespect probation.
So almost certainly not, but it’s not as close to zero as you would expect for a former president.
Cohen got prison time for the same exact crime, also a first offense. To my mind, being a former president should make them hold to to a higher standard, not a lesser one.
Cohen was convicted of tax evasion, bank fraud, and campaign finance crimes. Trump was not charged with any of these. So not the same crimes.
I don’t recall hearing a lot of evidence that Trump conspired with Cohen to evade Cohen’s income taxes, or to lie to Cohen’s bank.
I don’t think Trump is capable of making illegal campaign contributions to his own campaign. There are no limits on self funding an election campaign in this country.
I believe they meant “crime” as in “the criminal act of paying hush money and hiding it to illegally influence an election”, not the specific criminal charges.
Negative. Trump was convicted of general business record crimes. Now these business record crimes are predicted in some other underlying crimes (including the campaign finance ones) that were not charged in the New York court. Trump was not charged with those underlying crimes, and he was not proven to be guilty of them. He was shown to be guilty in the business records case that sits on top.
Finally, I want to restate that Trump cannot ever be guilty of the same campaign violation that Cohen was convicted of, for a simple reason: like any American he is allowed to make unlimited contributions to his own campaign.
That’s still untrue, the jury convicted on the charges that he falsified business records in order to further campaign fraud. The business record crimes were only part of the piece; the jury could have found him guilty on those charges alone but also convicted him on the rest. You keep denying it in this thread but the court records and jury verdicts on the specific charges as well as the jury instructions are all public.
And the crime isn’t Trump funding himself, I’m not sure why you keep strawmanning that. The crime was that he took campaign money and used it for hush money payments and then falsified the records to make it seem like other legal work. We have those records, Trump’s signatures on the checks, witnesses describing the conversations and plans to hide the story, and even the payment system to launder the money through Cohen and even give him extra to cover the taxes so it wouldn’t raise suspicion.
Edit: plenty of people in New York are in jail for the same crime, why should Trump be treated any different than the average citizen?
the jury convicted on the charges that he falsified business records in order to further campaign fraud.
This is true*. What I was trying to convey was that this statement does not claim that Trump himself perpetrated a campaign finance violation, only that he falsified the business records, etc, etc, so that a campaign violation occurred.
The jury did not have to find that Trump directly participated** in any of the underlying crimes to convict. The conviction is for the false business records. Trump was not on trial for the predicate crimes.
The “strawman” example, as you put it, was too show how absurd it would be to try to claim that Trump himself participated directly in this underlying election crime.
The prosecutors presented three underlying predicate crimes: a New York law election crime, Cohen’s tax fraud to the IRS, and the Cohen illegal campaign contribution. Under New York law for this business records statue, the jury is not required to say which of the three they believed in. They’re not even required to agree amongst themselves. So it’s possible that they all went for the tax crime and discounted the campaign crime. We may never find out.
**For instance, if they thought that Trump was helping to cover up one of the underlying crimes, that’s enough to convict.
I would entirely agree. But, the world is what it is, and it might be untenable for the justice system or the judge might decide it creates too many opportunities for everything to go wrong on appeal.
Time will tell though, and July is just around the corner.
That’s fair. Being openly remorseless does tend to encourage the judge to give the full extent of what they’re allowed to do.
I’m just cynical about anyone wanting to be the first person to sentence a former president to prison, and maybe finding any possible reasonable way to skirt over that for whatever reason or just “the good of the country”, justice or not.
Or not, and they’ll just seize the opportunity to show that justice is blind.
We’ll find out in July. 😊
Prisons, on paper, have a responsibility to ensure a degree of prisoner safety. The level of effort required to give a former president that safety is beyond what even a white collar criminal oriented prison is going to be able to easily provide without disruption. For example, who would be preparing his food? How many guards would have access to him while he slept?
It’s possible to do, but it’s the sort of thing that could factor into the decision.
Slim chance. It’s his first offence (first conviction anyway) and a non violent crime. Can’t see the judge jailing him, especially given the logistics involved with the Secret Service having to protect him.
Cohen served time for this exact same crime in the exact same state. I think he was sentenced to 3 years and did 1.5 due to covid early release. That was also his first felony.
this actually affects the entire world. We all have our knockoff trumps, and this needs to show them and our countries that there will be consequences for them.
At least, there’s the likelyhood of it. Bolsonaro didn’t get prison time, but at least he got barred from politics and his passport revoked. Hopefully similar things happen to Fidesz & Orban, Milei and various others.
Women in Texas have literally seen their rights to their own body stripped away by state level politicians supported by the 5th circuit and further bolstered by SCOTUS.
