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Can Trump Go to Jail If Convicted? and Other Indictment Questions

Former President Donald Trump’s legal troubles are escalating by the day.  

Trump is facing an unprecedented slate of criminal charges that threatens his political future and, if convicted, could land him in prison. 

Last week, the former president and front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination was indicted in Washington on charges of conspiring to overturn his electoral defeat in 2020, adding to existing criminal cases in New York and Florida. A fourth indictment in Georgia could come any day.  

No American president has ever been criminally charged before, and no one knows what happens if Trump is found guilty.  

The indictments have raised legal and constitutional questions, some of which are easier to answer than others.  

Can Trump run for president if he is convicted? Can he go to prison? Can states keep him off the ballot by requiring that candidates have a clean criminal record? What if Trump is convicted but wins the election? Can he take office and then pardon himself?  

Can Trump run for president if convicted? 

There is near universal agreement on this question: Even if convicted, Trump will face no constitutional barriers to running for the White House.  

The U.S. Constitution has only three requirements for presidential candidates: They must be natural-born American citizens, at least 35 years old, and have lived in the country for at least 14 years. 

Trump meets all three, and most constitutional scholars agree that states can’t impose additional requirements on presidential hopefuls.  

Eugene Mazo, an election law expert and incoming professor at Duquesne University, said that even a candidate with a “mental incapacity” can’t be barred from running “because the Constitution lists all the requirements.” 

“If you want an additional requirement, it has to come through a constitutional amendment,” Mazo said in an interview with VOA.  

In recent years, legislation by states such as California and New Jersey requiring presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns was struck down as unconstitutional, Mazo said.  

That means that states can’t keep Trump off the ballot by passing legislation requiring presidential hopefuls to have a clean criminal record, he added.  

The 14th Amendment debate 

While states can’t disqualify presidential candidates on new grounds, there is one caveat to this general rule, said Frank Bowman, emeritus professor of law at the University of Missouri. 

Under the third clause of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, a person found guilty of “rebellion” or “insurrection” can be barred from running for president, Bowman said.  

The obscure provision was originally designed to prevent members of the rebel Confederacy from holding office following the 1861-65 U.S. Civil War.  The clause remained dormant for more than a century.  

But in recent months, liberal groups such as Mi Familia Vota and Free Speech for People have been pressing states to disqualify Trump under the 14th Amendment. They argue that Trump incited an insurrection against the United States on January 6, 2021, when a group of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol to prevent Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory.  

Trump was later impeached for incitement but acquitted by the U.S. Senate. And Bowman noted that none of the current criminal charges against Trump alleges engagement in rebellion or insurrection. 

“Whether these efforts will actually work is debatable, not impossible,” Bowman said in an interview.  

But others see the effort as a long shot.  

“I think that eventually it would get to the Supreme Court and be quickly swatted down.” said Jonathan Turley, a conservative law professor at George Washington University, in a recent interview.  

Can Trump go to prison and campaign from behind bars? 

If convicted, Trump could be sentenced to prison and, theoretically, he could continue to campaign from there. 

“From the perspective of the criminal law, he’s just a guy and, therefore, like any other guy, if he is convicted of a felony, he can be sentenced to prison for whatever term the law provides,” Bowman said.  

No former president has ever been incarcerated, but some presidential candidates have campaigned from behind bars.  

In 1920, Eugene V. Debs, a presidential candidate for the Socialist Party, received almost 1 million votes while serving a sentence for sedition. In 1992, political activist Lyndon LaRouche campaigned for president while in prison for fraud.  

“Can he run a campaign from jail?” Mazo asked rhetorically. “It’s hard, but the answer is, sure.” 

Trump himself has vowed to continue campaigning even if he is convicted.  

“I’ll never leave,” he said in an interview with Politico in June.  

Whether the former president will receive a prison sentence remains uncertain, but Politico recently estimated that he could face up to 641 years if convicted of all charges and given the maximum penalty for each.  

This is a far-fetched scenario, however, as judges rarely impose the maximum penalty on first-time offenders and usually allow sentences to run concurrently.  

The sentencing decision will ultimately rest with the judge, who will weigh various factors such as the severity of the crime, the defendant’s character, and the public interest. 

Some legal experts argue that a judge might spare Trump from prison and instead give him probation or home confinement, if only to avoid the spectacle of a former American president in a prison jumpsuit.  

But others say Trump could face prison time if he is convicted.  

“I think it’d be very hard for any judge, particularly out of the D.C. district, having sent so many of his supporters and minions to prison for essentially acting on his instigation …not to give him time,” Bowman said. 

