Among all the other issues raised by the former president donald trumpIn the wake of Trump’s criminal conviction, there’s a thorny question still facing planners for July’s GOP national convention: What to do if Trump is in prison when it begins?
Trump’s sentencing date, July 11, is just days before the start of the party’s convention in Milwaukee on July 15. The chances of this happening are slim, but that hasn’t stopped Republican Party representatives from reflecting on what to do.
“We’re working on it now,” said Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley. on Newsmax in early June.
“We hope Donald Trump is in Milwaukee and can accept this nomination. And if not, we will make whatever contingency plan is necessary for that,” Whatley said on June 4.
Exactly what those contingency plans would include, Whatley did not say.
“We are planning for him to be here. I think that’s where we’re really going to move forward. Of course you need to have contingency plans in place,” Whatley said. told Spectrum News the next day.
Citing sources familiar with convention planning, NBC News reported on June 13 backup plans were being made at Trump’s home in Florida and at the convention site in Milwaukee if Trump cannot be physically present.
However, these contingency plans are unlikely to be necessary, given the virtual certainty that Trump will still be a free man by the time of the convention.
While New York County Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan could certainly send Trump to prison immediately after his sentencing hearing – and indeed, the way Trump during his trial antagonized Merchan and the criminal justice system as a whole might make this more plausible — Trump will likely be free while his appeals play out, a process that could easily stretch into 2025. Judges are often reluctant to hold convicts during the appeals process unless they pose a flight risk or are considered a danger to others. Trump would not meet these conditions.
If Merchan wanted to limit his movements, he could order Trump to “self-report” for arrest on a specific date, which would likely be after the convention.
Or he could demand that Trump maintain what would essentially be house arrest at one of his residences in New York, New Jersey or Florida. On a more limited basis, Trump’s travel could be curtailed, with Trump having to give notice or request permission to travel outside a designated area.
A request for comment from the Trump campaign was not immediately returned.
Bob Shrum, a longtime Democratic consultant, said Trump is unlikely to begin serving his sentence immediately. “I think [Merchan] I would say ‘report in a week, report in 10 days’ if there was a prison sentence,” he said.
Larry Sabatodirector of the University of Virginia Center for Politics and editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball political bulletin, said he thought it was unlikely that Trump would be arrested, but it was smart to plan for any outcome.
“One way or another, Trump’s lawyers will likely be able to get him to the convention for a live appearance. Making Trump a martyr – even more so than he already is – is not in the court’s best interest,” Sabato said in an email.
But if he were in the clink, Sabato said he could attend via videoconference, although it’s unclear how that would work.
“If Trump is incarcerated, my guess is that arrangements would be made for him to broadcast from a room decorated with flags and bunting somewhere in prison,” he said. ”’Live from Riker’s Island, the Republican National Convention starring Prisoner #384756!’”
“Do you accept your party’s nomination of a detention room in a prison? Or maybe he would be sentenced to house arrest, so take it from Mar-a-Lago? But I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Shrum said.
In the past, presidential candidates sometimes checked in on the road on their way to the convention to accept their party’s nomination. Similarly, the 2020 Democratic convention, during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, included a virtual 50-state roll call in which each state submitted a 30-second video to air during the event.
The unpredictable thing is how imprisoned Trump, who stated that he is a “political prisoner” after his conviction, it would have a political impact.
Republicans were quick to point out increasing small dollar donations to your campaign as evidence that the trial and conviction generated more support for Trump than it cost him, as voters were upset by Trump’s alleged mistreatment.
One Economist/YouGov survey carried out in early June, shortly after his conviction, gave some support to this idea. The study found that 39% of respondents said they were treated more harshly than other people by the justice system. But almost as many, 34%, said he was treated more leniently.
It also found that 92% of respondents said the verdict did not cause them to reconsider who they would vote for in November, compared to 8% who said it did.
Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) said an imprisoned Trump would be even more certain to win.
“If President Trump cannot physically attend the convention in Milwaukee because they are following this sham trial, the Democratic Party will elect Donald J. Trump as the 47th president,” he told HuffPost.
“What the Democrats didn’t seem to realize is that they actually ripped the scales out of Saul’s eyes on the road to Damascus and people say, ‘Gee, I don’t want to live in a country where that could happen.'”
Sabato said the belief that Trump was removed from his own party’s convention, benefiting him, may be mistaken.
“I know what we all say – this will anger Trump’s base and help him – but isn’t this technique exhausted?” he asked.
“A stunt like this, with poor Donald away from his own convention, appeals to the usual suspects, but it also underscores for non-Trump voters just how embarrassing and unworkable a Trump presidency could end up being.”
The situation is not completely unprecedented, however. Eugene V. Debs, the Socialist Party of America’s candidate for the White House in 1920, was behind bars in an Atlanta federal prison for speaking out against U.S. participation in World War I.
For Debs – or like him called himself in the 1920 campaign“Convict No. 9,653” – it was a mix, according to historians.
A film clip of Debs being informed about her appointment circulated throughout the country, according to the Associated Press, and he campaigned by giving a weekly extract for one of the news agencies.
Debs received nearly 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 election result in the party’s history and the best result by a third-party candidate until John B. Anderson in 1980.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Florida), who served as head of the Democratic National Committee during the 2012 and 2016 conventions, said Trump’s physical presence would likely not be necessary to accept the nomination.
And she had one piece of advice for Republicans: “Don’t nominate someone who could potentially go to jail.”