I dunno. Epstein was pretty high profile (and it might not have worked out great for him, either), but a former president is really high profile. I have no idea how they would handle it, but if we’re lucky enough to see it, it’ll be quite interesting for sure
IIRC, probably the Secret Service will enter a memorandum of understanding with the New York Department of Corrections, and negotiate who and what goes where. Probably means Trump will get a wing of Rikers to himself.
Don’t worry, I have full confidence in the Secret Service’s ability to keep Trump perfectly safe while he’s making license plates!
He leaked the country’s biggest secrets when he gave classified documents to foreign adversaries. Stop trying to pretend that’s what you’re actually worried about. You’re always defending Trump. You’re just worried about his well being, not our country.
My understanding is that we will see an appeal before sentencing on July 11th. If that is not successful, then he will get anything from a slap on the wrist to jail time. Sentencing is likely going to hinge on if he remains the lead Republican candidate. Jail time is going to have a lot of custom rules and exeptions that we are unprepared for; primarily secret secret protection.
Npr reporter said that each count has a maximum of 1 - 4 years in jail but usually served concurrently and the judge apparently already made a comment about jail time is not a guarantee or something. I am betting another useless fine and maybe some probation.
Don’t underestimate the effect of “maybe some probation”. Having to check in with some probation officer on a regular basis (and probably pee in a cup each time, I’m not sure whether NY mandates that) will be super humiliating for him. Plus, I bet that the period on probation will be much longer than any prison sentence, and will extend through the election.
Plus, in the event he still wins, I doubt NYC really cares. They will keep making him pee in that cup until his probation is over.
I’d bet against your claim. He’s remorseless and antagonizing the judge with so many comments and contempt charges. I’m expecting a Martha Stewart sentence of 5 months (sort of low end of range of jail sentences, so the judge can show he’s being fair), maybe suspended until appeals.
He could simply get parole, but if he does get any Jail time it will be delayed until his defence team have exhausted their appeals. Definitely won’t see jail before the election sadly.
I happened to be in my mother’s house when she called me to look at it live and there was zero mention on CNN of whether or not he would serve time over it. Sentencing in July.
Anyone know likelihood of jail time?
Cohen got jail time for this crime.
This needs to be brought up every damned time this subject comes up. Cohen served time for the exact same crime - so what argument is there that Trump shouldn’t?
The American justice system has been successfully boiled down to a pay to play system and it’s unfair to not let other rich people go for more serious crimes, but not Trump .
I mean I don’t think they would be honest enough to run with that, but it’s the only argument I can think of that would be based on an unfortunate truth.
Everyone consciously or subconsciously knows the justice system works differently for different classes. The only reason anyone who leans right actually believes it could be a “witch hunt” is because no one has an iota of faith in the justice system. Sending a “billionaire” to jail is so rare that the possibility of it happening seems suspicious.
I completely agree. I asked what argument there was that he shouldn’t, not that he wouldn’t.
It takes a lot of balls to send a former and possibly future president to prison. Way more balls than sending his lackay.
Paraphrasing, “We choose to send Trump to prison, not because it is easy, but because it is hard.”
Something something Trumps a jelly donut
Cohen didn’t need a secret service detail.
The Guardian are reporting it is unlikely he will see jail time
Edit: it’s not a disagree button, it’s being widely reported he is unlikely to see jail time. that doesn’t mean i think he shouldn’t see jail time
Everyone is reporting he won’t see jail time, which in my view is giving the court a pass on giving him a light sentence.
In my opinion, Trump gained so much, and could gain so much from a repeat offense, that jail is the only compelling punishment for him. He is unrepentant, and would do it again in a heartbeat.
You are correct, but nevertheless, a court so cowardly they cannot hold him accountable for blatant violations of court orders will not jail him either.
He could never go to a traditional jail, not with the amount of classified information he was exposed to.
He would need a separate area of Leavenworth with no interaction with other humans except the guard and secret service detail unfortunately assigned to him.
Then he has hell to look forward to.
Pretty sure the secret service would be the guards, I doubt “regular” confinement officers would be trusted in that situation.
They’d have to either train a special detail, or get applicants from current CO’s to join the secret service.
100%, how is this not more significant when people guess whether or not Trump will serve time? Cohen got jail time for this, and he turned himself in, and cooperated.
Trump did nothing redeeming, and he was the guy giving the orders, how is it even conceivable that Trump should be punished less?
Cohen doesn’t have a cult of dimwits willing to betray every value they claim to have in order to vote for him, tho.
And a stacked supreme court in his favor
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He did not. Cohen pleaded guilty to 5 counts of tax evasion (class B felony), one count of making false statements to a federally insured bank (class C felony), one count of causing an unlawful corporate contribution (class D felony) , one count of making an excessive campaign contribution (class D felony).
