So. Very. Guilty. | Opinion

Editor’s note: The following first appeared in Political Junkie, Claire’s newsletter.

OK — did I call it or did I call it?

I asked you to trust the jury and they came through. Thirty-four counts. Thirty-four verdicts of guilty, making Donald John Trump the first president of the United States to be convicted of a felony. You can read an account of what happened in the courtroom here. Trump will be sentenced by Judge Juan Merchan on the morning of July 11, four days before the Republican National Convention is gaveled on July 15.

That sentence could range from up to four years in prison, house arrest or probation. As I understand it, Trump meets with his probation officer today: that conversation is factored into sentencing, as are the sentencing memos that the Manhattan District Attorney’s office and the Trump legal team will file with the judge. Simultaneously, Todd Blanche, Trump’s lead attorney, will file motions to delay sentencing until after the election on November 5, and file a notice of appeal to the Appellate Court of New York’s First Judicial Department.

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At sentencing, Trump also has an opportunity to respond. That should be — fun. But remember, a lack of remorse can affect the length of a sentence, so Trump would be wise to keep his trap shut.

It’s possible that this case will not be fully settled for several years. Any of you who took my advice and watched the 2024 CNN docuseries, “The Many Lives of Martha Stewart” will recall that Stewart elected to serve her sentence (which included prison and a term of home confinement) rather than appeal because her attorneys estimated that an appeal, successful or not, would take two years. Stewart, a shrewd businesswoman and a tougher cookie than Trump has ever been, saw her business going down the drain as uncertainty about her own future snowballed. She chose the slammer.

Given that this is his third conviction in three different trials, there are pending appeals in all of them, and two trials yet to come — it seems increasingly unlikely that the moderate, unaffiliated voters he needs to win this election will vote for him too.

Let me underline: the Stewart and Trump cases are very different. It is quite clear in the docuseries that the limits of the federal prosecutors’ mercy in the Stewart case was how much time Martha would be inside, not whether (she served five months in the minimum-security federal prison in Alderson, West Virginia, and then wore an ankle bracelet for five months. They are open about having wanted to make an example of her, not for the insider trading, but for the lying about it.

Trump’s is a state case, for one thing. But even if sending a presidential candidate to prison were not a bad look for any democratic nation, it’s an impossible security problem, because Trump is entitled to personal protection as a former president, raising knotty questions of authority between the New York State Department of Corrections and the federal Secret Service charged with protecting Trump. According to Mark Gollom of CBS News, the Secret Service would have to decide how many agents were necessary to protect Trump round the clock in prison.

Under ordinary circumstances, that’s three shifts of four agents every day. But the logistics, Gollom emphasizes, are daunting:

In a column for ABC News, former Secret Service agent Donald J. Mihalek said the question about how protection would work if a former president were to go to jail has a clear answer.

"Simply, the law mandates it and the Secret Service would have to provide protection, even in jail, as only the protectee may end it," he wrote.

But Miller said that would be "exceptionally problematic" for the Secret Service and create a whole lot of challenges.
"And quite frankly, I don't think there would ever be a scenario where he would be placed in a jail with other people," he said. "That would be problematic across the spectrum."

The practical scenarios are home confinement; that Trump gets to campaign, but with a monitor; or the most likely in my view, an extended period of parole during which Trump does whatever he wants — even, perhaps, voting for himself and becoming the first felon to take the oath of office as president. Some observers are suggesting he would not be permitted to vote for himself and normally, in Florida, where Trump is registered, that’s true. Felons cannot regain their civil rights until after a long clemency process. But according to Patrick Marley ofthe Post, there’s a loophole: the crime has to have been committed in Florida.

So he can vote for himself. But given that this is his third conviction in three different trials, there are pending appeals in all of them, and two trials yet to come — it seems increasingly unlikely that the moderate, unaffiliated voters he needs to win this election will vote for him too.

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