Sentencing former President Donald Trump to prison with a Secret Service detail following his conviction in a New York trial would be a “logistical nightmare,” a former federal prosecutor has said.
Earlier this year, Trump, now the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, was tried in New York on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a hush-money payment made to Stormy Daniels, a former adult film actor, ahead of the 2016 presidential election. On May 30, a jury convicted him on all 34 counts.
New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, who presided over the trial, is set to sentence the former president on September 18.
Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor and the president of the West Coast Trial Lawyers firm in California, told Newsweek that Merchan would be reluctant to jail Trump so close to the election.
“I think Trump will receive probation or a suspended sentence. Home confinement is unlikely during a presidential election. Incarceration with Secret Service protection is even less likely and a logistical nightmare,” he said.
As a former president and a presidential candidate, Trump is entitled to Secret Service protection, and the security around him has increased since the July 13 assassination attempt on his life at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
Donald Trump in a courtroom during his hush-money trial at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York on May 30. The former president is due to be sentenced on September 18.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Rahmani added that Merchan had already shown a reluctance to jail Trump.
“Judge Merchan wasn’t willing to imprison Trump for 10 willful violations of his gag order. Trump being convicted of Class E felonies, the least serious under New York law, won’t change that,” he said.
While considering Trump’s gag order violations during the trial, Merchan, who fined Trump $1,000 for each offense, said he was conscious of the fact that the former president would return to the White House if he won the 2024 election.
On August 29, Trump’s legal team sought to move the sentencing in the hush-money case to federal court.
The request was denied the following day by U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein. The court’s clerk wrote that it had been filed under the “wrong event type” and did not include an “order granting permission to file the pleading” or an order granting “leave” by the state court.
Newsweek contacted Trump’s attorney for comment via email outside normal working hours.
Merchan is set to rule on whether the Supreme Court‘s July 1 ruling, which granted Trump some presidential immunity for official acts performed while in office, affects the hush-money case. The judge has already delayed sentencing because of the Supreme Court decision and may be reluctant to do so again.
Greg Germain, a law professor at Syracuse University in New York, previously told Newsweek that he believed an appeal court would strike down any prison term Merchan imposed.
“If Merchan sentenced him to jail in the middle of the election for this records violation, I think the courts would do whatever is necessary to prevent it. We’d be in uncharted waters,” Germain said.
He continued: “But I don’t think Merchan will sentence him to jail. I think there were serious problems with the case, and it should be reversed on appeal in due order without upsetting the election cycle.”
