Donald Trump has been a man of firsts, including becoming the first president to be impeached twice and the first former president to face criminal charges at all, and that is poised to continue, according to a report from Newsweek.
Trump, who has recently railed against the "time an expense" the criminal indictments have cost him, has pushed a strategy to delay the trials until after the 2024 election. If he wins, the argument goes, he could potentially halt any federal prosecutions he's facing.
But there is one situation with no prior caselaw and no legal precedent to which Trump could push the nation, according to Newsweek's report.
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Newsweek quotes Eric J. Segall, professor of law at Georgia State University College of Law and Constitution, in describing the odd situation in which Trump successfully delays his cases, wins the presidency, and then is convicted of crimes after the fact.
"Should a jury find Trump guilty in Georgia after winning the election, but prior to entering office in January 2025, there is every chance Trump will use the courts and legal arguments to try to delay his sentencing until he becomes president under the assumption that he will then no longer have to serve time," the Newsweek article states. "If Trump is found guilty having already entered the White House, a whole new range of non-hypothetical questions and arguments would be raised about whether a sitting president can be convicted for state crimes in a way never before seen in U.S. history."
The piece then quotes Segall as saying this situation would indeed be "completely new territory."
"We are in completely new territory if a sitting president is convicted of crimes he committed before he was elected president, which will be the case here," Segall told Newsweek. "There's nothing in the Constitution about this. There's very little case law about this. We'll have to see. There's no way to predict how that would play out. No way."
