Among all the other questions the former president has asked Donald TrumpAfter the felony conviction, there is still one thorny problem facing planners of July’s GOP national convention: What to do if Trump is in prison when it begins?
Trump’s sentencing date, July 11, is just a few days before the start of the party’s convention in Milwaukee on July 15. He could end up behind bars by the time the convention starts. The chances of that happening are slim to none, but that hasn’t stopped GOP officials from thinking about what to do.
“We’re working on it now,” Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley said on Newsmax in early June.
“We expect that Donald Trump will be in Milwaukee and that he will be able to accept that nomination. And if not, we will make whatever contingency plans we need to do so,” Whatley said on June 4.
Whatley did not say exactly what those contingency plans entailed.
“We plan for him to be here. I think we’ll really move forward with that. Of course, of course, you need to have contingency plans in place,” Whatley told Spectrum News the next day.
Citing sources familiar with the convention’s planning, NBC News reported June 13 Backup plans were made at Trump’s home in Florida and at the convention site in Milwaukee in case Trump cannot be physically present.
However, it is unlikely that such contingency plans will be necessary, as it is almost certain that Trump will still be a free man at the time of the Congress.
While New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan could certainly send Trump to prison immediately following his sentencing hearing — and indeed, the way Trump thwarted both Merchan and the criminal justice system as a whole during his trial — could make that more plausible – Trump will likely be free while his appeal continues, a process that could easily stretch into 2025. Judges are often reluctant to jail convicts during the appeals process unless they pose a flight risk or are considered a danger to others. Trump would not meet those conditions.
Should Merchan want to restrict his movements, he could order Trump to report to prison on a specific date, which would likely be after the convention.
Or he could require Trump to remain under what would effectively be house arrest at one of his residences in New York City, New Jersey or Florida. On a more limited basis, Trump’s travel could be curtailed, with Trump having to give notice or seek permission to travel outside a designated area.
There was no immediate response to a request for comment from the Trump campaign.
Bob Shrum, a longtime Democratic consultant, said Trump is unlikely to serve his sentence immediately. “I think [Merchan] “I would say ‘report in a week, report in 10 days’ if there was a jail sentence,” he said.
Larry Sabatodirector of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia and editor of the Sabato political newsletter Crystal Ball, said he thought it was unlikely Trump would be thrown in jail but that it was smart to plan for whatever outcome.
“Somehow, Trump’s lawyers will likely be able to get him to the convention for a live performance. Making Trump into a martyr — even more than he already is — is not in the court’s best interest,” Sabato said in an email.
But if he were in prison, Sabato said he could be there via video link. However, it is unclear how that would work.
“If Trump is incarcerated, I think arrangements will be made for him to broadcast from a room decorated with flags and pennants somewhere in the prison,” he said. “’Live, from Riker’s Island, the Republican National Convention starring Inmate No. 384756!”
“Are you accepting your party’s nomination from a prison cell? Or maybe he would be sentenced to house arrest, so accept it from Mar-a-Lago? But I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Shrum said.
Presidential candidates have sometimes checked in en route to the convention to accept their party’s nomination. Similarly, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 Democratic Convention included a virtual roll call of the 50 states, with each state submitting a 30-second video during the event.
The wild card is how the imprisonment of Trump, who calls himself a “political prisoner” after his conviction, would play out politically.
Republicans have been quick to point to the growing small donations to his campaign as evidence that the trial and conviction have generated more support for Trump than it cost him, because voters were angry about Trump’s perceived mistreatment.
A Economist/YouGov poll in early Juneshortly after his conviction, gave some support to that idea. It found that 39% of respondents said he had been treated more harshly than other people by the justice system. But almost as many, 34%, said he had been treated more leniently.
Also, a whopping 92% of respondents said the ruling had not made them reconsider who they would vote for in November, compared to 8% who said it had.
Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) said a captured Trump would be all the more confident of winning.
“If President Trump cannot physically attend the convention in Milwaukee because they continue this sham trial, the Democratic Party will elect Donald J. Trump as the 47th president,” he told HuffPost.
“What the Democrats don’t seem to realize is that on the road to Damascus they ripped the scales off Saul’s eyes and people are thinking, ‘Holy crap, I don’t want to live in a country where this can happen.’”
Sabato said the belief that Trump being excluded from his own party’s convention benefits him may be misplaced.
“I know what we all usually say – this will enrage Trump’s base and help him – but isn’t this technique being used?” he asked.
“A stunt like this, keeping poor Donald from his own party convention, appeals to the usual suspects, but it also underlines to voters outside the Trump cult how embarrassing and impractical a Trump presidency could prove to be .”
The situation is not entirely unprecedented, however. Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist Party of America’s nominee for the White House in 1920, was behind bars in a federal prison in Atlanta for speaking out against U.S. entry into World War I.
For Debs – or like him called himself “Convict No.” in the 1920 campaign. 9653” — historians say it was a mixed bag.
A video of Debs telling him about his nomination circulated around the country, according to The Associated Press, and he campaigned by making a weekly statement to one of the wire services.
Debs received almost 1 million votes in the 1920 presidential election. Although the Socialist Party’s share of the vote fell from a peak of 6% in the 1912 election to around 3%, it was the second-best electoral performance in the party’s history and the best performance by a third-party candidate until John B. Anderson in 1980.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), who headed the Democratic National Committee during the 2012 and 2016 conventions, said Trump’s physical presence likely would not be necessary to accept the nomination.
And she had one piece of advice for Republicans: “Don’t nominate anyone who could potentially go to jail.”
