Former President Donald Trump stands alone in the number of his close associates who have been sentenced to prison or are awaiting sentencing, with that list possibly getting even larger this year.
Axios recently compiled a list of all of Trump's allies and associates who have spent time behind bars, along with those who have entered guilty pleas in order to avoid seeing the inside of a prison cell in 2024. The list was published as former Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg officially pleaded guilty to perjury earlier this week, following his false testimony under oath in Trump's civil fraud trail last year.
Trump allies already sentenced to prison are doing so after being found guilty of various crimes, including campaign finance violations and lying to Congress. The list includes former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, former Trump lawyer and "fixer" Michael Cohen, campaign co-chairs Rick Gates and Paul Manafort, former Trump administration trade official Peter Navarro, former campaign advisor George Papadopoulos and longtime Trump confidant and far-right lobbyist Roger Stone.
READ MORE: Ex-Trump advisor Peter Navarro sentenced to prison
Several co-defendants in the ongoing Fulton County, Georgia RICO case have already taken steps to distance themselves from Trump and more than a dozen alleged co-conspirators. Attorneys Kenneth Chesebro, Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell have already entered guilty pleas and have agreed to cooperate with District Attorney Fani Willis, along with former bail bondsman Scott Hall. They all pleaded guilty within days of each other, hoping to avoid what would be a sentence of up to 20 years if convicted on the original counts.
Navarro was the most recent Trump associate to be sentenced after his bid to avoid his four-month prison sentence while he appealed his guilty verdict was denied. Navarro was found guilty of lying to Congress, which is the same charge Bannon was convicted of. Even though Bannon was sentenced to four months in federal prison in 2021, he had better luck than Navarro in his appeal, and has remained free during the appeals process.
Papadopoulos was the first Trump associate to be sentenced, after being handed a 14-day sentence in 2018. Later that year, Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison for an assortment of crimes, including making false statements to a bank, campaign finance violations and tax evasion to the tune of $4 million. Notably, Cohen is due to be Manhattan District Attorney's star witness against Trump in his first criminal trial later this month, as he facilitated hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels in a scheme Trump allegedly orchestrated.
Gates and Manafort were sentenced the following year, with gates getting 45 days and three years probation, and Manafort getting a far more serious 43-month sentence. Gates testified against Manafort in special counsel Robert Mueller's probe, telling investigators about how he helped the head of Trump's 2016 campaign conceal $75 million in lobbying money.
READ MORE: Michael Cohen predicts Trump will be found 'guilty on all charges' in Manhattan trial
The former president has pardoned many of his former associates, including Manafort, Papadopoulos and Stone, who was sentenced to 40 months in prison before Trump ultimately commuted his sentence in July of 2020.
"[Trump] knows I was under enormous pressure to turn on him," Stone told a reporter before the commutation. "It would have eased my situation considerably. But I didn't."
The only presidents who came close to Trump in associates who ran afoul of the criminal justice system are Republicans Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Five participants in the Watergate scandal during the Nixon administration pleaded guilty, while Nixon himself was pardoned by Gerald Ford, who was Nixon's vice president before he resigned from office. And while roughly a dozen participants in Reagan's Iran-Contra affair pleaded guilty or were convicted, many were ultimately pardoned by President George H.W. Bush.
READ MORE: Roger Stone under investigation by Capitol Police over threat to murder House Democrats
