Trump Shrugs Off Possible Jail Sentence After ‘Scam’ Trial, Won’t ‘Beg’ For Leniency

 Former President Donald Trump indicated that he would accept a harsh sentence after his conviction last week in a New York hush money trial that he has derided as a “scam” and refuses to employ a legal strategy in which he grovels for mercy.

“I’m okay with it,” Trump said when asked about the potential of house arrest or even jail during a “Fox & Friends Weekend” interview that aired on Sunday. “I saw one of my lawyers the other day on television saying, ‘Oh, no, you don’t want to do that to the president.’ I said, don’t, you know, beg for anything. It’s just the way it is.”

Acknowledging it “could happen,” Trump went on to say, “I don’t know that the public would stand for it, you know.” Trump also said, “I think it’d be tough for the public to take. You know, at a certain point, there’s a breaking point.”

A jury returned a guilty verdict against Trump on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up payments in a bid to conceal a tryst with adult film star Stormy Daniels as part of a “catch-and-kill” scheme to influence the 2016 election. Jail time is possible, though legal experts doubt Trump will end up behind bars.

Sentencing has been scheduled for July 11.

Trump, who denied the affair and pleaded not guilty to the charges, has said he would be “appealing this scam” — a critique he repeated in the middle of the Fox News interview as he noted his competitive poll numbers and staggering fundraising haul after the verdict.

“People get it. It’s a scam,” Trump said during the interview.

 

Three other criminal matters on the state and federal levels hang over Trump as he seeks re-election this year, prompting the former president to say he is the victim of a politically motivated “witch hunt.” It is unclear whether any of those will reach the trial stage before the November election, but Trump can run despite a conviction.

During the interview, Trump also lamented a gag order the presiding judge levied against him. He also said it was “terrible” when asked to respond to President Joe Biden smirking when a reporter asked him to respond to Trump calling himself a “political prisoner” and blaming Biden “directly” for how he was being treated.

Trump called Biden “the worst president in the history of this country, and he’s a danger to the country.” He added, “They have misinformation. ‘Donald Trump is a threat to democracy.’ It’s just words. He doesn’t even know what it means. But it’s like their slogan: I’m a threat to democracy. I’m the opposite. They’re the threat to democracy.”