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Former president Donald Trump was convicted of 34 crimes in New York.
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Now a convicted felon, he is also the presumptive Republican nominee for president in 2024.
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A presidential candidate can still run for office even if he has been convicted of a crime.
Donald Trump is now officially a convicted felon. But can he still become president?
Short answer: Yes, according to the Constitution.
A New York jury convicted the former president of 34 crimes on Thursday, sparking a wave of questions about what this means for his 2024 presidential campaign.
Indeed, under the US Constitution, a presidential candidate can still run for office even if he has been convicted of a crime.
Article II of the Constitution lays out the requirements for any presidential candidate: they must be at least 35 years old, they must have lived in the U.S. for at least 14 years, and they must be a natural-born U.S. citizen.
The Constitution does not bar presidential candidates who have been charged or convicted of crimes.
In fact, the Constitution doesn’t even disqualify presidential candidates who are in prison, legal experts previously told Insider.
Two presidential candidates – Eugene Debs in 1920 and Lyndon LaRouche in 1992 – ran for the Oval Office from behind bars, but neither won. Debs had served time in federal prison for violating the Espionage Act, and LaRouche had been convicted of committing mail fraud and campaign fraud conspiracy.
The jury found Trump guilty of all 34 charges of falsifying business records ahead of the 2016 election to cover up an alleged affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels.
The jury’s decision to convict Trump makes him the first former president in US history to be convicted of a crime. Trump has denied the affair and any wrongdoing, saying he is a “very innocent man” and that he is being targeted by his political enemies.
Read the original article on Business Insider
