Donald Trump’s guilty verdict on 34 felony charges on Thursday isn’t likely to see him serve prison time and it won’t prevent him from running for president of the United States. A jury found Trump doctored business records to hide that he arranged for porn star Stormy Daniels to be paid $130,000 in the lead up to the 2016 election to keep her quiet about her allegations that she slept with him one time in 2006, reports The New York Post. He was convicted of falsifying business records to carry out another crime and faces a minimum of probation and a maximum of four years imprisonment for each of the 34 counts. Trump, the presumptive nominee for the Republicans in the presidential election this fall, will not be jailed prior to his hearing date on July 11, if at all, according to Michael Bachner, a former prosecutor and longtime defence attorney. Bachner said the odds are that Trump will not be sentenced to jail time, “therefore prosecutors wouldn’t seek to jail him ahead of his sentence and a judge wouldn’t likely grant such a request anyway.” “There is a very decent chance he’s looking at a probationary sentence. It would be unnecessary punishment to incarcerate somebody who very likely isn’t getting a jail sentence.” “He will not be remanded,” Bachner told The Post. “There is no requirement that the judge remand him and I would be shocked if the judge were to remand him even if (prosecutors) asked for it,” adding Trump isn’t likely to face travel restrictions before being sentenced. Prior to sentencing, Trump will meet with probation department officials and go over his history, after which prosecutors and Trump’s legal team will file their sentencing recommendations to the judge. “Prosecutors haven’t said what penalty they will be seeking but it’s possible they won’t ask for jail time since Trump was convicted of a non-violent crime and since he has no prior convictions,” reports The Post. After the sentence has been read, Trump has until August 10 to file an appeal. “First, Trump’s team will most likely seek to have Judge Juan Merchan set aside the verdict and if that’s rejected this will set off at least a year’s worth of appeals by Trump’s side,” reports The Post. Any appeal “won’t be (decided) before the election,” Bachner said. Should Trump’s appeal be denied at the mid-level appeals court, he has the recourse to have New York state’s highest court hear his case, which could take another additional year. Also on the table is New York Governor Kathy Hohul could pardon Trump, which is highly unlikely, reports FOX News.Other important dates on Trump’s calendar include June 27, when he scheduled to debate President Joe Biden; July 15, when Trump will receive his party’s nomination as its presidential candidate, and; November 5, the date of the presidential election. There is nothing in the US Constitution that bars Trump from running for his second term as president, or if circumstances dictate, serving as president behind bars. The New York Post reports two precedents have been set of candidates running for president while locked up. In 1920, socialist candidate Eugene Debs elected to run in the presidential election while serving a 10-year term for sedition in a Georgia federal prison. “Incredibly, he garnered nearly one million votes or 3.5% of the popular vote. His sentence was commuted in 1921 by President Warren Harding,” reports The Post. And in 1992, conspiracy theorist and far-right activist Lyndon LaRouche ran while serving time for mail fraud. Pro-Trumpers have not jumped off the bandwagon, as witnessed Thursday night when his fund-raising website crashed because so many people were trying to access it, with one of his campaign committees securing a single US$800,000 donation. “So many Americans were moved to donate to President Trump’s campaign that the WinRed pages went down,” the Trump campaign wrote on X. Trump has other legal battles to fight, in three remaining criminal cases, where he faces 54 counts. “Trump has pleaded not guilty in all of the criminal cases against him, insisting that the charges are all ‘witch hunts’ designed to harm his presidential campaign, reports The Post.
