Breaking News: Former President Trump says he has been indicted
(www.foxnews.com)
LET'S GOOoOoooo!!!
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He's never going to be behind bars. Even if he's convicted and given a sentence (which I find extremely unlikely), he won't be put behind bars.
It would just make us look bad to other countries to have a former President in jail.
By law, former presidents have to have SS detail. Not only to protect them, but to protect confidential information the former President has that could compromise the US if it was leaked. It's unreasonable to put SS detail in prison with the former President.
So even if he was found guilty (again, I think this is unlikely) the worst he would get is house arrest. And considering where he lives, I doubt that would be a hardship.
I agree that Trump won't serve jail time, but not for those reasons.
If "looking bad" was an issue, they wouldn't even go as far as pressing charges. And plenty of ex-presidents around the world have been imprisoned - admittedly a lot of them are in basket-case countries, but Sarkozy, ex-president of France, is one recent high profile example.
The SS detail would surely be scrapped if he's in jail. There's probably no precedent for that scenario, but I doubt if that detail would keep a president out of jail if they really did commit a serious crime (and I'm not saying Trump did, BTW, just in principle).
The SS detail can't be scrapped. It's simple as that. They're not there just to keep the former presidents safe. They also have to monitor who comes in contact with the former presidents, and what information passes between them. That is to protect the classified information that former presidents know, so the US won't be put into danger.
You do have a valid point about appearances, though.
How does the SS detail work exactly? Not arguing against what you're saying, just would like to understand. Like, does Trump have people monitoring him 24 hours a day? And same for all other former Presidents, Obama, Bush, Carter?