Trump could plead guilty in docs case to prevent more harm to his campaign: ex-prosecutor

It's possible that former president Donald Trump could cop a plea deal and claim that he was forced to do so in order to focus on his presidential campaign, according to a former federal prosecutor.

Former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance, who spent 25 years as a federal prosecutor and recently said Jack Smith was providing a "display of strength" in the documents case, compared on Saturday the 2024 campaign of Trump to that of televangelist Pat Robertson, who ran for the Republican nomination in 1988. Vance wrote on her Substack that Robertson was able to evade looking bad by using his campaign to ditch a doomed lawsuit against multiple lawmakers.

"Robertson ultimately decided to dismiss his lawsuit, saying that it conflicted with his political ambitions, and that they were more important," the ex-prosecutor wrote. "Donald Trump will soon face a similar problem. How do you campaign for the presidency while facing court-imposed deadlines and court dates? Trump’s case is criminal, not civil. He can’t dismiss the prosecution in Florida or wish it away, much as he would undoubtedly like to."

Vance notes that, while he can't simply dismiss the case, Trump might be able to cop a plea.

"Robertson, a Yale-educated lawyer, understood his case had significant weaknesses. The campaign calendar provided him with a convenient excuse for ending the case," Vance wrote. "Trump could, at least hypothetically, do the same. A plea could be more attractive than legal proceedings where more and more evidence of his wrongdoing becomes public, especially if it’s not too late for his lawyers to negotiate a misdemeanor deal for him. If that happened, it’s not hard to imagine Trump maintaining he was forced to plead to the 'witch hunt' so he could continue his campaign. He’d probably use it to raise millions of dollars."

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