As I noted in an earlier post regarding Trump’s indictment, it isn’t a matter of “if” but “when”. (As this legal commenter points out). Trump has never been in this kinda trouble before and because he isn’t that bright, he doesn’t understand what’s coming in 2023. The documents case is pretty much done, it’s just a matter of presenting it to a jury (grand then trial) and both will come to the same conclusion, Trump is very guilty. Then it will be up to the judge to punish him, and this is where things will get draconian and perhaps expose our clearly unfair federal sentencing procedures.
You see, under those draconian procedures, the Judge will be able to consider “uncharged conduct“. For example: in the Silk Road case, the judge used a Maryland indictment against Ross during sentencing. As “Reason” explains in the “uncharged conduct” link, the Supreme Court declined to hear his challenge to this unfair sentencing procedure.
So, one of the many good things that may come from a Trump conviction will be, perhaps, the SCOTUS addressing this fundamentally unfair procedure after the Judge uses it to put Trump behind bars for whatever is allowed by the statutes & number of counts he’s convicted of… (The government could charge Trump individually for each document illegally in his possession, so based on a 20 year maximum penalty for each document, it would be easy for the judge to put Trump away for life by “stacking” the sentence.)
Regardless, 2023 is going to be a very bad year for Trump.