Donald Trump is talking himself into a prison cell
From the start I’ve been on record as saying that while Donald Trump’s other three criminal trials will automatically come with lengthy prison sentences if he’s convicted, the sentencing in his New York criminal trial was a trickier matter. These are the lowest level felonies on the books, and – as surreal as it sounds – Trump has no prior criminal record.
Judge Merchan has a difficult decision to make, with a number of factors. He can look at the fact that only about ten percent of people convicted for this kind of “cooking the books” felony have ended up being given prison time. On the other hand he can also look at the sheer number of low level felonies Trump was convicted on (thirty-four), along with the severity of the associated crime (election fraud).
But there are two other factors that can play a role in determining sentencing. One is misbehavior. Trump spent the trial violating his gag order a double digit number of times, to the point that he had to be told he would be immediately locked up if he’d done it even once more. And now that the trial is over, Trump is immediately back to attacking witnesses.
This kind of thing can absolutely be a factor in sentencing. Imagine an average no-name defendant who spends his trial trying to intimidate witnesses and such, and then gets convicted. That person is probably looking at a longer prison sentence than an identical defendant who at least spends his trial showing respect for the sanctity of the legal process.
There’s also another factor here: contrition. If you’re convicted, and then you show up to your sentencing and try to apologize for your crimes and vow to make amends and such, you’re likely to get a more lenient sentence than if you show up to sentencing and angrily rant about how the trial was “rigged” against you.
Try to imagine Donald Trump showing any contrition during his sentencing hearing. He’s very likely to do the opposite. It’s even possible his attorneys will instruct him not to speak at the hearing at all, for fear he’ll say the kinds of things that could lead to a harsher sentence.
We’ll see if Trump’s babysitters can figure out how to get him under control by the time of the sentencing hearing in six weeks. In the meantime, everything that Trump is currently saying about the trial is merely serving to march him closer to a prison sentence. As I’ve said all along, I’m not going to try to put odds on Trump getting prison time in this trial. But each time Trump opens his mouth, those odds tick further upward.
