Trump is arraigned today on his third indictment, the most serious yet as it deals with Jan. 6.
A fourth is to come in Georgia. The trial dates so far are summer 2024, which means he’ll be in court for the bulk of his presidential campaign, assuming he receives the GOP nomination.
His goose is cooked. Even if he pleads out one or more of these cases (the hush money one seems likely), he’ll be convicted in late 2024 for at least one of them. Also, at least one state, and possibly several, will throw him off the ballot, which will make winning the presidency and pardoning himself impossible – and since he isn’t going to step aside and push another GOP candidate to the fore with the promise of pardoning him, he doesn’t have a way out of prison time unless Biden dies suddenly and throws the Democrats into complete disarray prior to the election.
Given these observations, I have to wonder when Trump will decide to flee the country in the next year. It wouldn’t necessarily be “defeat” – he could still keep running for election, even on the legal lam – but a retreat would keep him out of prison and out of the courtroom.
Where would he go, though? The Western Hemisphere is out. Europe is out. Russia and China would work legally, but would sink his narrative. I don’t see him in SE Asia, either, given his lifestyle.
Saudi Arabia, though. Golf and money. Also, one of the richer Gulf states, Dubai or the U.A.E. He’d be a political asset for any of those countries, in return for a comfortable retirement and a distant if possible return to the U.S. if his legal problems resolve.
He still has to get there, though. The major difficulty would be his mandatory Secret Service protection. I don’t see him or his handlers being clever or bold enough to get him on board a flight without them, and they could force the pilot to never take off or turn back. However, it’s unclear to me if they have the legal authority or the willingness to hijack a private plane – or if Trump or the flight crew would be charged with kidnapping them, among many crazy possibilities. I’m sure this has been gamed out and discussed, but I’m not so sure what the conclusion was.
A nonstop subsonic flight from West Palm Beach (by Mar-a-lago) to Saudi Arabia is about 15 hours. Trump owns two planes with the range – a Boeing 757-200, the former “Trump Force One,” and a Cessna 750. If he gets in the air in either with a full tank with intent to flee, he’s gone. While the FBI seems to have seized some of his passports in 2022 during the Mar-a-lago search, I doubt this would be a problem considering where he’s likely to head.
To sum up, I think Trump is a real flight risk after this third indictment. While this doesn’t require him to be in a cell, it would be wise for the relevant authorities to take more precautions than holding his passports. A reminder to any pilots or flight crews that they would criminally liable upon returning to the U.S., for example. Making his assets difficult or impossible to access from overseas. A clear expectation of what the Secret Service would do if he tried to flee.