Fox’s Jonathan Turley Argues Would Be ‘Absurd’ to Jail ‘Elderly First Offender’ Donald Trump

Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto spoke to legal analyst Jonathan Turley on Monday and asked about the odds that former President Donald Trump will serve jail time following his 34-count conviction in New York.

“I’m wondering if the judge has a sentence in mind. Does he say, oh, I was going to give him 20 years. Now I think I’ll give him 10 because he has all these nice, you know, people vouching for him or does it move the needle at all?” Cavuto asked about the various character statements being submitted on Trump’s behalf ahead of sentencing.

“I think it can move the needle on the margins. I think judges generally come in, with a fairly good idea of a narrow range where they want a sentence, someone, sometimes allocution, sometimes a statement of the defendant can actually irritate a judge, and push you towards the top of that, that bandwidth for the judge,” Turley began, adding:

I think that people coming in and talking about, the person can have some influence with Trump. I don’t believe that’s going to be the case. Like everything else about this case. He came fully baked, in the view of many people, jurors and judge, I think people have this idea of who Trump is. They either love him or they hate him. I’ve never met anyone in the middle of those two camps. And so I don’t think that the needle is going to move much here.

But it also would be absurd to send him to jail. He is an elderly first offender, nonviolent crime, and a very controversial prosecution. This whole case could be overturned ultimately, on appeal. I think that Judge Merchan would be considerably outside the navigational beacons to send him to even a day in jail.

“He’s still he’s going to face enormous political pressure. Right. To do something. And it could go both ways. Right. Those who want to see Donald Trump in prison, and those who fear that if he does go to prison, even for a short amount of time, it’s going to cement his return to the White House. So does he weigh that?” followed up Cavuto, referring to Judge Juan Merchan.

“I think that’s true. Well, he’s not supposed to. And I have to say, I don’t mean to be gratuitous towards the judge, but after sitting in that courtroom, I wouldn’t be surprised by anything. I thought he was really quite biased in terms of his rulings. They went very heavily towards the prosecution. I don’t know if he normally is known as a pro-prosecution judge, but some of his rulings did not make a lot of sense,’ Turley fumed, concluding:

There’s a lot of pressure. You know, when I came out of that courtroom after the verdict, it was like the Roman games. I mean, people were a static [sic], to a point that it was difficult to watch. People were dancing in the streets. That’s the environment around this courthouse. And there were other people who were in deep, you know, agony and sorrow. It was a picture of the United States and it was not necessarily a good one. I mean, I stood there for a second and took it in, because it was such a bizarre, bifurcated scene.

Watch the clip above via Fox News.