Matthew Whitaker to Newsmax: Merchan Knows Prison Would Strengthen Trump

Matthew Whitaker, the former acting attorney general in the Trump administration, told Newsmax on Wednesday that Judge Juan Merchan is likely weighing prison time for Donald Trump very carefully against the possibility that such a sentence would backfire and incite sympathy for the former president ahead of the Nov. 5 election.

"The problem is that Judge Merchan knows that if he puts Donald Trump in prison, that will make him even stronger," Whitaker said during an appearance on "Wake Up America." "It's kind of like the Star Wars character … Obi Wan, who became stronger if he was struck down. I think that's what they're going to deal with here, is that if they put him in jail, not only will Donald Trump supporters rally around him even more than they have in the past, I think you'll start to see people's eyes open and understanding that this is, and has always been, election interference."

On Tuesday, Merchan partially lifted the gag order on Trump ahead of his sentencing in the New York paperwork trial on July 11. The former president, who was previously barred from speaking about jurors, court staffers, witnesses and the prosecution team, is now allowed to comment publicly about witnesses and jurors in the case.

Trump was convicted in late May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the run-up to the 2016 election. Daniels claims the two had a sexual encounter a decade earlier, which the former president denies.

"I think it's still unconstitutional restriction on free speech, but, that being said, I mean, it will be nice to have the president be able to talk about the witnesses in that trial," Whitaker said.

Whitaker said he thinks the reason Merchan loosened the gag order on Trump was because the judge's name was no longer making headlines and "he wanted to see his name mentioned in the news because he became addicted to the attention."

"When I was in the courtroom and watching it myself, you could tell that he was very aware that everything he was doing was being covered, and he seemed to like the attention," he added.

Asked how he thinks Trump's sentencing will go, Whitaker said he doesn't know what Merchan is going to hand down, but he does know "what should happen."

"It should be a very light sentence," he said. "A person with no criminal history, that still, quite frankly, doesn't know what he was convicted of, should get something like probation. But, this judge threatened him, if he violated the gag order, [with] putting him in jail. I think he just might try to give him some sort of what I would call a shock sentence, which would be staggering, to take him off the campaign trail. But, these things are unpredictable. With no criminal history, you wouldn't expect a sentence of time in prison would be appropriate."

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