Could Trump Go to Prison? If He Does, the Secret Service Goes, Too

breakfastmtn@lemmy.ca to News@lemmy.world – 350 points – 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.

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.

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 ;-)

Would you believe trump still has any important secrets he hasn't blabbed yet?

From what I remember the secret service can opt to stop protecting him.

Nope.

Under current United States federal law, all former presidents are entitled to lifetime protection from the Secret Service. Barring an act of Congress or a presidential executive order, the Secret Service is bound by law to protect former presidents for life. There aren't any exceptions listed in the statute governing the protection of former presidents. Source

Barring an act of Congress or a presidential executive order

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.

Trump will not go to a normal prison / gen pop, etc. Toss that thought from your mind.

Trump will die in a shitty military barracks on a shitty military base where he has no internet connection, access to him can be easily controlled & he can't blab state secrets.

There is already a precedent here with Nixon's lawyer.

Other than your first sentence, this is pure fantasy. He'll never go far enough to trigger actual accountability from those that matter...

I remember when that line was "they'll never indict an ex-President".

Trump is going to die in Federal custody if he doesn't win re-election.

There is not a single example of the DoJ spending this amount of money & manpower to say "oh well".

I hope you're right. Not because I care that much about Trump, but because laws matter. You can't expect people to follow them when one person can brazenly flout them with zero consequences...

I feel like losing the protection of the secret service should be part of being tried and convicted of a crime if you are the president.

The secret service will be there to prevent other inmates from beating national secrets out of him.

Trump? Keep secrets?

Fair point, but the rules are not specifically for Trump, they're for any US ex president.

Alright, they're there to prevent him just blurting them out with no prompting whatsoever.

I think you need the Sedation Service for that.

Is anything that man had access to even a "secret" anymore?

Shit all they have to do is tell him the Democrats said XYZ and he'd tell them why they're wrong.

Trump would likely be segregated from other prisoners (aka solitary confinement) for his own safety & the safety of the guards.

The problem is it makes them an easy target, especially in the future when a conservative court convicts a liberal president over jaywalking or some stupid shit. Slippery slope, I guess is what I'm saying

I mean, it's pretty easy to limit it to felonies.

They know too much to be left without protection.

It's about our safety at that point.

Maybe they let things go down as long as national security isn't at risk?

Edit: getting tired of edits and misspellings introduced to my posts after ive posted them.

Most would but Trump probably cant remember any secrets anyway.

yeah but the principle of the thing, whatever it was, says you shouldn't do that. Things are so bad right now its hard to give a shit.

So one thing I don't fully understand is this: the secret service is required by law to protect the former president, but...is there anything that actually requires the state of New York to accommodate the secret service in doing so?

In theory, couldn't the state of New York just actually throw Trump in prison, no special privileges, and also no special accommodations for the secret service?

I would LOVE to see that scenario. Trump goes to prison as he deserves and gets his special accommodations all revoked either by the court or the prison or whatever.

Being immune to repercussions of your crimes because you are in a certain position is a very bad thing.

I'm pretty sure the Supremacy Clause would make it a very bad time for whoever is unconstitutionally trying to block federal agents from protecting the criminal-in-chief.

The fact that this is where American is at is disgraceful.

This traitor needs the maximum penalty and his supporters need to undergo some sort of education on Russian propoganda.

"I don't think he knows about second education on Russian propaganda, Pippin."

Even if convicted he'll get house arrest. I doubt he will ever see a club Fed from the inside, let alone a supermax.

Maybe a military prison?

For the sake of the secret service people, I hope he gets the very first president solitary wing named after him

Exactly. The logistics of housing a president in a prison are too hard. It's already set up for his residence.

It will be worse for him if he's locked up in Trump Tower or Mar-A-Lago. People who were locked up in Alcatraz said the worst part was hearing everyone in the city have fun and go on in their lives. It would literally be torture for someone who has never known adversity.

Yeah, being limited and told where you cannot go ain't no picnic. People might wish him to wear an orange jumpsuit and be placed in genpop, but that won't happen.

Secret service will end up doubling as prison guards automatically. I just wonder if house arrest will also limit visits and communication.

But this trial probably will not lead to prison though.

I was reading somewhere that congress has introduced legislation barring the secret service from protecting the president once the president is convicted. But good luck getting that passed.

Ex presidents get protection as much because they are a security risk as for their own safety.

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This one is something that would be opposed only because of the current situation. Once the tables turned, the opposing party would be all over it.

If an ex-president is convicted, I don't care which side of the political spectrum he or she was.

