Mod: If you're looking for an Executive Summary answer, he can, at least legally. Politically is another matter, though I am sure the bleach drinkers would cast their vote for an incarcerated convict.Can Trump Run for President From Prison? (Slatelink): Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. has convened a grand jury to hear evidence of potential financial malfeasance by former President Donald Trump and the Trump Organization, according to a report by the Washington Post. The news of the grand jury comes after an announcement by the New York attorney general’s office that its civil probe of the Trump Organization has turned into a criminal one.
Given that
Trump has already hinted towards a 2024 re-election bid, the possibility of criminal charges opens up the door for
Trump to be running a presidential campaign from behind bars—and for the slew of complications that can arise from doing that.
So, how difficult is it for an incarcerated person to run for president? Not very, at least from a legal standpoint. “When we’re talking about federal office, the limitations would really be political, not legal,” said Kate Shaw, a professor of law at Cardozo Law. “The Constitution actually is really clear about what the qualifications to run for president, or a member of Congress or Senate are.”
Those qualifications—listed in
Article Two of the
Constitution—include being a natural born citizen, being at least 35 years old, and having lived at least 14 years as a resident of the
United States. A potential candidate’s carceral status, however, is not listed in the
Constitution as a requirement, nor is a candidate’s criminal record. A
Trump who has been convicted by the state or federal government of a crime, then, is equally qualified to run as a
Trump with no criminal record—at least from a legal standpoint.
Indeed, at least three incarcerated people have run for
U.S. president before with no legal obstacles. In 1920,
Socialist Party leader
Eugene V. Debs ran while incarcerated for charges related to his protesting against
World War I. Another candidate,
Lyndon LaRouche, ran in 1992 while incarcerated for tax evasion and mail fraud. And yet another,
Keith Judd, managed to be included on the ballot—and win 41 percent of the vote against incumbent president
Barack Obama—in
West Virginia’s
Democratic primary while incarcerated as recently as 2012. While all three candidates ran multiple times, none ever won any electoral votes.
The difficulty for a
Trump re-election bid, if he were to be convicted of a crime, comes instead from public perception and the politics of running for president with a criminal record, plus the logistical obstacles of campaigning or taking the oath of office from prison. Conviction seems unlikely to cost him support among the
GOP primary electorate, with a recent poll showing that 66 percent of
Republicans want him to run again in 2024 despite his well-publicized legal woes.
“His supporters will argue that both impeachment and indictment are very politicized actions,” said
Mildred Elizabeth Sanders, a professor of government at
Cornell University.
Mod: Much more at the link.
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