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Former President Donald Trump will likely be sentenced to between one and four years in prison if convicted in the Stormy Daniels hush money case, an attorney and former ambassador said.
Norm Eisen said that he and his team at the Just Security think tank analyzed "hundreds of comparable cases" and calculated that Trump can expect a sentence of between one year and four months on the lower end and four years on the higher end for each of the counts in the indictment. Each sentence would likely run concurrently, he said.
New York prosecutors will try to prove that before the 2016 presidential election, Trump paid two women—Daniels, a former adult film star, and former Playboy model Karen McDougal—not to reveal his affairs with them. He is also accused of making payments to a former Trump Tower doorman who claimed to know that Trump fathered a child with another woman.
Trump has strongly denied all allegations. The alleged payments would violate election law because they were supposedly made in an attempt to hide a scandal and influence the 2016 presidential election.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony charges in the case and has repeatedly said it is part of a political witch hunt aimed at derailing his bid for the White House. Daniels said in January that she is "set to testify" in the trial, which is scheduled to begin in New York on March 25.
Speaking at a media briefing on the case on Wednesday evening, Eisen said that the trial should be complete "at the end of April." If there is a conviction, sentencing is likely in the summer or possibly early fall.
Eisen said that Trump's possible jail time would then likely begin in the fall—right before the presidential election in November.
He said that, for sentencing, the judge would consider Trump's apparent lack of remorse and general behavior. That would make him a "candidate for that range" of between 1.3 years and four years he said.
He added that Trump's attorneys would likely appeal, and the appeals would continue into 2025.
Eisen was special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee from 2019 to 2020 for Trump's impeachment and trial, charges that arose from an alleged attempt to seek a Ukrainian investigation of Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.
Eisen was previously the U.S ambassador to the Czech Republic during the Obama administration.
Newsweek sought email comment from Trump's attorney on Thursday.
Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, is expected to testify that he paid Daniels $130,000 and arranged for the publisher of the National Enquirer to pay McDougal $150,000. In both cases, Trump's alleged motive was to avoid scandal while he was campaigning against Hillary Clinton for the presidency.
Trump's real estate parent company, The Trump Organization, then allegedly reimbursed Cohen $420,000 to cover the payments to the two women and extra payments to ensure Cohen's silence.
The Daniels payments case is scheduled to be the next trial for Trump, following the postponement of the March 4 start date for the federal interference trial in Washington, D.C.
It is also the first criminal case filed against Trump, with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg bringing felony charges against the former president in March 2023.
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About the writer
Sean O'Driscoll is a Newsweek Senior Crime and Courts Reporter based in Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. law. ... Read more