Can Trump go to jail if he loses?
Donald Trump is a survivor. He has survived six bankruptcies, two divorces, 26 allegations of sexual harassment and more than 4,000 court cases. It is not clear, however, that he can win the long dozen open cases against him, both civil and criminal, for tax fraud, bank fraud and obstruction of justice, in addition to at least one attempted rape in the middle of the nineties.
While he is in the White House, no one can touch him, but as soon as he ceases to be president, he must appear in court. You will have the possibility to forgive yourself. There is no precedent for a president forgiving himself, and therefore there is no jurisprudence either. The president can forgive himself for federal crimes he has committed but not for state crimes. Self-forgiveness, therefore, will not stop the Manhattan prosecutor, Cyrus Vance Jr., from investigating his tax and corporate network in New York.
Trump faces a dozen lawsuits including tax and bank fraud, sexual harassment and obstruction of justice
Whether or not he stays in power, Trump will have to face in the next four years the payment of debts valued at hundreds of millions of dollars. The New York Times estimates that credits worth 300 million dollars that it has guaranteed will expire. The Financial Times, for its part, puts the debt of its real estate businesses at $ 900 million, which will expire in the next four years. The Treasury also claims a debt of another hundred million dollars from a tax deduction that, apparently, did not correspond to him.
Forbes values his fortune at $ 2.5 billion, seemingly enough to pay off his debts. The Trump Corporation's businesses, however, have been highly vulnerable to the pandemic. Hotels, golf courses and office buildings are not renting the same as before. The banks, moreover, have not trusted him for years. The Deutsche Bank is the only one that continues to lend you money and it may not for long if the problems with justice pile up.
Win or lose, Trump will face debt worth hundreds of millions of dollars over the next four years
Of all the open court cases, the ones he is most concerned about are those handled by Cyrus Vance Jr. in Manhattan and Letitia Jones, the New York State Attorney General. Not only because she cannot shield herself from them with a pardon but because they can lead her to ruin, as well as to jail.
The prosecution suspects that he has committed bank fraud by hiding the true state of his business when applying for loans and insurance. As The New York Times has revealed, Trump has used highly abusive accounting practices to stop paying taxes or pay as little as possible. The Trump Corporation is suspected of keeping two parallel accounts. One exaggerates losses to minimize taxes and another exaggerates gains to obtain low-cost credit and insurance.
Official documents of the Trump Corporation, for example, assure that the vineyards it owns in Virginia occupy 2,000 acres, when they only occupy 1,200, that the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in New York has 68 floors when it has 58, or that it has 55 building plots on a Southern California golf course when he's only 31.
Michael Cohen, his former lawyer in prison today, collaborates with the New York prosecutor's office
Michael Cohen, his former attorney for everything, is the source of much of the information the Manhattan prosecutor's office has gathered. Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to various tax offenses, as well as lying to Congress, and was sentenced to three years in prison. Now he is convinced that "Trump will be the first president to go directly from the White House to jail."
Cohen was in the kitchen from much of his boss's supposedly fraudulent operations. It was he, for example, who paid $ 130,000 to Stormy Daniels, the porn actress who was Trump's lover. He did so on Trump's orders, through an intermediary company, during the 2016 campaign. His silence helped Trump win the election. Cohen camouflaged the payment as "legal expenses" but the prosecution believes there is basis to prosecute Trump for violating electoral financing laws. Daniels' silence in exchange for $ 130,000 would be an illegal contribution to the campaign. The law places a limit of 2,700 on the donation that Daniels could have made.
Some of the crimes Trump faces could be punished with a fine. However, meeting in a case that also includes tax fraud can carry prison sentences.
The US tax system offers many alternatives to big businessmen, especially if they are real estate developers like Trump, to avoid paying taxes. His father taught him how to pass corporate funds on to his sons without having to pay gift tax. The Trump Corporation, for example, has paid $ 747,622 consulting for two hotel projects in Hawaii and Vancouver, and this is exactly the amount that a consulting firm co-owned by Ivanka Trump has brought in. It is illegal in the United States to charge for consulting work for the company you work for, as would be the case.
Trump owns a recreational farm in Westchester County, New York, which, however, is registered as a business. There is little indication that any business will be carried from there, but Trump deducts the cost of its maintenance as if it were a business investment and, on the rebound, also reduces the property tax.
These are some of the cases that prosecutors Vance and Jones are investigating. Trump has fought in several courts not to have to reveal the tax information of the Corporation that bears his name and that today his children run, although he maintains the property. He denounces that these and other investigations against him are part of "a witch hunt unprecedented in the history of the United States."
Proving these crimes beyond a reasonable doubt will not be easy. Trump hardly writes anything in his own handwriting. He does not send e-mails or text messages and, according to Cohen, does not give direct orders but rather "suggests" results and leaves it up to his subordinates how to achieve them.
Trump stopped the Russiagate investigation as he could and could be charged with obstruction of justice
The president could also be prosecuted for obstruction of justice by hindering special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. Mueller acknowledged that it was impossible to bring charges against him while he is president, but gave understand that there will be a sufficient basis to do so when it ceases to be. His research, as he himself put it, had managed to "preserve the evidence" for when that time comes.
This case should be started by Joe Biden if he's president. There are no precedents here either. For a president to use the Justice Department to investigate his predecessor would be more typical of a banana republic than of a mature democracy.
Gerald Ford, for example, pardoned Richard Nixon for the Watergate case. This clemency prevented him from winning the 1976 election against Jimmy Carter. The Washington establishment, however, came to recognize that by pardoning Nixon it had preserved, to the extent possible, the integrity of the presidency.
Trump cannot forgive himself of alleged crimes committed in New York state
Biden could demonstrate the same sense of status. A case against Trump over Russiagate would also revitalize his electoral base. Kamala Harris, a vice presidential candidate, has said, however, that Trump should be prosecuted and that failure to do so would further weaken American democracy.
A court case against Trump from New York, where the Trump Corporation has its headquarters, would not have the tinge of a political process that one promoted by Biden from the White House would. Another reason for Biden to choose to turn the page and shift the responsibility of trying Trump to New York prosecutors.
Yet it is highly unlikely that Donald Trump will end up in a Rikers Island prison cell. First because Trump will forgive himself, something Nixon weighed but did not do out of the shame of being judge and party. Second, because the investigations conducted by prosecutors Vance and Jones are very complex and the defendant may drag out the process for a long time. Third, because in a Biden administration the sense of state may prevail. And fourth because, as a last resort, Trump, as he has already hinted at a rally, may seek refuge abroad.
This would also be a departure from the banana republic, but the truth is that Trump can take his business from anywhere in the world and has always dreamed of building a tower that bears his name in Moscow.
The president has hinted at a rally that he might go into exile
Without banks to lend him money, his career as a real estate developer in the United States seems over.
His immediate future, in case he is not re-elected, will be in Florida, where he has established his residence. He could start up the Trump News Network, the television network he speculated with before being elected. He believes that there is space and a lot of business with a television proposal even more conservative than that of Fox News.
You will also be able to write your memoirs, enter the speech circuit and, above all, prepare for the 2024 campaign. This could be your great challenge. Everyone who knows him agrees that Trump will not disappear. Lawrence Douglas, professor of law at Amherst College, author of the book Will he go? (Will he go?) Where he proposes Trump's departure from the White House, he has declared to The New Yorker that "this guy is not going to dedicate himself to painting his feet in the bathtub", as George W. Bush has done.
