Former President Donald Trump, who will turn 78 next week, may spend the rest of his natural life in prison if he doesn't prevail in the November 5 presidential election, according to a former federal prosecutor.
During a recent episode of his podcast, Harry Litman — the former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania — opined that the 45th president of the United States may not experience freedom again if he enters a prison cell and loses his reelection bid to President Joe Biden. The Hill reported that Litman viewed this fall as a do-or-die moment for the ex-president to not only retake power, but to spend the end of his life as a free man.
“If he doesn’t win, he has an appreciable chance of dying in prison,” Litman told former U.S. Senator Al Franken (D-Minnesota). “The whole timeline, the whole crisis point of November goes away. So, if he doesn’t win on [November] the fifth, those cases lie ready to bring.”
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Even though his Manhattan criminal trial concluded last week with a unanimous guilty verdict, the hush money cover-up trial could be the least of Trump's worries. The former president has three more criminal trials to worry about — two federal cases, and another state-level case in Fulton County, Georgia. All three carry much more serious punishments than whatever sentence Trump gets in New York.
In the two federal cases, Trump faces four felony charges in Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith's DC election interference indictment, and 37 felony counts in Smith's indictment for allegedly mishandling classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. But should Trump win the election this November, his appointed attorney general could simply instruct the DOJ to dismiss the cases. Trump could also theoretically pardon himself if he's convicted before taking office, should he win.
While the Georgia case — like New York's — is a state case and this not within the purview of the DOJ or the White House, it's also the least likely to happen after the Georgia Court of Appeals officially paused proceedings this week. The Peach State's appellate court agreed to hear Trump's appeal of Judge Scott McAfee's decision to allow Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to remain on the case after she survived defense lawyers' attempts to remove her from the case.
Attorneys representing Trump and others in the RICO indictment argued her prior relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade constituted a conflict of interest. McAfee allowed Willis to stay on provided Wade did not, and Wade tendered his resignation later that day. but Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Greg Bluestein said the latest that case could proceed, should it uphold McAfee's decision, would be mid-2025.
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After he was convicted of 34 felonies by a New York jury last week, Trump faces a maximum prison sentence of 20 years in prison. However, as a first-time offender, he's unlikely to do anywhere near that amount of time, if he's incarcerated at all.
Former FBI general counsel Andrew Weissmann said on MSNBC last week that during Trump's July 11 sentencing hearing, Judge Juan Merchan may still opt for prison given Trump's continued lack of remorse, disrespect toward the proceedings and 10 violations of Merchan's gag order preventing him from attacking jurors, witnesses, court staff or their families.
"So, you have gag order violations. You have things that show complete lack of remorse…. Could you think of a defendant with any more lack of remorse? If you think of the recidivism and the lack of remorse, there is such an array of things for the state to point to," Weissmann said. "He has to be treated like everyone else.
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Click here to read The Hill's full report.