The chief issue, it seems to me, will be “house arrest” or “actual jail time,” and if the latter, in what sort of prison, country club or max security, solitary confinement or gen pop, etc. Again, I’ll ask you to reserve your creative fantasies for other threads.
Personally, I think he will be punished by some form of house arrest and ineligibility to serve in federal office, with a lot of bitching and whining over the mildness of the sentence. “How do you punish someone by having him stay in a millionaire’s luxury home? I should have such a punishment” etc. There will be three, maybe four, people satisfied with his sentence, total, on both sides of the political spectrum.
That works for me. Except, any visitors will be accompanied by 3 DOJ lawyers and 3 FBI agents. All of his phone and internet communication VERY closely monitored. Monitored to the point where he will not get to press ‘send’ without it being looked at. There might be a sliver of information in Trumps brain that could hurt the US or others.
Nothing gets in or out of MaL without very close scrutiny. Including his corrupt kids.
A large fine, large enough that he would have to sell most of his properties, would also be fitting. Can a criminal conviction include a punishment of not running for office? I thought that particular penalty had to come from Congress.
How about a death sentence for espionage, which Biden then commutes to life in prison (actual prison, not house arrest)? That way, he’s not a martyr, and the Democrats get to say that we did as much as we could to help him and to try to reconcile America, but he’s still out of the picture.
What would house arrest at mara lardo look like? Would he be restricted to a single house or be able to roam the compound, including playing golf? Either way, it would be about a million times more lenient than it should be, but they would all squawk regardless.
Seditious conspiracy is punishable by up to 20 years. If convicted of that, why should he receive anything but the max – in prison?
Espionage is punishable by death. If it can be proven that any of the classified docs under scrutiny now ended up in foreign hands, to Trump’s benefit, why should he receive anything less than life in prison?
In addition – and apologies if this exceeds the scope of the OP – I’d love to see a felony conviction trigger the financial collapse of his paper empire. Properties sold off, foundations and shell corps liquidated, his name stripped off buildings worldwide. In the US, his name should become synonymous with treason and fraud, and his enablers shunned from public life.
A lengthy term in a non-Club Fed prison, disqualification from public office, a prohibition from posting on social media while in prison or on parole, and restitution and penalties for any tax-evasion convictions and/or Emoluments Clause violations would be just fine with me.
But I’m afraid it might not last long, as the next Republican President will come under enormous pressure to pardon him.
Apart from whatever actual punishment might be meted out, I wish it were possible to sentence him to simply being ignored. Except maybe to be pointed and laughed at occasionally. I’ve always felt that for people like him, being laughed at is intolerable.
Whatever sentence would be given to anyone else convicted of the same crimes. From where I sit, he’s looking at 20-30 years. OK. At his age that’s effectively a life sentence. He should go to a federal minimum security (though not Club Fed), he should be allowed the same privileges and basic human rights as any other prisoner, though he should have extra scrutiny on all communications going in or out.
There’s overwhelming evidence of his guilt. But I suspect he will be called in for an interview, at the end of which it will be made known that some sort of agreement has been made.
I think I finally found what the Guantánamo Bay facility is good for. Damnatio Memoriae is the corollary (very pertinent, rippingtons_fan!). And the thing with the rat in room 101 (or whatever rocks his boat) would be appropiate too.
Prison. Especially if he was selling secrets, and double especially if those were secrets getting intelligence assets killed. I could see an argument for house arrest or a fine if there were a couple of documents that accidentally were withheld. But this is such a blatant disregard for the law, that is has to be prison.
I’m opposed to the death penalty even for somebody as odious as Trump.
