President Donald Trump was almost certainly bound for prison until he won the 2024 election, according to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who previously served as the Republican’s personal lawyer.
“Is it an accurate statement to say he either wins in ‘24, wins the White House — it’s either the White House or the big house?” Fox News anchor Sean Hannity asked Blanche on an episode of the Hang Out with Sean Hannity show that was released on Tuesday.
“Oh yeah, absolutely,” Blanche responded.
The Trump official pointed to the cloud of legal scrutiny hanging over Trump during the 2024 election, which included special counsel Jack Smith’s multiple cases against the Republican in Washington and Florida, as well as the then-candidate’s guilty convictions in New York in his hush money trial.
“Don’t forget he had a D.C. case breathing down his neck,” Blanche said. “He had the Florida case which had been dismissed, but they were appealing it, and then he had a judge in New York who, there’s no scenario in which he wasn’t going to send Trump to prison.”
Following Trump’s election victory, the special counsel dropped the federal cases against the president-elect, citing the precedent against bringing an indictment or proceedings against a sitting president.
In congressional testimony last year, Smith said he was confident he would’ve secured a conviction against Trump on his allegations that the Republican conspired to interfere with the 2024 election.
“The timing and speed of our work reflects the strength of the evidence and our confidence that we would have secured convictions at trial,” Smith told the House Judiciary Committee. “If asked whether to prosecute a former President based on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Republican or a Democrat.”
The president continues to challenge the New York conviction, both in state court and in an effort to move it to federal court.
Since returning to the White House, the president has vowed to seek payback for the alleged “weaponization” of the justice system he claims to have suffered.
The DOJ is investigating an alleged decade-long “grand conspiracy” between officials who investigated or prosecuted the president.
As part of the settlement in his recent suit against the IRS, Trump also sought to create a nearly $1.8 billion “slush fund” to compensate allies and victims” of government “weaponization.”