Could Trump pardon himself? 

Since the waning days of the Trump presidency, experts have fiercely argued the question of a presidential self-pardon.  

The American president can pardon anyone for federal crimes, and some have speculated that Trump may have secretly pardoned himself before leaving office to avoid future prosecution.  

But Turley said he has seen no evidence to that effect.  

“If there were (a secret self-pardon), he would have already made that defense,” Turley said in an interview on Tuesday. 

On the other hand, if Trump were reelected, he could issue himself a pardon, Turley said. “So if these federal trials are held after the election, Trump could pardon himself before any trial occurs, and Jack Smith will never see a jury in either of these cases.”  

Trials in two of the three cases are set for March and May 2024,  but those dates could be pushed back by pretrial motions and other legal maneuvers.  

And the question of a presidential self-pardon remains far from settled. Legal experts such as Bowman have argued that a presidential self-pardon violates the Constitution. No one can be their own judge.  

“Indeed, a presidential self-pardon is antithetical to the language and structure of the Constitution, contrary to the evident intentions of the Founders, and a very real danger to republican government,” Bowman wrote in Just Security in November 2020.  

Even if Trump could pardon himself, it would not extend to state crimes with which Trump has been charged, Turley noted. 
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US Judge Sets Hearing on Evidence in Trump’s 2020 Election Case

A federal judge presiding over former President Donald Trump’s trial on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election has ordered his attorneys and federal prosecutors to appear in court on Friday for a hearing to help determine how evidence can be used and shared in the case.

U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan set the hearing for Friday at 10 a.m. ET (1400 GMT), shortly after Trump’s attorneys and members of U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office had clashed over when to schedule the proceeding.

Prosecutors had said they were available all week, while Trump’s lawyers had asked for a postponement until early next week.

Prosecutors request protective order

Friday’s hearing comes after Trump’s defense team on Monday opposed a request from prosecutors for Chutkan to impose a protective order to ensure confidential evidence is not shared publicly by Trump, suggesting he could use the information to intimidate witnesses. Trump has pleaded not guilty and called the charges politically motivated.

Trump’s attorneys said limits would infringe on his right to free speech, protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Trump is not expected to be present in the courtroom on Friday, after Chutkan waived his appearance.

Typically, defense lawyers do not oppose such protective orders because doing so can delay the government from producing the evidence it intends to use at trial in a process known as discovery.

Defense tries to slow proceedings

The disagreement between the parties over the hearing date represented the latest effort by Trump’s team to delay or slow legal proceedings.

It also underscored the logistical challenges that Trump’s team may have as it continues to represent him in two separate federal criminal cases brought by Smith’s office, one in Washington and the other in Florida, where Trump is charged with retaining highly classified records after leaving the White House and obstructing the government’s efforts to have the records returned. Trump also pleaded not guilty in that case.

One of Trump’s attorneys, Todd Blanche, will be in federal court in Florida on Thursday for an arraignment, after the government filed a superseding indictment that charged Trump with additional criminal counts and also charged another one of his employees in the case.

In the joint Washington filing, Trump’s lawyers said Trump wished for both Blanche and his other lawyer John Lauro to be present for the hearing before Chutkan.
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A Proposed Constitutional Change Could Determine Abortion Rights in Ohio

Voters in Ohio on Tuesday are weighing whether to make it more difficult to change the state’s constitution, a decision that will have national implications in the debate over the future of abortion rights in the United States. 

The proposal on the ballot, known as Issue 1, would raise the threshold for passing future changes to the Ohio Constitution from a simple majority to 60%. That would raise the bar for another election in November, when voters in the state are scheduled to consider a constitutional amendment that would guarantee access to abortion. 

With that in mind, voters are turning out in massive numbers for a summer special election. During the early voting period which ended Sunday, the number of advance ballots cast hit nearly 700,000, more than double the early vote during primary elections in 2018 and 2022, when high-profile races for U.S. Senate and governor were on the ballot. 

Latest referendum

The vote on Tuesday is poised to become the latest referendum on abortion rights since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year to rescind federal protections for the procedure, creating a state-by-state patchwork of restrictions and bans. Voters in other Republican-leaning states, including Kansas and Kentucky, have responded by protecting abortion access, and the issue helped Democrats limit their losses in last year’s midterm elections. 

Ohio could be well positioned to join the list of conservative-leaning states moving to protect access to abortion. AP VoteCast polling last year found that 59% of Ohio voters say abortion should generally be legal. 

