“If Trump doesn’t get elected but refuses to concede again, how soon may we see his sentencing for his first convictions while it’s being contested, and will his other criminal cases finally move forward?”
That’s just one of the questions I received in a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything!) I did this week.
Here’s how I answered that one and some others:
Trump’s New York sentencing is currently scheduled for Nov. 26. That doesn’t hinge on the election results. In fact, Judge Merchan delayed it until after the election so as to avoid any accusation of it impacting the outcome. However, Merchan is first set to rule Nov. 12 on whether Trump can overturn his guilty verdicts based on the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling.
If Merchan sides with Trump on this, then there’s no sentencing to be had. But if Merchan sides with the state, then we can expect Trump to immediately appeal, potentially all the way up to the Supreme Court. It’s for that reason when Merchan laid out this schedule that I noted that the Nov. 26 date is by no means certain.
“So if he wins he’s pretty much off the hook on everything but Georgia. Correct? And at this point it would seem even that is falling apart for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. If he loses the election, what’s the worst that can happen? I can’t imagine an ex-president doing any time. Would Harris be forced to pardon him to ‘keep the peace’?”
Trump’s federal cases are as good as gone if he wins. It’s just a question of the timing and mechanism: a legally untested self-pardon, or a less legally controversial (but arguably equally corrupt) step of getting his newly installed attorney general to dismiss the cases. Theoretically, Trump would still be on the hook for both state cases, but those would likely at least pause while he’s in office. Either way, I wouldn’t expect a sitting president to stand trial on criminal charges, even in state court. If he loses and is convicted in either federal case and/or in the Georgia state case, prison time is a serious possibility. Harris certainly wouldn’t be forced to pardon him as Ford chose to do for Nixon. Given that Trump seems to have taken the wrong lessons from Nixon getting off, perhaps it would be unwise for her to choose the path Ford took. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the Supreme Court and developments in Donald Trump’s legal cases.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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