Could Trump Go to Prison? If He Does, the Secret Service Goes, Too
nytimes.com
The U.S. Secret Service is in the business of protecting the president, whether he’s inside the Oval Office or visiting a foreign war zone.
But protecting a former president in prison? The prospect is unprecedented. That would be the challenge if Donald J. Trump — whom the agency is required by law to protect around the clock — is convicted at his criminal trial in Manhattan and sentenced to serve time.
Even before the trial’s opening statements, the Secret Service was in some measure planning for the extraordinary possibility of a former president behind bars. Prosecutors had asked the judge in the case to remind Mr. Trump that attacks on witnesses and jurors could land him in jail even before a verdict is rendered.
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I would hope that being found guilty of treason would revoke any duty to protect them by the secret service...
Unfortunately, of all the charges he's facing, treason is not one of them.
Yet?
Yet. The electors scheme that dumps directly participated in to conspire with election officials to forge and mail in false elector documents is still undergoing investigation and, with new updates every month from Republicans giving information to the authorities.
This is the one that I thought would be the most likely of causing him serious legal trouble, but this happened across seven states with an unknown number but around a dozen election officials that agreed to forge documents at Trump's and his team's request and then send in the documents to trick the national archives and pence into falsely certifying Trump as the president-elect in the 2020 election.
It's batshit insane, and he was directly involved, and multiple people can corroborate that. The doj the FBI, some of those Republican collaborators are already working with them, I check in every couple weeks just to see what the latest news is.
The investigations and prosecutions by individual states and government agencies are ongoing, so prosecution of trump is still very much on the table, but only when all of the circumstances and information available has been organized and arrayed, and all of the smaller fish have been targeted and dealt with first.
As of March 2024, the Arizona AG is said that they're nearing the end of their investigation.
But that's one state of seven. And there's also the FBI and the doj investigating this, so there's a lot going on.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_fake_electors_plot
If he was going to face treason charges, they would have brought it as part of the January 6 trial.
Those charges are:
https://www.npr.org/2023/08/01/1191493880/trump-january-6-charges-indictment-counts
one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States applies to Trump's repeated and widespread efforts to spread false claims about the November 2020 election while knowing they were not true and for allegedly attempting to illegally discount legitimate votes all with the goal of overturning the 2020 election, prosecutors claim in the indictment.
one count of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding was brought due to the alleged organized planning by Trump and his allies to disrupt the electoral vote's certification in January 2021.
one count of obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding is tied to Trump and his co-conspirators' alleged efforts after the November 2020 election until Jan. 7, 2021, to block the official certification proceeding in Congress.
one count of conspiracy against rights refers to Trump and his co-conspirators alleged attempts to "oppress, threaten and intimidate" people in their right to vote in an election.
I’m surprised they didn’t consider selling classified submarine plans to be treason, as part of the classified documents case.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/11/politics/trump-employee-5-classified-documents-mar-a-lago/index.html
Semantically, according to US Legal Code you can't commit treason without being at war, and war has not been properly defined by the federal government.
https://apnews.com/article/arizona-fake-electors-charges-2020-election-9da5a7e58814ed55ceea1ca55401af85
And Arizona has begun active prosecutions.
Woop wooop.
Not against Trump himself, unfortunately, but as I mentioned everything's still moving forward so just got to wait and see how everything is prosecuted.
Is it only about protecting him or also avoiding him discussing unwanted topics with other inmates in that case? He’s still the recipient of privileged information…
It's exactly this. It's protection for him is a side effect of protecting the country. While these two things will generally overlap, if they ever diverge...
Yeah you guys still execute traitors right ? That would be quite the signal xD
Apparently only if they are brown or Jewish.
With adequate lighting he certainly looks orange enough verging on brownish ;-)
Nope, white people can keep him.
Would you believe trump still has any important secrets he hasn't blabbed yet?
Fair point…
From what I remember the secret service can opt to stop protecting him.
Nope.
Could definitely imagine Congress and/or Biden doing that to make sure that Secret Service agents aren't sent to prison for crimes they didn't commit..
They wouldn't be condemned to prison, they would work in a prison. The logistics would have to be worked out but I guess they would work alongside the prison guards and have agents constantly around prisoner Orange. It would suck for them but they would be normal rotations/breaks and such.
They can't opt out, but HE can.
We just need to convince him that they're spying for the libs or some shit.
Surely they will build him his own prison or convert his house into a prison.
Like I get it if he needs to go to jail than so be it. But let's be real, he can't actually go to prison.