Out-of-state money has poured into both sides of the contest over the 60% threshold, even as both supporters and opponents say one of their main goals is to keep special interests from having more influence over state policy than average Ohioans. 

Abortion rights at center of proposal

The campaign in favor of Issue 1, Protect Our Constitution, has told voters that raising the threshold will keep deep-pocketed interest groups from pushing redistricting, gun control and minimum wage policies on Ohio. One Person One Vote, the opposition campaign, argues that raising the threshold for passing future amendments would prioritize the interests of Ohio’s increasingly conservative GOP supermajority at the statehouse over those of everyday voters. 

Abortion rights are at the epicenter of the fight, as Ohio and other states have been given control of their own abortion policies following the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade last summer. Ohio’s ban on most abortions had been placed on hold under Roe and then allowed to take effect briefly after the court overturned it. Since then, it has been frozen again while a challenge alleging it violates the state constitution plays out. 

The abortion amendment would give individuals the right to make their own reproductive health care decisions, including on contraception, fertility treatment, abortion and miscarriage care, until a fetus is viable outside the womb. 

At the same time, a broad bipartisan coalition opposes Issue 1 for other reasons. Former Ohio governors and attorneys general of both parties have come out against the constitutional change, calling it poor public policy. If passed, it would reverse 111 years of direct democracy that has the potential to affect future citizen-led ballot efforts. 

Issue 1 opponents have aired ads and mobilized a large coalition, including voting rights, labor, faith and community groups, as well as the state Democratic Party. 
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Prosecutors Ask Judge for Protective Order After Trump Social Media Post

The Justice Department has asked a federal judge overseeing the criminal case against former President Donald Trump in Washington to step in after Trump released a post online that appeared to promise revenge on anyone who goes after him.

Prosecutors on Friday requested that U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan issue a protective order concerning evidence in the case, a day after Trump pleaded not guilty to charges of trying to overturn his 2020 election loss and block the peaceful transition of power. The order, different from a “gag order,” would limit what information Trump and his legal team could share publicly about the case brought by special counsel Jack Smith.

Chutkan on Saturday gave Trump’s legal team until 5 p.m. Monday to respond to the government’s request. Trump’s legal team, which has indicated he would look to slow the case down despite prosecutors’ pledge of a speedy trial, then filed a request to extend the response deadline to Thursday and to hold a hearing on the matter, saying it needed more time for discussion. 

Chutkan swiftly denied that extension request Saturday evening, reaffirming that Trump must abide by Monday’s deadline. 

Protective orders are common in criminal cases, but prosecutors said it’s “particularly important in this case” because Trump has posted on social media about “witnesses, judges, attorneys and others associated with legal matters pending against him.”

Prosecutors pointed specifically to a post on Trump’s Truth Social platform from earlier Friday in which Trump wrote, in all capital letters, “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!”

Prosecutors said they are ready to hand over a “substantial” amount of evidence — “much of which includes sensitive and confidential information” — to Trump’s legal team.

They told the judge that if Trump were to begin posting about grand jury transcripts or other evidence provided by the Justice Department, it could have a “harmful chilling effect on witnesses or adversely affect the fair administration of justice in this case.”

Prosecutors’ proposed protective order seeks to prevent Trump and his lawyers from disclosing materials provided by the government to anyone other than people on his legal team, possible witnesses, the witnesses’ lawyers or others approved by the court. It would put stricter limits on “sensitive materials,” which would include grand jury witness testimony and materials obtained through sealed search warrants.

A Trump spokesperson said in an emailed statement that the former president’s post “is the definition of political speech” and was made in response to “dishonest special interest groups and Super PACs.”

Chutkan, a former assistant public defender who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama, has been one of the toughest punishers of rioters who stormed the Capitol in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack fueled by Trump’s baseless claims of a stolen election.

The indictment unsealed this week accuses Trump of brazenly conspiring with allies to spread falsehoods and concoct schemes intended to overturn his election loss to President Joe Biden as his legal challenges foundered in court.

The indictment chronicles how Trump and his Republican allies, in what Smith described as an attack on a “bedrock function of the U.S. government,” repeatedly lied about the results in the two months after he lost the election and pressured his vice president, Mike Pence, and state election officials to take action to help him cling to power.

Trump faces charges that include conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and conspiracy to obstruct Congress’ certification of Biden’s electoral victory.

It’s the third criminal case brought this year against the early front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary. But it’s the first case to try to hold Trump responsible for his efforts to remain in power during the chaotic weeks between his election loss and the attack by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Smith has also charged Trump in Florida federal court with illegally hoarding classified documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and thwarting government efforts to get them back.

