Donald Trump to be Sentenced on September 18, Says Fox News Columnist: 'A High Likelihood That...'

Fox News columnist and the former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Andrew McCarthy, has predicted that ex-President Donald Trump will be sentenced to a jail term. However, he also believes that Trump will not be incarcerated after the September 18 sentencing as it is very probable that the business tycoon would get bail pending appeal. 

According to Newsweek, the senior fellow at the National Review Institute opined that Judge Juan Merchan would be siding with Vice President Kamala Harris to tarnish the ex-POTUS' public image by tagging him as a convicted felon just a few weeks before the upcoming presidential elections. Arguing that the judge leans towards the 'media-Democratic complex,' McCarthy wrote, "Prepare for Merchan to deny Trump's immunity claim...and strap in for sentencing on Sept. 18."

Trump's legal team had appealed for immunity in the Supreme Court, which pushed the sentencing from the initial scheduled date of July 11. Nonetheless, "He said he plans to rule on Trump's immunity claim by August 16. Merchan has already decided that he will deny Trump's immunity motion. There is, moreover, a high likelihood that he will impose a prison sentence against Trump right after that," McCarthy speculated further. 

"The New York prosecution of Trump was politics, not justice. That's why we call it 'lawfare'. The prosecutors and judge are not concerned about whether convictions ultimately get thrown out on appeal," the Fox News columnist continued. "And it's not like Merchan is actually going to put Trump in prison; it is virtually certain that Trump will get bail pending appeal, so Merchan can appear to impose a stiff incarceration sentence without any real incarceration— at least for now, and probably ever," McCarthy explained. As such, stating his concern, McCarthy claimed, "Americans will already have started voting in many states, not least the potentially decisive Pennsylvania battleground," when the punishment will be decided by the jury. 

The businessman-turned-politician was found guilty on all 34 felony counts by a 12-member jury in the hush-money trial in New York. The Republican nominee faced charges of falsifying business transactions and paying a whopping $1,30,000 to adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 elections. According to CBS News, Michael Cohen, his former attorney and 'fixer', testified to helping Trump with the unrecorded transaction to save face before the elections. 

Meanwhile, Syracuse University law professor, Gregory Germain, previously told Newsweek, "I think a prison sentence is unlikely for a first-time nonviolent Class E felony...Any other defendant would be given probation, and I think it will be very hard for the judge to justify a prison sentence over a records violation." Trump is the first-ever President in American history to undergo indictment and judicial trials.