Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on Sunday said that President Trump might “face the real prospect of jail time” after prosecutors indicated last week that he directed illegal payments during his 2016 presidential campaign.
“There’s a very real prospect that on the day Donald Trump leaves office, the Justice Department may indict him. That he may be the first president in quite some time to face the real prospect of jail time,” he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
Schiff’s comments come after federal prosecutors said in a legal filing Friday that referred to Trump as “Individual-1” that Trump during the 2016 campaign directed his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, to make illegal payments to two women claiming they had affairs with Trump. It was the first time prosecutors made those accusations against Trump.{mosads}
Schiff, who is likely to be the next chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, added that the next president may have to determine whether to pardon Trump.
“We have been discussing the issue of pardons the president may offer to people or dangle in front of people,” Schiff said. “The bigger pardon question may come down the road, as the next president has to determine whether to pardon Donald Trump.”
“I think the prosecutors in New York make a powerful case against that idea,” he added. “All the arguments they make against Michael Cohen … that argument was equally made with respect to Individual-1, the president of the United States.”