If or when will Donald Trump flee the country?

| 9:09 am EST November 29, 2020
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One of the questions I’ve been getting lately is whether I think Donald Trump will try to flee the country to avoid prosecution in the United States. That’s a good question. He could end up trying it, but I don’t think it would go well for him.

For starters, Trump would have to pick a country that doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the United States. But even if he just picks the obvious and flees to Russia, he’d end up being even more of Putin’s puppet than ever. Putin would want to trot him out like a captured prize. Is that the life Trump wants?

Also, if Trump tries to flee and it goes sideways, he could end up stuck living in an embassy basement somewhere for years on end, like Assange. Trump isn’t physically or psychologically capable of pulling that off, and he probably knows it. This is a guy who loves living the (borrowed, phony) luxury life.

My guess is that Trump remains here, tries to convince the judge in his inevitable criminal trial to give him house arrest at Mar-a-Lago while he’s awaiting trial, and then tries to beat the charges at trial. Trump is the kind of narcissist who probably thinks he can charm the jury into acquitting him. He’s wrong, because he’s facing financial charges in New York, and those are essentially automatic convictions. But I’m guessing that’s what he’ll try.

One thing to keep in mind. Trump would have to flee before the end of his term, and he’d have to make up some official excuse to travel overseas. But if he suddenly announced something like a diplomatic summit in Moscow for early January, that would tip off New York prosecutors that he’s considering fleeing, and it could prompt them to indict him while he’s still in office. If Trump tried to flee and couldn’t pull it off, it would all but guarantee he’d end up in solitary confinement while awaiting trial, with no real shot at bail or house arrest.