Should Donald Trump fail a second time to be re-elected he faces the very real possibility of jail time and massive financial penalties due to the sheer volume of criminal cases and civil lawsuits that are on hold until after the election.

That is the opinion of Syracuse University law professor Greg Germain who explained in an interview with Newsweek that the former president’s only path to get out from under the federal cases he now faces is to beat Vice President Kamala Harris in less than two weeks and then push the Department of Justice to drop the cases filed against him.

As Germain stated, the multiple federal cases Trump is facing are solid and his only path to victory may be having them shut down.

Newsweek source: https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-legal-cases-georgia-washington-florida-new-york-stormy-daniels-chutkan-cannon-1974406

  • Wojwo@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    13
    arrow-down
    7
    ·
    5 days ago

    I get the frustration, but I also get where the authorities are coming from. Imagine if precident gets set that a political candidate can be mired down in lawsuits, regardless if they’re plausible or not. Then someone like trump comes along and says cool that worker great against me, I’ll just throw a shit ton of made up lawsuits and cases against all my future opponents.

    • jettrscga@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      26
      ·
      edit-2
      5 days ago

      Except that he’s explicitly choosing to be a political candidate for the purpose of avoiding the lawsuits. A lot of these allegations occurred before he announced he was re-running, and then the lawsuits got put on hold.

      Your scenario creates a method for anyone to delay consequences by running for office. Although we both know it wouldn’t really work for anyone. Trump gets his special treatment.

      • orcrist@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        4 days ago

        I don’t think the lawsuits are his major problem, and they’re not a good example of badness in the system. Civil suits are often delayed if one of the parties has unavoidable scheduling conflicts, because they can be solved by money, and a month or two here or there doesn’t make a big difference to that, at least not most of the time.

        There can be corruption in civil suits, and there are reasons to use delay tactics if you’re trying to spend your money or shift it to offshore accounts, so rich people certainly can and will gain the system. But simply getting your court dates scheduled in November instead of October is not in itself nefarious on the civil stage.

    • Buffalox@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      18
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      5 days ago

      No that’s a false narrative, the criminal cases are based on public prosecutors running them.
      What you are claiming is for civil suits, of which a couple have been settled, despite obstruction attempts by Trump.
      If it gets to a point where a politician can ask public prosecutors to put opponents in jail, USA has long ceased to be a democracy.

      Trump is already a convicted criminal, and cannot vote in several states, still he can run for president, and enjoy privileged treatment.
      Where an ordinary person voting because she was told she could, got 5 years prison for voter fraud!

    • Volkditty@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      5 days ago

      In your scenario, do you imagine that all the Trump-appointed prosecutors and the Trump-appointed judges will willingly delay the cases of Trump’s “enemies of the state” until after the election out of some respect for the sanctity of the democratic process?

      It is a horrible, dangerous precedent to say we can’t justly hold the guilty accountable because some bad actor in the future may unjustly hold the innocent accountable.