Officials have had preliminary discussions about how to protect the former president in the unlikely event that he is jailed for contempt during the trial.

The U.S. Secret Service is in the business of protecting the president, whether he’s inside the Oval Office or visiting a foreign war zone.

But protecting a former president in prison? The prospect is unprecedented. That would be the challenge if Donald J. Trump — whom the agency is required by law to protect around the clock — is convicted at his criminal trial in Manhattan and sentenced to serve time.

Even before the trial’s opening statements, the Secret Service was in some measure planning for the extraordinary possibility of a former president behind bars. Prosecutors had asked the judge in the case to remind Mr. Trump that attacks on witnesses and jurors could land him in jail even before a verdict is rendered.

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    • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
      33·
      7 months ago

      Yet. The electors scheme that dumps directly participated in to conspire with election officials to forge and mail in false elector documents is still undergoing investigation and, with new updates every month from Republicans giving information to the authorities.

      This is the one that I thought would be the most likely of causing him serious legal trouble, but this happened across seven states with an unknown number but around a dozen election officials that agreed to forge documents at Trump’s and his team’s request and then send in the documents to trick the national archives and pence into falsely certifying Trump as the president-elect in the 2020 election.

      It’s batshit insane, and he was directly involved, and multiple people can corroborate that. The doj the FBI, some of those Republican collaborators are already working with them, I check in every couple weeks just to see what the latest news is.

      The investigations and prosecutions by individual states and government agencies are ongoing, so prosecution of trump is still very much on the table, but only when all of the circumstances and information available has been organized and arrayed, and all of the smaller fish have been targeted and dealt with first.

      As of March 2024, the Arizona AG is said that they’re nearing the end of their investigation.

      But that’s one state of seven. And there’s also the FBI and the doj investigating this, so there’s a lot going on.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_fake_electors_plot

    • jordanlund@lemmy.world
      16·
      7 months ago

      If he was going to face treason charges, they would have brought it as part of the January 6 trial.

      Those charges are:

      https://www.npr.org/2023/08/01/1191493880/trump-january-6-charges-indictment-counts

      one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States applies to Trump’s repeated and widespread efforts to spread false claims about the November 2020 election while knowing they were not true and for allegedly attempting to illegally discount legitimate votes all with the goal of overturning the 2020 election, prosecutors claim in the indictment.

      one count of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding was brought due to the alleged organized planning by Trump and his allies to disrupt the electoral vote’s certification in January 2021.

      one count of obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding is tied to Trump and his co-conspirators’ alleged efforts after the November 2020 election until Jan. 7, 2021, to block the official certification proceeding in Congress.

      one count of conspiracy against rights refers to Trump and his co-conspirators alleged attempts to “oppress, threaten and intimidate” people in their right to vote in an election.

    • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
      111·
      7 months ago

      I’m surprised they didn’t consider selling classified submarine plans to be treason, as part of the classified documents case.

      At one point in his interviews, Butler says he told investigators that Australian billionaire Anthony Pratt repeated classified submarine secrets following a conversation with Trump in spring 2021.

      https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/11/politics/trump-employee-5-classified-documents-mar-a-lago/index.html

    • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
      101·
      7 months ago

      Semantically, according to US Legal Code you can’t commit treason without being at war, and war has not been properly defined by the federal government.