On "Forbes Newsroom," attorney Glen Donath, a partner at Clifford Chance and a former Clinton impeachment defense lawyer, spoke about the likelihood of former President Trump serving jail time from his NYC hush money trial.
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NewsTranscript
00:00And as you mentioned, there is a wide range of what he could be ultimately potentially convicted with and which could range in the possibility of probation to four years in prison.
00:12What's the likelihood, considering a little bit of, obviously, it's up to the jury, but there's been some hesitance by Judge Mershon in terms of some of his rulings.
00:20Initially, it took a while for him to go rule on this gag order.
00:24But do we think that there's a possibility that a former president could get jail time?
00:30I think there's always that possibility in any criminal case, Leigh Ann, but I think it's a very, very low possibility.
00:39I think, first of all, it's my understanding that this criminal statute in New York is rarely used.
00:47It's rarely used under these circumstances, and it's even rarer that defendants go to jail for violations of this business records crime, even when it's escalated to a felony.
00:58So I think the comparators will suggest that jail time is not warranted.
01:03I think when you add on top of that the fact that you're talking about an ex-president and the putative Republican nominee for this upcoming election, coupled with the logistical difficulties of putting him in a New York State prison with a Secret Service,
01:19all of that, I think, makes it very, very unlikely to imagine that he would ever be sentenced to jail.
01:27It could happen. I know there's no love lost right now between Trump and Judge Marchand, but I would find it close to impossible to believe he could get sentenced to jail, at least on these facts.