Trump could face home confinement due to 'enormous burden' of jailing him: expert

If former President Donald Trump is convicted of all the charges laid out against him, he faces a prison sentence that could last decades.

However, experts who spoke with the Washington Post say it is unlikely that Trump will ever go to actual prison given the challenges that would arise from having a Secret Service detail protecting him around the clock.

Instead, the former president could be sentenced to home confinement, and also receive other punishments such as fines and community service.

Mary McCord, who served as acting assistant attorney general for national security under former President Barack Obama, told the Post that "it really would be a pretty enormous burden on our prison system to have to incarcerate Donald Trump," which is why she thinks other punishments are likely.

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Added to this, the United States Secret Service says that it doesn't even have a protocol for handling an incarcerated one-time commander-in-chief given that Trump is the first former president to ever be criminally indicted.

However, former Secret Service agent Jonathan Wackrow tells the Post that he could imagine a scenario where the Secret Service could effectively guard Trump while in jail.

"In some ways, protection may be easier — the absence of travel means logistics get easier and confinement means that the former president’s location is always known,” Wackrow said. “Theoretically, the perimeter is well fortified — no one is worried about someone breaking into jail.”