President-elect Donald Trump has been re-elected to the White House as a felony defendant awaiting sentencing for wealth concealment in New York and still working to avoid prosecution in other state and federal cases. It’s a remarkably unique position for him: Never before has a criminal defendant been elected to the nation’s highest office, just as a former president had never been criminally charged until last year.
“It clearly paid off to push aggressively to delay these cases as long as possible,” said Jessica Levinson, a constitutional law professor at Loyola Law School.
Meanwhile, a judge in New York will sentence the former president later this month after holding off on sentencing until after Election Day to avoid any appearance of influencing the outcome of the presidential race, although Trump’s lawyers are expected to ask the judge to postpone the sentence now that he is the president-elect.