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/michael-cohen-pleads-guilty-manhattan-federal-court-eight-counts-including-criminal-tax
Trump was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records (class E felony).
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His felonies are nonviolent, so no, they’re not equivalent. While I’d love see him in prison, it’s far more likely that he’d serve time for conviction in his other trials than this one. I hope I’m wrong.
If one is being objective and not paying attention to his former job or publicity, he’s a first time offender convicted of non-violent offenses with a business footprint that makes him low risk for probation violation.
He would also place a burden on the penal system if incarcerated, and his current state of having round the clock law enforcement presence further lowers the likelihood that he goes to prison.
On the flip side, he has done a lot to actively antagonize the person who will be mostly in charge of his fate, and he’s got a good month to build a body of evidence that says he’ll immediately disrespect probation.
So almost certainly not, but it’s not as close to zero as you would expect for a former president.
Cohen got prison time for the same exact crime, also a first offense. To my mind, being a former president should make them hold to to a higher standard, not a lesser one.
Cohen was convicted of tax evasion, bank fraud, and campaign finance crimes. Trump was not charged with any of these. So not the same crimes.
I don’t recall hearing a lot of evidence that Trump conspired with Cohen to evade Cohen’s income taxes, or to lie to Cohen’s bank.
I don’t think Trump is capable of making illegal campaign contributions to his own campaign. There are no limits on self funding an election campaign in this country.
I believe they meant “crime” as in “the criminal act of paying hush money and hiding it to illegally influence an election”, not the specific criminal charges.
Trump was convicted of campaign finance crimes, from the same incident though.
Negative. Trump was convicted of general business record crimes. Now these business record crimes are predicted in some other underlying crimes (including the campaign finance ones) that were not charged in the New York court. Trump was not charged with those underlying crimes, and he was not proven to be guilty of them. He was shown to be guilty in the business records case that sits on top.
Finally, I want to restate that Trump cannot ever be guilty of the same campaign violation that Cohen was convicted of, for a simple reason: like any American he is allowed to make unlimited contributions to his own campaign.
That’s still untrue, the jury convicted on the charges that he falsified business records in order to further campaign fraud. The business record crimes were only part of the piece; the jury could have found him guilty on those charges alone but also convicted him on the rest. You keep denying it in this thread but the court records and jury verdicts on the specific charges as well as the jury instructions are all public.
And the crime isn’t Trump funding himself, I’m not sure why you keep strawmanning that. The crime was that he took campaign money and used it for hush money payments and then falsified the records to make it seem like other legal work. We have those records, Trump’s signatures on the checks, witnesses describing the conversations and plans to hide the story, and even the payment system to launder the money through Cohen and even give him extra to cover the taxes so it wouldn’t raise suspicion.
Edit: plenty of people in New York are in jail for the same crime, why should Trump be treated any different than the average citizen?
This is true*. What I was trying to convey was that this statement does not claim that Trump himself perpetrated a campaign finance violation, only that he falsified the business records, etc, etc, so that a campaign violation occurred.
The jury did not have to find that Trump directly participated** in any of the underlying crimes to convict. The conviction is for the false business records. Trump was not on trial for the predicate crimes.
The “strawman” example, as you put it, was too show how absurd it would be to try to claim that Trump himself participated directly in this underlying election crime.
**For instance, if they thought that Trump was helping to cover up one of the underlying crimes, that’s enough to convict.
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I would entirely agree. But, the world is what it is, and it might be untenable for the justice system or the judge might decide it creates too many opportunities for everything to go wrong on appeal.
Time will tell though, and July is just around the corner.
What about the risk of recidivism though?
Pretty clear that he will do exactly the same thing again.
That’s fair. Being openly remorseless does tend to encourage the judge to give the full extent of what they’re allowed to do.
I’m just cynical about anyone wanting to be the first person to sentence a former president to prison, and maybe finding any possible reasonable way to skirt over that for whatever reason or just “the good of the country”, justice or not.
Or not, and they’ll just seize the opportunity to show that justice is blind.
We’ll find out in July. 😊
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Prisons, on paper, have a responsibility to ensure a degree of prisoner safety. The level of effort required to give a former president that safety is beyond what even a white collar criminal oriented prison is going to be able to easily provide without disruption. For example, who would be preparing his food? How many guards would have access to him while he slept?
It’s possible to do, but it’s the sort of thing that could factor into the decision.
Slim chance. It’s his first offence (first conviction anyway) and a non violent crime. Can’t see the judge jailing him, especially given the logistics involved with the Secret Service having to protect him.
Cohen served time for this exact same crime in the exact same state. I think he was sentenced to 3 years and did 1.5 due to covid early release. That was also his first felony.
It’s fully possible he gets jail time.
I need this. I didn’t know how much I needed this until now.
