In a column Monday, I addressed the political significance of Judge Tanya Chutkan’s ruling that former president Donald Trump does not have immunity from criminal prosecution. Trump posited his immunity claim in a federal criminal prosecution on four felony charges arising out of his actions in the two months between the November 2020 presidential election and the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
The ruling makes it highly likely that, starting on March 4, the favorite to be the 2024 Republican presidential nominee will spend two to three months of the campaign standing trial on four felony counts before a jury in Trump-hostile Washington, D.C., in a case brought by the Biden Justice Department’s special counsel, Jack Smith, and presided over by Judge Chutkan, an Obama appointee whose disdain for Trump is barely concealed. Under federal law, Trump will have to attend his trial every day. Combined, the felony charges carry a statutory maximum prison term of 55 years. A conviction on even one count is likely to call for an incarceration sentence under the federal guidelines. Hence, if Trump is convicted, he faces the very real possibility of being ordered to begin serving a prison term during the campaign stretch-run. (If Trump were convicted in May, he’d likely be sentenced in August. The presumption in federal law is against bail pending appeal.)
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