By Hal Brown
Let's consider the following scenario.
A Republican is elected president. It could be Trump or anyone else. There's a high likelyhood that all the GOP primary candidates with the exception of Chris Christie will have promised to pardon Trump if they are elected. Of course this only applies to federal crimes.
If Trump ends up in a Georgia prison, instead of everyone in his residence complying with his every wish he'd be taking orders from people like this:
If Trump is convicted of a Georgia crime and imprisioned even if the the State Board of Pardons and Paroles wanted to give him a get out of jail card it wouldn't be a get out of jail free card. According to Georgia law he'd have had to had served five years of his sentence before even being considered.
Brad Reed (here in Raw Story) along with others say that Trump should be really scared of Fani Willis and possibly having to stand trial in Georgia. This is from The Atlanta Journal Constitution:
Where things could get murkier is if Trump wins the 2024 election before his expected case goes to trial in Fulton County. It’s unclear if Willis could continue to pursue a pending case against a sitting president without running into constitutional questions.
This only would apply if the trial wasn't concluded before Trump became president. If he was in a Georgia prison and still was elected president what seems to me as a non-lawyer, let alone an expert on the Constitution, to be the gray area is that there is a time span between being elected president and being inaugurated.
If he's in prison, elected president, presumably it would be impossible for him to have his cheering crowds at his second inauguration let alone get permission to be under house arrest at the White House and have all travel approved by the Georgia Department of Corrections. I suppose he'd have to execute the duties of the presidency from a Georgia prison. The state would have to determine how this would be done. Perhaps they repurpose an existing struture just to serve this purpose.
Convicted NAZI war criminal Rudolph Hess was sent to Spandau Prison (above) which was desgined for 600 inmates. When he went there it had six prisoners but five died so he ended up as the only prisioner there between 1966 and 1987 until at the age of 93 he committed suicide.
No matter what happens in federal cases a Georgia indictment and subsequent guilty verdict in a trial resulting in prison time is undone by a Republican president.
Even if the Georgia governor wanted to pardon him he couldn't.
Georgia is one of the few states to not give its governor broad pardon powers and instead shifts that power to the State Board of Pardons and Paroles, an independent board with five members appointed by the governor.
And even if all five of the governors' appointees were hellbent on pardoning Trump, they would be restricted in their actions by the state's pardon regulations.
"To be considered for a pardon, a person must first complete all prison sentences at least five years before applying, have lived a 'law-abiding life' in the intervening years, have no pending charges against them and have paid all their fines in full," notes the AJC. (Link to article)
Kemp might not even support a pardon for Trump. Consider this from 2021 in a CNN article:
Donald Trump is escalating his fight against Republican Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, and state Republicans fear it will give Democrats a stronger foothold in the key swing state as next year’s midterm elections loom.
The former President’s criticism of Kemp now includes hyping Democrat Stacey Abrams as a preferable alternative to the GOP governor, whose crime against Trump was staying out of his attempt to overturn the Georgia 2020 election returns.
“Having her, I think, might be better than having your existing governor, if you want to know what I think,” Trump said Saturday at his rally in Perry, adding later, “Stacey, would you like to take his place? It’s OK with me.”
From Business Insider:
Prosecutors in Georgia are fast approaching a decision on whether to charge Trump. Here's how it would go down.
Trump could be indicted for 10 crimes, including racketeering, in Georgia. (Reference). I can't find what the prison senteces for these crimes are. My impression is that he'd be sentenced to more than five years but of course I could be mistaken.
Donald, courtesy of Ray Charles, this is for you:
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