After the guilty verdict
Trump: Prison would be fine with me
02.06.2024, 22:18
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Donald Trump is found guilty on all 34 counts in the hush money trial. In the worst case scenario, the former US president faces a prison sentence of up to four years. Apparently not a problem for Trump. But the public “wouldn’t let that go,” he says. An implied threat?
Former US President Donald Trump says he would have no problem going to prison. “I’m OK with that,” Trump said in a TV interview on the show “Fox & Friends” on the right-wing TV channel Fox News – just days after his conviction in a hush money trial. The 77-year-old added with regard to a possible prison sentence: “I don’t think the public would let it go.” His supporters couldn’t stand it.
Democratic House Representative Adam Schiff said Trump’s strategy was clear. “At its core, this is his threat that if he is sentenced to prison, he will encourage his supporters to insurrection,” Schiff, who was a member of the committee investigating the storming of the Capitol, told CNN. “We saw the deadly consequences of that on January 6.”
There are concerns in the US that politically motivated violence could occur around the presidential election on November 5. Trump, who has been a convicted felon since May 30, has made it clear several times that he will not accept defeat. To this day, he claims that his 2020 election loss to Biden was due to fraud. In the heated atmosphere in the months following the election, radical Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021. Five people were killed.
Trump did not want to “beg” the judge
In the current interview, Trump was asked how he would react to the fact that he faces a prison sentence or house arrest following his guilty verdict for concealing hush money to a porn star. He replied that one of his lawyers had said on television that you don’t do “that kind of thing” to a former president – but that Trump had instructed him not to “beg” the judge.
He went on to say that the criminal trial had been “very hard” for his wife Melania. “She’s fine, but I think it’s very hard for her. She has to read all this crap.”
Trump was found guilty of 34 charges by a jury in New York on Thursday. Shortly after the verdict, Trump expressed his anger and repeated the accusation that the proceedings against him were purely politically motivated and manipulated. Judge Juan Merchan will announce the sentence on July 11. In the worst case scenario, Trump faces a prison sentence of up to four years. However, in the case of Trump, who has no previous convictions, it is more likely that the sentence will be suspended or that he will have to pay a fine.