Donald Trump will be ordered to serve time in prison when he is sentenced for falsifying business records in September, a Fox News columnist has said.
Andrew McCarthy, senior fellow at the National Review Institute and former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said Trump will not actually be incarcerated even if he is handed a custodial sentence on September 18, as the former president will likely get bail pending appeal.
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Instead, McCarthy said that Judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw the hush money trial and will hand down Trump’s sentence next month, will be helping Vice President Kamala Harris and the “media-Democratic complex” to label Trump a convicted felon sentenced to prison just weeks before Election Day in November.
Trump became the first U.S. president to be convicted of a crime after a New York jury found him guilty of 34 felony falsifying business records counts in May. He had denied all charges and said he was the victim of political persecution. He is likely to appeal.
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The sentencing date was previously set for July 11, but was delayed until September 18 as Merchan considers whether the Supreme Court’s ruling granting Trump some presidential immunity for official acts committed in office affects the hush money case.
Writing for Fox News, McCarthy suggested “if we may read the tea leaves” that Merchan will likely deny the immunity appeal from Trump’s legal team.
“He said he plans to rule on Trump’s immunity claim by Aug. 16,” added McCarthy.
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The former president’s lawyers argued that evidence presented during the hush money trial, such as tweets and other communications, could be examples of official acts which the Supreme Court said Trump cannot be prosecuted over or be used as evidence.
“Merchan has already decided that he will deny Trump’s immunity motion. There is, moreover, a high likelihood that he will impose a prison sentence against Trump right after that,” McCarthy said.
“The New York prosecution of Trump was politics, not justice. That’s why we call it ‘lawfare.’ The prosecutors and judge are not concerned about whether convictions ultimately get thrown out on appeal.
“And it’s not like Merchan is actually going to put Trump in prison; it is virtually certain that Trump will get bail pending appeal, so Merchan can appear to impose a stiff incarceration sentence without any real incarceration—at least for now, and probably ever,” he added.
McCarthy said that the “objective” from Merchan is to help Harris, Trump’s 2024 Democratic rival, refer to the Republican as “a convicted felon sentenced to prison” from September 18, a time when “Americans will already have started voting in many states, not least the potentially decisive Pennsylvania battleground.”
“Prepare for Merchan to deny Trump’s immunity claim … and strap in for sentencing on Sept. 18,” McCarthy wrote.
Trump’s legal team has been contacted for comment via email.
Other legal experts have suggested that Trump will not be handed a prison sentence on September 18.
“I think a prison sentence is unlikely for a first time nonviolent Class E felony,” Syracuse University law professor Gregory Germain previously told Newsweek.
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“Any other defendant would be given probation, and I think it will be very hard for the judge to justify a prison sentence over a records violation.”
Germain added that jailing a presidential candidate weeks before an election would create a “constitutional crisis, and I would expect emergency motions to stay the sentence pending appeal.”
