Category: Fact Checking

In May 2024, Snopes reviewed a false and scammy Facebook ad claiming former Republican U.S. presidential candidate Mike Huckabee abruptly left his weekend TV show, “Huckabee.” According to the ad — which also was displayed to Instagram users — the former Arkansas governor’s departure from the show purportedly left the Christian, Texas-based Trinity Broadcasting Network with no choice but to cancel the program.

The false claim appeared as a right-column Facebook ad with the words, “Huckabee Is Leaving TBN To Pursue A Greater Purpose.”

The larger version of the same ad appearing in users’ feeds read, “Huckabee Is Leaving TBN To Pursue A Greater Purpose. Americans are stunned.” The ad also displayed the caption, “In a heart-wrenching address, Mike opened up about his health problems and the miracle that helped him turn his life around.”

The Right Peace Facebook page hosted the ad in question. The “page transparency” tab on the Facebook page read, “Navigator Check LLC is responsible for this Page. This is a person or organization that has completed our verification process and claimed responsibility for this Page.” The information displayed Navigator Check’s location simply as “Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15206.” One purported U.S.-based page manager was mentioned in the “page transparency” tab.

According to Meta’s ad library, the false Huckabee ad became active on April 9. In other words, it had been active for about 50 days, as of this writing.

The ad linked to navigatorcheck.com/four-things — which redirected to a fake Fox News article hosted on freshdailydrive.com. Scammers designed this article to resemble the layout of Fox News’ website. The headline read, “‘Huckabee’ On TBN Is Officially Cancelled! He’s Walking Away From His Own Show: His Reason Why Shared On Air.”

Both the ad and article were part of a promotional ruse to fool users into believing Huckabee created and consumed a product named Fortin CBD Gummies to cure his “four-year battle” with an “autoimmune disease”:

After months of searching, Mike was finally connected with a team of 10 world-renowned doctors running a clinical trial of a new supplement that was taking the health community by storm. It showed early signs of having significant abilities to stop the spread, and in some cases even reverse, many common diseases and ailments usually brought on by old age, like chronic pain. It was being billed as “the perfect daily supplement for anyone over 40 years old,” and most importantly, it was now looking for a trustworthy and powerful investor to get it to the market. After trialing it himself with unbelieveable results, Huckabee bought the formula so he could get it into the hands of Americans as fast as possible.

…

Huckabee’s product, Fortin CBD Gummies, has been selling like hotcakes, with stocks depleting within minutes. He admits that his main challenge as CEO is meeting the overwhelming demand. His CBD wellness line is not only 90% cheaper but also five times more effective than similar offerings from Bayer and other “Big Pharma” companies. And after seeing a massive decline in their sales, Bayer started calling for Huckabee’s company to halt operations, saying:

“We’re happy Mr. Huckabee found something to replace opioids, pain killers, and save American lives but his company is engaging in unacceptable business practices. He must cease production immediately and stop offering Fortin CBD Gummies to the public.”

To be clear, no celebrity or TV personality has endorsed “miracle” CBD gummies supposedly able to “instantly cure chronic pain anywhere in the body” — a claim made in the false and scammy article.

Snopes previously reported on similar, misleading “celebrity endorsements” of CBD gummies and keto gummies. Such rumors have targeted Fox News host Dana Perino, tech entrepreneur Elon Musk and ABC News’ chief health and medical correspondent, Dr. Jennifer Ashton.

In May 2024, a post on Reddit’s r/science subreddit claimed that people who always or often added salt to their food were much likely to develop stomach cancer than people who rarely or never did so. The post had more than 2,700 upvotes at the time of this publication.

Through a Google keyword search, Snopes found several news publications that wrote about the study the Reddit post referenced, including News Medical Life Sciences, Newsweek, Technology Networks, and Medical News Today. The study, “Adding salt to food at table as an indicator of gastric cancer risk among adults: a prospective study,” was published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Gastric Cancer on April 17, 2024. 

Researchers at the Center for Public Health, Medical University of Vienna analyzed the data of more than 470,000 adults from UK-Biobank, a large-scale British biomedical database. Questionnaires administered between 2006 and 2010 included questions like, “How often do you add salt to your food?” Responses were compared with measurements of study participants’ salt excretion in urine, as well as data from national cancer registries. 

According to a news release published by the institution, people who said they regularly salted their food were “41% more likely to develop stomach cancer than those who left their saltshakers untouched” over 11 years. (An English-language version of the news release is also available on the science news website, EurekAlert.)

“Our results also stood up to the consideration of demographic, socioeconomic and lifestyle factors and were just as valid for prevailing comorbidities,” study author Selma Kronsteiner-Gicevic said in the news release. 

Researchers noted several limitations with their research. For example, they could not evaluate the influence of certain characteristics such as sex, age, ethnicity or smoking status. It also was an observational study, which means other outside influences may not have been fully accounted for. Because the study participants volunteered, the findings cannot be generalized to the general U.K. population — or beyond — because of participation and age restrictions present with the UK Biobank cohort. 

