Trump is incredibly guilty: that doesn’t mean he’ll get the prison time he deserves

Forget headlines that the former president could face the rest of his life behind bars – prosecutors and the judge are likely to go easy on him for all the wrong reasons, writes Eric Lewis

Given the rules, it would be a travesty of justice for a non-custodial sentence to be imposed (Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

In Mel Brooks’s The Producers, conman producer Max Bialystock is tried for financing the worst Broadway show ever, Springtime for Hitler. The foreman returns with the jury’s verdict: “We find the defendant ‘incredibly’ guilty.”

It is hard for any objective reader of the Trump indictment to see a reasonable jury deciding otherwise, as it appears that special counsel Jack Smith has virtually all of the necessary elements either on paper or on tape.

The suggested defences by the Trump team vetted to date don’t pass the laugh test, and Trump himself cannot possibly testify. If he did, it is hard to conceive of a defendant more likely to inculpate himself.