Trump can’t pardon himself out of this one.
If the former president is convicted in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s new criminal case against him, he’ll have to serve five years before he can be pardoned.
Willis’s case, brought in Georgia, accuses Trump and 18 of his associates of forming an illegal enterprise to keep him in power, breaking numerous laws along the way. Trump was personally charged on 13 different counts. The top charge for racketeering, or RICO, carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
Unlike in his two federal criminal cases, Trump can’t expect a Republican president to pardon him before or after he goes to trial. Nor can he rely on a Republican governor in Georgia to pardon him and get rid of the criminal charges.
Georgia is one of five states that doesn’t grant pardon power to the governor. Instead, the state’s constitution gives pardon power to the state’s five-member Board of Paroles and Pardons.
Perhaps I’m just being pessimistic, but I fully expect he’d permanently leave the country rather than spend a single day in jail. That said, perhaps it’s not all bad. We’d at least be rid of him finally.
