Trump Says Even a Conviction and Sentencing Will Not Stop His Run

Donald Trump could be joining convicted felon Joe Exotic in running for the presidency from jail after he told a conservative radio host that he wouldn't end his run even if convicted and sentenced.

As expected by most, Donald Trump, the twice-impeached twice-plus-indicted frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination said in an interview with conservative radio host John Fredericks that he would not end his 2024 presidential campaign, even if he is convicted and sentenced.

Lawless Trump

Trump told the radio host that he “believed he wasn't required to hand over security tapes from his Mar-a-Lago resort but did so anyway.” What is it with this guy where he doesn’t think that the law applies to him?

But the big splash he made was his predictable-and-yet we-should-be-shocked assertion that even a conviction and sentencing would not deter him from seeking the highest office in the land.

Naturally, as we now know due to Trump’s lawlessness, there is nothing to stop a person from running for the presidency even if convicted.

It’s not just ‘mishandling classified documents’

While Republicans are standing by their man, it should be pointed out that Trump is charged with far worse than simply mishandled the sensitive material, according to Clark Cunningham, a law professor at Georgia State University.

“What he’s charged with is much more serious than mishandling,” Cunningham told Atlanta News First before the new indictment added even more serious charges. “What he’s accused of is having unauthorized possession and control of those documents relating to the national defense and refusing to give them back to the United States. That’s a very different and more serious crime.”

It’s even worse now

Now, of course, Trump is also charged with three new felony charges, including explosive claims that he tried to delete Mar-a-Lago security footage after it was requested by the government.

The new charges as of Thursday are two new obstruction counts and a charge of willfully retaining national defense information.

Trump has ALSO been charged with 37 federal felony counts related to his alleged theft and sharing of classified documents after leaving office and 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. He was found liable for the sexual assault of E. Jean Carroll in a civil case, which he tried to get overturned only to have the judge clarify that actually, the jury determined he had raped E. Jean Carroll.

All of this is fine with the Republican Party. Everyone is lying except Donald Trump. Everyone. On the whole planet. Everyone hates him so much that they are lying about him from New York to Georgia to Michigan to Arizona to Florida. Seems legit, right?

Sure, Trump has a long prior history of criminal-adjacent behavior, but doesn’t everyone? I mean, isn’t this totally normal? That’s what the Republicans tell us, anyway. Which might be more of a confession than they realize.

Meanwhile, potential charges still loom in the 1/6 investigation and the Georgia investigation.

Mob Boss

As I wrote yesterday in an opinion piece for PoliticusUSA, in the new indictment Trump sounds like a mob boss.

The fact that the Republican Party is not only not distancing themselves from him, but are clutching him even more tightly as they simultaneously try to gin up fake accusations against Joe Biden in a naked attempt to make their guy’s crimes more palatable suggests that the party is operating more like an organized crime operation than a legitimate political party at this point.