Donald Trump faces criminal charges: Can he go to jail, run for president?

Meanwhile, Manhattan’s District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the charges against Trump, said in a statement, “During the election, Trump and others employed a “catch and kill” scheme to identify, purchase, and bury negative information about him and boost his electoral prospects. Trump then went to great lengths to hide this conduct, causing dozens of false entries in business records to conceal criminal activity, including attempts to violate state and federal election laws.”

The former president’s arraignment in the court has come just days after a grand jury indicted him in the hush money payments case. He has become the first American president to face a criminal charge and will reportedly fight them in court and in public.

Will Trump go to prison?

It remains unclear. Currently, Trump is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records under Article 175 of the New York Penal Law. If convicted, he would face up to four years in prison for each count (a total of 136 years), which he might have to serve one after the other. However, the charge doesn’t carry a mandatory jail time, The Washington Post said in a report.

It further added, “Even if convicted on all counts, Trump would not necessarily face jail time. As a first-time offender with no criminal record, legal experts say, it is uncertain whether the former president and 2024 White House candidate would be sentenced to prison if convicted.”

Can Trump still run for President in 2024?

Yes, certainly. Trump’s indictment and even conviction in the hush money payment case can’t stop him from running for the presidency next year. Experts have said that the American Constitution doesn’t mention anything to prevent him from running as it asks for only three requirements of candidates: a natural-born citizen, at least 35 years old and a resident of the US for at least 14 years.

If Trump is convicted and he still chooses to go ahead with his presidential campaign, he would become the third candidate in American history to do so. According to Business Insider, two previous candidates, Eugene V Debs in 1920, and Lyndon LaRouche in 1992, both ran from prison.

Debs ran for president five times for the Socialist Party in the early 20th century. He was sent to jail, where he was known as “prisoner 9653”, after being convicted of sedition in 1918 and jailed for speaking out against US entry into World War I. As per Vox, Debs “ran for president in 1920 and received over 3 per cent of the national vote, with almost a million votes cast for him”.

LaRouche, on the other hand, ran for president in 1992 when he was behind bars in a case related to tax evasion and mail fraud. Business Insider reported, “When Bill Clinton won the primary, LaRouche switched to the National Economic Recovery ticket, campaigning on overhauling the world’s financial and banking systems. He ultimately received over 26,000 votes in the election, about 0.02% of the popular vote.”