Former President Donald Trump on Friday promised that if he is convicted of a crime and sentenced to prison, he will continue to run for president. John Fredericks, the host of a pro-Trump talk show, asked the 2024 candidate whether a conviction resulting in a prison sentence would “stop” his bid for a second term. “Not at all. There’s nothing in the Constitution to say that it could,” Trump replied. “Even the radical left crazies are saying, ‘No, that wouldn’t stop!’ And it wouldn’t stop me either.” Legally speaking, Trump is correct. The most famous example of an incarcerated person running for president is Socialist Party nominee Eugene V. Debs. Debs received nearly 1 million votes in 1920 while he was imprisoned for his opposition to World War I. It is unclear what would happen if Trump won while incarcerated, however, since there is no precedent for that occurring in a major federal election. Some scholars have suggested that he could pardon himself immediately upon taking office.
On Thursday, Special Counsel Jack Smith filed three new indictments against Donald Trump in Florida that added another defendant to the case, Carlos De Oliveira, and introduced an uncharged critical witness, Trump’s IT specialist, Yuscil Taveras, who is referenced as “Employee No. Four.” Across the country, legal experts describe the superseding indictments as much worse for Trump due to the overwhelming evidence — including texts, and video evidence. The new charges include another charge under the Espionage Act, accusing Trump of disseminating the Iranian war plans at Bedminster to random people without any security clearance to see the documents... There is another charge of obstruction of justice. And, the worst charge, by far, is the conspiracy to obstruct justice by attempting to “alter, destroy, mutilate or conceal evidence.” The charge states that Trump instructed two of his IT specialists to destroy 19 hours of video despite being warned by his attorneys to not touch them.
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