The magistrate judge in that case agreed to a protective order in June that prohibits Trump and his legal team from publicly disclosing evidence turned over to them by prosecutors without prior approval. Prosecutors are seeking another protective order in that case with more rules about the defense team’s handling of classified evidence.

After his court appearance on Thursday in the Washington case, Trump characterized the prosecution as a “persecution” designed to hurt his 2024 presidential campaign. His legal team has described it as an attack on his right to free speech and his right to challenge an election that he believed had been stolen.

Smith has said prosecutors will seek a “speedy trial” against Trump in the election case. Judge Chutkan has ordered the government to file a brief by Thursday proposing a trial date. The first court hearing in front of Chutkan is scheduled for Aug. 28.

Trump is already scheduled to stand trial in March in the New York case stemming from hush-money payments made during the 2016 campaign and in May in the classified documents case.
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Prosecutors Ask Judge to Issue Protective Order After Trump Post Appearing to Promise Revenge

The Justice Department has asked a federal judge overseeing the criminal case against former President Donald Trump in Washington to step in after Trump released a post online that appeared to promise revenge on anyone who goes after him.

Prosecutors on Friday requested that U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan issue a protective order concerning evidence in the case, a day after Trump pleaded not guilty to charges of trying to overturn his 2020 election loss and block the peaceful transition of power. The order, different from a “gag order,” would limit what information Trump and his legal team could share publicly about the case brought by special counsel Jack Smith.

Such protective orders are common in criminal cases, but prosecutors said it’s “particularly important in this case” because Trump has posted on social media about “witnesses, judges, attorneys and others associated with legal matters pending against him.”

Prosecutors pointed specifically to a post on Trump’s Truth Social platform from earlier Friday in which Trump wrote, in all capital letters, “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!”

Prosecutors said they are ready to hand over a “substantial” amount of evidence — “much of which includes sensitive and confidential information” — to Trump’s legal team.

They told the judge that if Trump were to begin posting about grand jury transcripts or other evidence provided by the Justice Department, it could have a “harmful chilling effect on witnesses or adversely affect the fair administration of justice in this case.”

Prosecutors’ proposed protective order seeks to prevent Trump and his lawyers from disclosing materials provided by the government to anyone other than people on his legal team, possible witnesses, the witnesses’ lawyers or others approved by the court. It would put stricter limits on “sensitive materials,” which would include grand jury witness testimony and materials obtained through sealed search warrants.

A Trump spokesperson said in an emailed statement that the former president’s post “is the definition of political speech” and was made in response to “dishonest special interest groups and Super PACs.”

It’s unclear when Chutkan might rule on the matter. Chutkan, a former assistant public defender who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama, has been one of the toughest punishers of rioters who stormed the Capitol in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack fueled by Trump’s baseless claims of a stolen election.

The indictment unsealed this week accuses Trump of brazenly conspiring with allies to spread falsehoods and concoct schemes intended to overturn his election loss to President Joe Biden as his legal challenges foundered in court.

The indictment chronicles how Trump and his Republican allies, in what Smith described as an attack on a “bedrock function of the U.S. government,” repeatedly lied about the results in the two months after he lost the election and pressured his vice president, Mike Pence, and state election officials to take action to help him cling to power.

Trump faces charges that include conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and conspiracy to obstruct Congress’ certification of Biden’s electoral victory.

It’s the third criminal case brought this year against the early front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary. But it’s the first case to try to hold Trump responsible for his efforts to remain in power during the chaotic weeks between his election loss and the attack by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Smith has also charged Trump in Florida federal court with illegally hoarding classified documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and thwarting government efforts to get them back.

The magistrate judge in that case agreed to a protective order in June that prohibits Trump and his legal team from publicly disclosing evidence turned over to them by prosecutors without prior approval. Prosecutors are seeking another protective order in that case with more rules about the defense team’s handling of classified evidence.

After his court appearance on Thursday in the Washington case, Trump characterized the prosecution as a “persecution” designed to hurt his 2024 presidential campaign. His legal team has described it as an attack on his right to free speech and his right to challenge an election that he believed had been stolen.

Smith has said prosecutors will seek a “speedy trial” against Trump in the election case. Judge Chutkan has ordered the government to file a brief by Thursday proposing a trial date. The first court hearing in front of Chutkan is scheduled for Aug. 28.

Trump is already scheduled to stand trial in March in the New York case stemming from hush-money payments made during the 2016 campaign and in May in the classified documents case.
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