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A misdemeanor for Trump sounds crazy, right? Let's explore why, and why not.
Deadline WhiteHouse has a legal blog that I am enjoying. I tend to agree that even a misdemeanor conviction for TFG could be useful.
Link to tweet
https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/pomerantz-book-trump-charges-rcna69481?cid=sm_npd_ms_tw_ma&taid=63e7fdca79b5c900010dd86b&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter
Charging Donald Trump with a misdemeanor would be totally insane, right?....
So while it’s unlikely, given the myriad federal and state probes into the former president, that his criminal fate will come down to a misdemeanor or nothing, it’s worth thinking about why we might be inclined to disregard anything called a misdemeanor as insufficient. I think that inclination is misplaced, for two reasons — one philosophical and one practical.
First, if Trump isn’t above the law, then no charge is too small for him, especially the sort of charge that people around the country face every day. If a misdemeanor winds up being the crime, or one of the crimes, he’s guilty of, then so be it, just as it would be for the rest of us.
Second, the practical difference between misdemeanor and felony charges can be smaller than one might think, as the hush money situation illustrates. The felony charge of falsifying business records in the first degree sounds quite serious — and any criminal charge is serious — but it’s the lowest level felony in New York, called an “E” felony, which, like the misdemeanor charge, can result in relatively brief incarceration. So the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony, at least for falsifying business records in connection with the hush money, could be minimal when it comes to potential incarceration.
And, again, I don’t expect Trump’s nationwide criminal exposure to come down to a misdemeanor or nothing, but it’s worth understanding why the idea is less absurd than it sounds at first blush, if the point is to treat Trump like the rest of us.
So while it’s unlikely, given the myriad federal and state probes into the former president, that his criminal fate will come down to a misdemeanor or nothing, it’s worth thinking about why we might be inclined to disregard anything called a misdemeanor as insufficient. I think that inclination is misplaced, for two reasons — one philosophical and one practical.
First, if Trump isn’t above the law, then no charge is too small for him, especially the sort of charge that people around the country face every day. If a misdemeanor winds up being the crime, or one of the crimes, he’s guilty of, then so be it, just as it would be for the rest of us.
Second, the practical difference between misdemeanor and felony charges can be smaller than one might think, as the hush money situation illustrates. The felony charge of falsifying business records in the first degree sounds quite serious — and any criminal charge is serious — but it’s the lowest level felony in New York, called an “E” felony, which, like the misdemeanor charge, can result in relatively brief incarceration. So the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony, at least for falsifying business records in connection with the hush money, could be minimal when it comes to potential incarceration.
And, again, I don’t expect Trump’s nationwide criminal exposure to come down to a misdemeanor or nothing, but it’s worth understanding why the idea is less absurd than it sounds at first blush, if the point is to treat Trump like the rest of us.
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