Absolutely. No judge can force a former president into a situation that they deem unsafe. But as mentioned above, it won’t even come close to that. This will be a coordinated effort between the Bureau of Prisons and the Secret Service.
Potentially, Congress could change the Protection Act (they’ve changed it twice in the past 30 years or so), to say that convicted felons are not entitled to Secret Service protection. But I seriously doubt that will happen before his incarceration, so we’re back to the original problem.
Yes, this, but I don’t see the SS having “veto” power over the Bureau of Prisons. They’re both part of the Executive, under different Cabinet Secretaries, so it’d ultimately be decided by the President.
I’m pretty sure the Bureau doesn’t go and take him into custody. It would be US Marshals, or wherever the judge designates in the court. The Bureau only takes over once he’s inside the prison walls, but the Secret Service would still accompany him at all times (or safely monitor him in a manner they deem fit).
Potentially, we can have a showdown between US Marshals and the Secret Service refusing the Marshals taking him into custody, because they don’t feel the prison setup is safe. Realistically, all of this will be worked out in advance to the satisfaction of both sides. My estimate is that the bureau will initiate construction/retrofit details, and the Secret Service will sign off (or not) at each stage of the discussion, until they have a solution.
And of course the judge will be aware of this progress, and timing.
Partly because the people he incited to storm the Capitol have received multi-year sentences, partly because of the “slap on the wrist” message this sends to the American public for someone convicted of a felony (conspiracy to defraud the country with the goal of overturning a presidential election, to name but one), and partly because this judge has said he’s not getting special treatment. Which he absolutely should not, since right now he’s a criminal defendant. Not “former president criminal defendant”.
My guess is that the Secret Service would just deputize the prison staff (who are already tasked with ensuring the safety of their charges) and call it good.
Can’t happen. A, the Secret Service doesn’t ‘deputize’ people. B, they are sworn to protect the physical body of the president, current and former. Prison staff is nowhere near their level of protection.
“Under the direction of the Secretary of Homeland Security, the United States Secret Service is authorized to protect former Presidents and their spouses for their lifetimes…”
So, the Secretary of Homeland Security could simply terminate Trump’s Secret Service protection.
At the moment, I believe that would be Alejandro Mayorkas. I can’t think of a single reason that he would have an axe to grind.
Nossir. Not a one.
Also …
The job of Trump’s Secret Service protection detail is to protect him from the collective us.
The purpose of incarcerating him would be to protect the collective us from him.
Those two things are not mutually exclusive. If they want to, they’ll figure it out. I think we’ve all heard Elba offered as a possibility.
The last 30-odd posts in this thread are discussing prison options for Trump and are far off topic for the subject of this thread, which is the investigation and trial for Trump’s alleged participation in the January 6th insurrection. The trial must occur before any discussion of incarceration can properly take place. There are other threads to discuss Trump’s incarceration. Please take further discussion on this issue to those threads. They don’t belong in this one.
Certainly not the only concern, but possibly the main concern. It’s pretty likely that at a Biden inauguration the vast majority of the crowd will be people who voted for him. Where else could a crazed Trump supporter shoot at random and be pretty sure to hit a number of libtards who had the effrontery to not vote for the anointed one?
In other words, it’s not the size of the crowd that would make the inauguration a target, but the makeup of the crowd.
Please heed the mod note that just preceded both your posts. I understand this discussion arose organically, but it is rapidly becoming a hijack to the narrow topic of discussion for this thread. Please take further discussion about the next inauguration and possible outcomes relating to that to another thread.
Perhaps I missed something up-thread but your list of assumptions does not include “Trump loses the election”. I’m cautiously optimistic that this will the case, especially if he was actually convicted but we are talking about the American electorate here. Or, in your scenario. doesn’t it matter who wins the election? If he is convicted, wins the election and is inaugurated, things will get very ugly.
In the short term, no it doesn’t, because this scenario assumes that the trial starts before the election, in which case it concludes before the inauguration. During all of that time, he is of course still a private citizen.
If he were in fact inaugurated , then we get into the extremely sticky issue of “Can a president pardon himself?”
, then we get into the extremely sticky issue of “Can a president pardon himself?”