MSNBC host Katie Phang said Donald Trump did himself no favors at his Friday press conference where he rambled about his felony convictions, with the former prosecutor saying he appeared "old and decrepit" while handing prosecutors more ammo that can be used against him.Appearing on MSNBC's "The Wee...
Pipe dreams. It’s extremely rare for prison sentences to be imposed for white collar, non-violent e felonies like this.
Merchan isn’t going to impose a shit load of time just because people want it- that would pretty quickly get over turned by higher courts.
Most likely the best we can hope for is house arrest; the only reason we have a hope of jail time at all is that trumps behavior during and leading up to the trial (inciting his mob to threaten violence, refusal to abide gag orders.)
In some regards the house arrest might be politically the best for Trump. He can still broadcast his stupidity.
Again, look at the other people involved. Cohen got 3 years for his part in it, Alan Weisselberg, while not convicted for this, got 5 months for his role in another Trump ordered scheme.
So, yeah, it does happen for white collar crime. When you consider 34 counts and his lack of contrition, I can see the Judge hitting him with the max, which, granted, is only 4 years.
I’m being cautiously optimistic here, but I have to admit prison time is probably a long shot. Justice Merchan didn’t want to jail him on his ten instances of contempt, and I can understand wanting to avoid politicizing an already unprecedented trial and handing the defense reason for appeal. Given convicted felon Donald Trump’s behavior however, my personal prediction is something like house arrest and possibly a supervised release schedule. Total bullshit, but I do think Merchan has been playing the long game so that whatever sentence he hands down is airtight and holds up under appeal.