That's cuz you're not a conservative. Don't expect them to see it the same way.

Saves taxpayer dollars and opens a lucrative subcontractor job for the Aryan Brotherhood. His base will love it, especially later in the summer

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Kind of like Egyptian kings getting buried with their servants.

Never understood keeping secret service protection after they are no longer in power? As anyone tried to kill a former president?

Every president in or out of office has information of national security that is in our best interests to protect. Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the password to launch nukes 1234 for like 60 years. They could've kidnapped like 5 ex-presidents and been able to launch nukes from the info obtained even if common logic says it should be obsolete.

Probably not but it's also probably because they still have the secret service.

There was movie with Jame Gardner and Jack Lemon they were both ex presidents. James character asked that question and then said something about how they don't give shit when you no longer president. Great movie wish it could end for Trump way did in that film.

Maybe they'll get lucky and his cameras will go off for a while when he's on "constant suicide watch."

I hope that this happens and every single SS agent assigned to this post quits. Who would take a job to be in jail protecting a farting lunatic? Welcome to the SS Johnson, your entire life will be spent behind bars!

ACAB, and the Secret Service is full of cops. They like Trump. That's very clear from their internal memos about the Oath Keepers prior to Jan 6:

https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-investigations/emails-reveal-secret-service-contacts-with-oath-keepers/

If Trump tried to plan a prison break right in front of them, they would probably pretend they heard nothing.

I know they do, but nobody wants to spend their life guarding anyone in prison their whole life, no matter how much they love him, at some point they will want something else lol

The SS assigned to Trump fight for the job. They love him.

Love to see them spend life in prison being his canasta partner then

It's unsatisfying to say, but house arrest would make the most sense for the secret service.

But not for the judge.

One of the reasons he's being found in contempt is for making threatening comments on social media. Jail stops that behavior. House arrest does not.

Why not just build a small presidential prison?

I'm imagining the Magneto plastic prison, but in the middle of the Capitol building rotunda.

Just in case any future presidents need it. /s

Even then, I think that they'd have to protect him.

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Cool, take them all to a black site in one of those shithole countries he rants about. Guantanamo Bay still open?

I would love to be the USSS person in charge of logistics for this.

I don’t know why. It would be like a strategy/sim game.

All the other agents have different attributes, and the conditions at the prison change during the day.

I’ve already put too much thought into it and I have no idea why I find it interesting.

yeah Syndicate!

Dumb VIPs walking into range of my agent with maxed out red-bar and a gauss gun .

The Persuadertron was fun. You could scoop up the whole level on some of them, which my poor old Amiga really struggled with.

legions of brainwashed drones roaming around blasting off assault rifles randomly in an expansion called american revolt. . . did this get back on-topic?

yeah persuedertron was pretty much my plan A on most levels - at least when i replayed it a few years ago on a decent computer. A nice layer of human shields.

I was hoping this was about the Secret Service deleting insurrection related text messages, but sadly not.

Other countries have jailed their leaders. If you’re a felon and get jailed as a former President I figure you should lose everything, SS protection, any pension and any benefits are gone too. Why should a jailed president get those things?

I don’t like it any more than you do. But a former president is still a very significant national security concern. Assassination is quite honestly the most minor concern there is for a former president. Extortion, blackmail, sabotage, espionage, all these things (and more) become a viable threat once USSS protection is gone. There’s a reason why we protect our former POTUS.

Guantanamo bay was practically designed for this scenario. Just dump his ass there and forget about him.

The answer to questions in headlines is damn near always 'no.'

Theyre dumb enough to keep him in eye shot, let em go

In the extraordinarily unlikely scenario this Cheeto ever sees a day in prison, it sure as fuck won't be a normal prison. It will be a white collar situation and honestly he would probably be the only person there. Could you imagine the fucking shit storm putting him in gen pop??

Could you imagine the fucking shit storm putting him in gen pop??

He'd be too hard to protect in gen pop. The most realistic way to put Trump in prison is to make the entire SHU into a "presidential suite" for Trump and his security detail. Everything else goes through regular prison security as normal, anything or anyone entering or leaving the SHU goes through SS in addition.

Probably cheaper for the state of New York to just do house arrest with ankle bracelet. How about a halfway house?

And this is why Trump will never see the inside of a jail cell. The logistics are completely unprecedented and unworkable. At most he'll get house arrest, and personally, I doubt even that.

That's not the reason why. It would be trivially easy to remove all his privileges if he were convicted of a crime. The reason is because the system is corrupt.

He will never go to prison

I mean he might be locked up in some way, technically.

But yeah, he'll never go to normal people prison.