Jail Trump for One Week
Do a president’s official duties include cutting a $130,000 check to silence a porn actress he shagged? That doesn’t pass the laugh test. But in a July 25 memorandum of law, the prosecution said that even if Merchan excluded from consideration all the evidence Trump wants removed (including some tweets!), “there would still need be no basis for disturbing the verdict,” because “the evidence that he claims is affected by the Supreme Court’s ruling constitutes only a sliver of the mountains of testimony and documentary proof that the jury considered in finding him guilty.”
Before November 5, no plausible legal doctrine posed an obstacle to sentencing Trump to jail. Merchan pushed sentencing past that date solely to avoid influencing the election. With November 5 come and gone, the only altered fact is that Trump is president-elect. There’s a MAGA mantra that “the only verdict that matters is the one at the ballot box,” but that just isn’t true. Trump’s May 30 verdict matters too. New York State compelled twelve people—it didn’t ask—to interrupt their lives for two and a half months to weigh criminal evidence against Trump. They concluded Trump was guilty, convicted him—and for their troubles got threatened with doxxing and worse by Trump supporters. “We need to identify each juror,” read one social media post. “Then make them miserable. Maybe even suicidal.” On another platform, a Proud Boys chapter posted one word: “War.” Would you like to tell these jurors that their deliberations will be tossed out because the defendant is too popular?
Back in July, I cited a survey by Norman Eisen, House Judiciary Committee counsel for Trump’s first impeachment, about whether other New York State defendants went to jail after being convicted of the same crime (falsification of business records). The answer, going back to 2015, was that about 10 percent did. That turns out to be a lowball. In October The New York Times reported the odds were more like 30 or 40 percent. Among those who were convicted in Manhattan (like Trump) and then sent to jail—typically for six months—nearly all were (like Trump) first time offenders. And nearly all of those who avoided jail copped a plea, which Trump will never do.
