How Trump 'beat the system' that tried to jail him

Special counsel Jack Smith in June 2023 (Creative Commons)
Alex Henderson
November 06, 2024Bank

Election Night 2024 marked a first in United States history: Donald Trump, with at least 277 electoral votes, is the first candidate to become president-elect while waiting to be sentenced on 34 criminal counts.

On Tuesday, November 26, Justice Juan Merchan is scheduled to sentence Trump in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr.'s hush money/falsified business records case.

In an article published on November 6, Politico reporters Kyle Cheney and Erica Orden stress that on Election Night, Trump "didn't just beat Kamala Harris — he beat the system that tried to put him in jail."

READ MORE:This Oath Keepers ally is 'training people to survive a civil war'

"Trump's imminent return to the White House shatters years of work by special counsel Jack Smith to convict Trump for his attempt to subvert the 2020 election and for the stockpile of classified documents he kept at his Florida estate," the journalists explain. "It halts the prosecution he is facing in Georgia for his 2020 election plot as well.

It almost certainly allows Trump to postpone any sentence on his New York conviction for covering up a hush money scheme in 2016."

Cheney and Orden add, "In short, the president-elect is now his own judge and jury, insulated from the criminal consequences he might have faced without the legal force field of the Oval Office."

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has long had a policy against prosecuting a sitting president, and Trump will be a sitting president as of January 20, 2025.

Meanwhile, in Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was reelected on Election Night, but her election interference/RICO case against Trump and his allies is in limbo.

READ MORE: Election official blames county GOP chair’s 'obstructionist behavior' for reporting delay

In New York State, it remains to be seen what type of sentence Merchan will give Trump.

"Should Merchan proceed with the sentencing as scheduled," Cheney and Orden explain, "he'll face the unprecedented task of deciding whether to impose a prison sentence of up to four years on a defendant who is set to occupy the White House come January. If he does order Trump to prison, Trump almost certainly won't be required to serve that sentence until after he leaves office in 2029."

READ MORE: Election official blames county GOP chair’s 'obstructionist behavior' for reporting delay

Read Politico's full report at this link.