The GOP Faces A Unique Dilemma Ahead Of Trump’s Sentencing

Among all of the other questions raised by former President Donald Trump’s felony conviction, there’s one prickly issue still facing planners of the July GOP national convention: What to do if Trump is in jail when it starts?

Trump’s sentencing date, July 11, is only a few days before the start of the party convention in Milwaukee on July 15. He could end up behind bars by the time the convention starts. The odds of that happening are slim-to-none, but that hasn’t stopped GOP officials from musing about what to do.

“We’re working on that now,” Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley said on Newsmax in early June.

“We expect that Donald Trump is going to be in Milwaukee and he’s going to be able to accept that nomination. And if not, we will make whatever contingency planning we need to make for it,” Whatley said June 4.

Exactly what those contingency plans would include, Whatley did not say.

“We are planning on him being here. I think that that’s really where we’re going to go forward with it. Of course obviously you have to have contingency plans in place,” Whatley told Spectrum News the next day.

Citing sources familiar with the convention’s planning, NBC News on June 13 reported backup plans were being made at Trump’s home in Florida and at the convention site in Milwaukee in case Trump is not able to be physically present.

Those contingency plans are unlikely to be needed, though, given the virtual certainty that Trump will still be a free man at the time of the convention.

While New York County Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan could certainly send Trump to jail immediately following his sentencing hearing — and indeed, the way Trump during his trial antagonized both Merchan and the criminal