Donald Trump stated over the weekend that he will continue to run for president in 2024 if he is charged. That is a plausible but hypothetical scenario that would be completely legal.
The Constitution specifies three prerequisites for presidential candidates, none of which pertain to criminal convictions.
Donald Trump Presidential Bid
Article II, Section 1 states: No Person other than a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible for the Office of President; nor shall any person be eligible for that office who shall not have attained the age of 35 and been a resident of the United States for fourteen years.
Even historical precedent exists for a more serious criminal offense than indictment. In 1920, Eugene Debs unsuccessfully ran for president while accused, convicted, and incarcerated.
Debs was indicted under the Espionage Act and sentenced to time in Georgia. This may have been too close to home for Trump. Unprecedented complications might occur if and when Trump is prosecuted while seeking to retake government control, he attempted to subvert by claiming the 2020 election was stolen.
And Trump's actions leading up to and during January 6, 2021, insurrection raise questions about whether he could take office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. And a potential conviction in the Mar-a-Lago documents investigation could prompt arguments about disqualification from office under federal law. However, these three constitutional requirements - natural-born citizenship, residency, and age - may continue to be the only requirements for running for president.
As ludicrous as it seems, the answer to whether criminal charges alone would bar Trump or anybody else from running for president is now no, as per MSNBC.
During his remarks, Trump pledged revenge on his opponents, including Democrats, the media, and other Republicans. Trump declared his presidential campaign late last year, following the midterm elections in which some of his preferred congressional candidates were defeated.
Donors to the Republican Party hope to move on from the former president and his style of conservatism, but no viable candidate has yet declared their candidacy. Surveys indicate that Trump is the top in the 2024 Republican race, followed closely by the rising Florida governor and erstwhile ally Ron DeSantis.
A Georgia investigation into the Trump campaign's efforts to affect election tallies during the 2020 presidential fight, including a notorious phone discussion between Trump and the Georgia secretary of state in early 2021, is anticipated to produce indictments at any time.
On this call, Trump infamously challenged Republican Brad Raffensperger to "find" the approximately 12,000 votes he needed to capture the state from Joe Biden.
In January, a grand jury investigating suspected election irregularities in the state completed its investigation. The jury forewoman Emily Kohrs has intimated that the former president may be on the chopping block.
The Department of Justice also investigates Trump's team's plans to reverse the 2020 election, particularly January 6, 2021, attack on Congress. Per The Independent, the House select committee investigating the attack proposed that Trump be prosecuted, among other things, for supporting an uprising.
Trump has long argued that any judicial investigation of him by any judicial entity is a "witch hunt" orchestrated by his Democratic opponents to prevent him from gaining the presidency.
Last year, the FBI raided his Mar-a-Lago estate as part of a third, entirely separate investigation into his handling of presidential records, including classified documents. Since then, President Joe Biden and former vice president Mike Pence have been implicated in similarly embarrassing discoveries of classified materials at their residences.
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Donald Trump vs. Ron DeSantis
This weekend, Trump and his most formidable prospective opponent, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, revealed with unprecedented clarity how their drastically divergent personalities and methods would define the 2024 GOP primary fight.
Trump served up his usual mixture of rage, falsehoods, and dishonest bravado, billing himself as the only man capable of preventing World War III, rallying his adoring supporters for their "final battle" against communists, globalists, and the "Deep State," and declaring, "I am your vengeance."
DeSantis, who has not officially declared his candidacy, used a Sunday visit to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California to tap into the current Republican Party's driving ideological drive.
Yet, he provided a far more detailed plan than Trump for a disruption of government as Americans know it, clearly hinting that after adopting extreme conservatism in Florida, he would be able to achieve the policy objectives that frequently evaded Trump throughout his turbulent presidency.
The remarks, which featured two Republicans who would be the early frontrunners if DeSantis entered the GOP nomination campaign, included an ironic twist. The split screen depicted their party's unresolved ideological divide, which Trump caused in 2016 by defeating establishment candidates.
CPAC, where Trump spoke, has for decades kept alive the torch of two-term president Reagan, who reshaped the conservative movement and left a legacy that dominated the Republican Party until the arrival of Trump.
CPAC, once a rite of passage for possible Republican presidential contenders, has become a forum for Trump's personality cult. According to CBS News, DeSantis did not speak there, instead speaking the week prior at a competing donor gathering for the Club for Growth to which Trump was not invited.
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