Some progressives are extremely angry at Donald Trump and do believe he deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison. If you go through other Politics & Elections threads here, you will see it.
If you go to conservative internet forums, you will find posters (and at least one member of congress,
Marjorie Taylor Greene) who think that’s too good for Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, and call for them to be executed.
Maybe the 100 years was a progressive scare tactic, or maybe a conservative scare tactic, or maybe both. But that number is implausible. You can check the sentencing guidelines here.
It may be the 100 years comes from thinking the penalties for the different charges would run consecutively. But accoriding to what I read, consecutive sentences would be for “classic spies”, and I’ve seen nothing close to proof of that. Trump did ask Russia for help getting electioneering dirt, but I haven’t heard evidence he gave help back by sneaking off to a dead drop. So Smith would ask for concurrent sentences.
I’m for shorter prison sentences. I’m not crazy about the fact that the Espionage Act covers, well, non-espionage. I’m not even sure that prison is ever a good sanction for white collar criminals, although I could see putting them in jail on weekends (assuming they work during the week). Quickly firing people who violate security rules probably deters as well as the threat of an uncertain prison term starting years in the future. But you know what? Trump signed a law increasing prison time for the type of offenses he allegedly committed. Just one more way he’s part of the problem.