Legal experts warn that even one slip in former President Donald Trump’s defense against charges of mishandling classified material could send him to jail for the rest of his life.
When Breitbart did the math of the 37 counts against Trump, assuming the maximum for each count, Trump could face a sentence of up to 400 years in prison.
The site noted that two of the allegations against Trump carry a maximum of five years each; four carry maximum sentences of 20 years each, and 31 counts carry a maximum sentence of 10 years each.
Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina said locking up Trump forever was the plan all along, according to Fox News.
“Joe Biden wants to give Donald Trump a death sentence for documents,” Mace said.
“He’s facing hundreds of years for mishandling documents, and they want him to die in jail. And yet Hillary Clinton’s standing free today,” she said.
Biden wants to give Trump a ‘death sentence’ over classified documents: Rep. Nancy Mace https://t.co/tx1dbbZQdS via @YahooNews
— ɐɹnɯɐʞɐN¯ıɾnʎSㄣ⇂ގ6⇂ (@alicetiptree) June 12, 2023
Although Trump has put a bold front on his predicament by saying he would not abandon his campaign even if convicted, legal scholar Jonathan Turley said Trump is in a tight spot.
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“The problem is that he’s got to run the table. He’s 76 years old. All the government has to do is stick the landing on one count and he could have a terminal sentence,” Turley told Fox News.
“You’re talking about crimes that have a 10 or 20-year period as a maximum. The evidence here is quite strong and we haven’t heard their other side. Generally, these indictments are a lot stronger on the day they’re issued than the next day,” Turley said.
Turley said the defense “may be able to knock down some of these issues, but some of this evidence is coming from his former counsel. And these are very damaging statements made against him. It may be hard to move those.”
“The fact is both things may be true. Yes, the Department of Justice may have been out to get him, but he made it easy. I mean, if you look at what is being described in this indictment, confronted with someone that he felt was trying to get him, he couldn’t have made it more easy for them to do so,” Turley said.
In a column on his website, Turley said the stakes are high for both sides.
“The Justice Department has done tremendous damage to itself — and, potentially, to this case — due to its prior history with Trump. FBI and Justice officials have shown open bias against him and have treated him differently than figures like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,” Turley wrote.
But Truly did not minimize the stakes for Trump.
“Trump is now facing the most serious criminal charges in his career. If successful and Trump is not pardoned by himself or one of his Republican competitors (or even by a magnanimous Joe Biden), it could be a lethal threat. At 76 years old, Trump would be unlikely to survive a prison stint even without the imposition of the maximum sentences allowed under these charges,” Turley wrote.
Turley noted in another column posted on his website that although the 2024 presidential election is 17 months away, the case might well not go to trial until after the voting, which means, as Turley wrote, “the ultimate judgment in the case will be the millions of jurors in the coming election.”
