The hearing will impact Donald Trump’s campaign
“The charges essentially allege that Donald Trump falsified financial records to conceal an agreement with third parties to unlawfully interfere in the 2016 presidential election,” Judge Juan Merchan ruled, to emphasize that the case is about more than just an extramarital affair. relationships, money for silence or even breaking the law by concealing the transfer of money. Especially since a few days later, Trump won the election by a small margin in key states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
The trial – according to experts’ estimates – will last two months, and the former president should spend four days a week in the courtroom. This means that he will have to limit his political activities as a presidential candidate.
Will convicted Donald Trump be able to become president?
So far, it has managed to use its legal adventures to build support among conservative voters. They are convinced by Trump’s arguments that the more than 90 criminal charges against him and four court cases are political games played by his opponents. On Friday, he said that he was being persecuted by “desperate prosecutors”, described himself as a “proud political dissident”, and compared himself to Nelson Mandela or Alexei Navalny. – I will fight for the freedom of 325 million Americans – he said on Saturday at a meeting with voters in Pennsylvania. Commentators wonder how long his good streak will last. If a New York court finds Trump guilty, he could face a suspended sentence to more than ten years in prison. Legal experts, however, doubt that the worst will come to pass, even though Donald Trump has offended Judge Juan Merchan with repeated attempts to delay the hearing and attacks on his daughter (who works on the campaign staff of Democratic candidates) on social media.
However, commentators assume that even if the court of first instance sentences the former president to prison, he will still be able to freely conduct his election campaign while his lawyers will work on the appeal and then wait for the decision of the appeals court. There is no provision in the US constitution that would prevent Trump from becoming president, even if he is found guilty or sentenced to prison.
