No. of Recommendations: 2
But we're talking 2024.
Are we? I thought we were talking about one reason for not voting for him being that if he took office, he wouldn't relinquish it. That's a 2029 issue. I don't think his criminal justice problems provide any material incentive for him to try to stay in office, because the effort to stay in office subjects him to far greater risk of incarceration than simply ceding office at the end of his term.
And if the state charges are pending in 2029, just waiting for him to complete his term, he will be highly motivated to subvert by any means necessary to avoid prison.
Again, by the time we get to 2029, the odds of him going to prison on the GA charges will be substantially lower than the odds that his effort to become President-for-life fails and he certainly goes to prison.
IF he can self-pardon (assuming SCOTUS rules that way), then there is no reason for him not to attempt to abscond with the Oval Office in 2029, because if he fails he can always pardon himself on the way out. No risk at all for him.
Oh, there's plenty of risk for him. If he's elected to the Presidency in 2024, it will be for a term that ends on January 20th, 2029. So for him to "abscond" with the Oval Office in 2029, he's going to have to be doing stuff after January 20th to try to remain in office. By definition - for this to work, he's going to have to be exercising the power of the Executive after January 20th. If he's later found to have done so wrongly, he'll certainly have done some criminal stuff at a time when he didn't lawfully have the power to pardon himself (just like the classified document case).
