Trump’s Legal Woes Rise with 78 Charges. Will He Be Sent to Prison for More Than 500 Years?

A straight answer would be no because judges rarely impose maximum sentences and allow those facing or convicted on several charges to serve their prison sentences concurrently.

After Tuesday’s indictment, the former US President Donald Trump faces 78 charges or criminal counts. Though as mentioned above, he may not spend over a hundred years in jail, but the 77-year-old leader’s alleged attempts to bend the rules highlights the seriousness of his actions.

Trump faces maximum counts from his efforts to overturn the 2020 US Presidential Elections and the classified documents case.

Criminal charges (counts) and years Trump faces behind bars in the 2020 election case

• One count of corruptly obstructing an official proceeding (DOJ 2020 election case) which can lead to 20 years in prison.
• One count of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding (election case) which can lead to 20 years in prison.
• One count of conspiracy to threaten or oppress someone exercising a constitutional right (election case) which can lead to 10 years in prison.
• One count of conspiracy to defraud the United States (election case) which can lead to 5 years in prison.

Hence, in the election case, where Trump faces four counts, he could be sent behind bars for 55 years.

Criminal charges (counts) and years Trump faces behind bars in the classified documents case

• Trump faces 32 counts of retention of national defence information and each count leads to 10 years in prison. This means 320 years behind prison.
• One count of conspiracy to obstruct justice which can lead to 20 years in prison.
• One count of withholding records from an official proceeding which can lead to 20 years imprisonment.
• One count of concealing records from an official proceeding which can lead to 20 years imprisonment.
• One count of concealing documents from federal investigators which can lead to 20 years imprisonment.
• One count of scheme to conceal which can lead to 5 years imprisonment.
• One count of lying to the US government which can lead to 5 years imprisonment.
• One count of altering, destroying or hiding something sought by the government which can lead to 20 years imprisonment.
• One count of corruptly altering, destroying or hiding something sought by the government which can lead to 20 years imprisonment.

Hence, in the documents case, theoretically, Trump could be imprisoned for 450 years on 40 criminal counts.

Other Cases

• 34 counts of falsifying business records which can lead to four years behind bars for every count, which means 136 years of imprisonment.

If we calculate all of these then Trump could be behind bars for 641 years on 78 counts. But as mentioned above judges often allow defendants to serve jail time concurrently and rarely impose maximum sentences.

(with inputs from Bloomberg and AFP)