No you don’t. It literally does not affect you.
this actually affects the entire world. We all have our knockoff trumps, and this needs to show them and our countries that there will be consequences for them.
At least, there’s the likelyhood of it. Bolsonaro didn’t get prison time, but at least he got barred from politics and his passport revoked. Hopefully similar things happen to Fidesz & Orban, Milei and various others.
Yeah I’m sitting there the far side of the Atlantic and I can say with absolute certainty that this affects me. For the better like.
My mother called me in to watch it live on TV. Pure chance that I was in her house. I never watch live TV. We both said that we were watching history.
Sitting here just north of and it absolutely affects us here as well.
Women in Texas have literally seen their rights to their own body stripped away by state level politicians supported by the 5th circuit and further bolstered by SCOTUS.
It quite literally does, affect me.
Oh, I didn’t know that. Fingers crossed then!
Given Trump’s age though, I just don’t think it’s likely - much as I would love to see him behind bars.
Stop saying Cohen got convicted for the exact same crime! It’s misinformation. They both got a completely different set of counts.
Maybe convicted ex presidents shouldn’t get secret service protection
I get what you’re saying, but I think without that protection it’s pretty likely he’d be killed in prison.
They have protective custody for certain inmates that require protection, for example, Epstein.
I dunno. Epstein was pretty high profile (and it might not have worked out great for him, either), but a former president is really high profile. I have no idea how they would handle it, but if we’re lucky enough to see it, it’ll be quite interesting for sure
I’m not seeing the downside.
True, but he wasn’t sentenced to death. We owe all prisoners the same protections.
It’s not like they’re going to put him with the general population. And USSS agents don’t sign up to be in prison.
IIRC, probably the Secret Service will enter a memorandum of understanding with the New York Department of Corrections, and negotiate who and what goes where. Probably means Trump will get a wing of Rikers to himself.
Don’t worry, I have full confidence in the Secret Service’s ability to keep Trump perfectly safe while he’s making license plates!
or you know, not. doesn’t really matter.
Ah that’s probably true. He’s rich and white enough to end up in a resort prison, I’m sure.
Not in solitary confinement (unless he’s on suicide watch ofc)
So you support leaking the country’s biggest secrets just because he did bad thing?
He leaked the country’s biggest secrets when he gave classified documents to foreign adversaries. Stop trying to pretend that’s what you’re actually worried about. You’re always defending Trump. You’re just worried about his well being, not our country.
I knew this was coming.
I was more referring to one of the general reasons that the Secret Service stays with ALL presidents forever.
Um, this is literally the first time I have ever commented about the man in my entire life.
He already sold them.
My understanding is that we will see an appeal before sentencing on July 11th. If that is not successful, then he will get anything from a slap on the wrist to jail time. Sentencing is likely going to hinge on if he remains the lead Republican candidate. Jail time is going to have a lot of custom rules and exeptions that we are unprepared for; primarily secret secret protection.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/trump-jury-deliberations-watch-1.7218775 conviction section
AFAIK no one is left
While you are probably right, that is fucking stupid.
I mean, SS protection should be pretty easy if he’s locked in an 8x10 cell.
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Npr reporter said that each count has a maximum of 1 - 4 years in jail but usually served concurrently and the judge apparently already made a comment about jail time is not a guarantee or something. I am betting another useless fine and maybe some probation.
Don’t underestimate the effect of “maybe some probation”. Having to check in with some probation officer on a regular basis (and probably pee in a cup each time, I’m not sure whether NY mandates that) will be super humiliating for him. Plus, I bet that the period on probation will be much longer than any prison sentence, and will extend through the election.
Plus, in the event he still wins, I doubt NYC really cares. They will keep making him pee in that cup until his probation is over.
Imagine the Biden campaign constantly trying to get interviews with “the Republican candidate’s probation officer”.
Lolol I didn’t think of that. Imagine Trump trying to go to Russia or something as president and his PO says he can’t leave the country.
Do you know if he starts his sentence while he appeals or is he gonna get off for the next year or so
I’d bet against your claim. He’s remorseless and antagonizing the judge with so many comments and contempt charges. I’m expecting a Martha Stewart sentence of 5 months (sort of low end of range of jail sentences, so the judge can show he’s being fair), maybe suspended until appeals.
I’m not counting on jail time (though I can dream!). Just parroting an oft used law and order conservative catchphrase
He could simply get parole, but if he does get any Jail time it will be delayed until his defence team have exhausted their appeals. Definitely won’t see jail before the election sadly.
Basically zero. Even if it wasn’t a political/social crisis to put him in prison, he is a white guy who did a non-violent crime.
The most he would get would be house arrest. Which he would instantly violate.
What, like Martha Stewart?
White pepo go to jail all the time, even elderly, grandmotherly types.