Regardless of the limitations, the findings add to a growing body of evidence supporting salt’s potential role in gastroenterological cancers. For example, research published in 2009 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology found that salt may “cause stomach cancer through directly damaging gastric mucus” and that “considerable evidence” suggests limiting salted foods is a “practical strategy for preventing gastric cancer” 

Similarly, in 2021 a systematic review published in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition found that “High intakes of salt, pickled food, and processed meat are associated with significantly increased risks of gastric cancer; these increased risks are also seen when participants consumed moderate amounts of salt.” 

In 2022, scientists concluded in the journal Nutrients that higher dietary salt intake increases the risk of gastric cancer.

As of this publication, stomach cancer is the fifth-most-common type of cancer worldwide, according to the World Cancer Research Fund International. The agency notes that there is strong evidence that consuming salt-preserved foods increases the risk of stomach cancer. 

Though the risk of stomach cancer increases with age, experts have noted an increase in gastrointestinal cancers, like those of the stomach, liver, pancreas, and colon, in younger people, particularly women. The cause is not entirely clear, but researchers speculated in 2023 it could be connected to shifts in dietary habits, increased intake of processed foods and higher rates of obesity, as well as other unhealthy behaviors, diet and physical activity. 

The 2024 study authors say the findings will help highlight stomach health and its relationship to diets. 

“With our study, we want to raise awareness of the negative effects of extremely high salt consumption and provide a basis for measures to prevent stomach cancer,” researcher Tilman Kühn said.

Sources

For decades, the miraculous survival story of Elvita Adams has saturated corners of the internet. Social media posts (here, here, here and here, for example) claim that Adams, 29, survived after jumping from the 102-story Empire State Building in New York City in 1979. 

In reality, Adams jumped from the observation deck on the 86th floor but landed on a 3-foot-wide ledge 20 feet down (one floor) after a wind gust broke her fall. In other words, she did not fall 86 floors to the street. She reportedly suffered a fractured pelvis and was taken to Bellevue Hospital.

But Snopes could not trace the origins of the black-and-white image commonly shared in posts or confirm whether the above photo genuinely depicted Adams after the fall. We contacted The Empire State Building and will update this article if we hear back.  

The incident was outlined in a Dec. 3, 1979, article in The New York Times titled, “Woman Survives Fall At the Empire State.” It read: 

A 29‐year‐old woman apparently jumped from the 86th‐floor observation deck of the Empire State Building last night, but survived when she landed on a three‐foot ledge about 20 feet below, the police said. She was admitted to Bellevue Hospital with a fractured pelvis.

Authorities at the 102‐story building on West 34th Street theorized that strong wind gusts — and no small amount of luck — saved the life of Elvita Adams, of 975 Walton Avenue in the Bronx.

George Reice, night supervisor at the observatory, said that a guard heard calls for help at about 8:15 last night and found Miss Adams lying on the 85th‐floor ledge of the building.

A spokesman for the building said that ordinarily four guards patrol the 86th‐floor observation deck, which is surrounded by an eight‐foot, ironspiked fence. But, the police said, no one saw Miss Adams jump. The police said they were considering the incident an attempted suicide.

Snopes also searched through the online database New York State Historic Newspapers, which archives newspaper issues dating back to the 18th century. We found the scan below of an Associated Press article titled, “Wind thwarts suicide attempt.” 

Adams is also mentioned in the 1996 book, Skyscrapers: A Social History of the Very Tall Building in America: 

Interestingly enough, the Empire State’s fence, a seven-foot wire mesh affair with incurving steel spikes, did not completely deter would-be suicides. Some people have managed to get over it and have successfully plummeted to their deaths. Others have gotten over and still been frustrated. On the cold and windy night of December 2, 1979, Elvita Adams got over the fence and jumped, but a strong gust of wind blew her right back to the building at the eighty-fifth floor. She landed on a ledge fracturing her hip, but was shortly hauled to safety. 

The 1980 book The Empire State Building Book, by Jonathan Goldman, also included a photograph of an article published by the New York Post on Dec. 3, 1979, titled, “Gust of wind saves woman who leaped from 86th floor of Empire State Building.” On page 60, the report read, in part: 

Officials said today it was miraculous that a woman who jumped last night from the 86th floor observation deck of the Empire State Building survived … 

[She] landed on the ledge directly below 

Her only injury was a fractured pelvis, according to Bellevue Hospital. 

She was discovered at 8:20 p.m., when a security guard Frank Clark heard a woman moaning in pain. 

He looked out of an 85th floor office window and saw Miss Adams lying on the concrete ledge. 

After just over a year of construction, the 102-story Empire State Building opened its doors to the public in 1931, making it the world’s tallest building at the time, according to the building’s website. At its top floor, the Empire State Building reaches a height of 1,250 feet but stretches to 1,454 feet when including the 1950 addition of an antenna. 

Following former U.S. president Donald Trump’s May 30, 2024, conviction on 34 felony counts of business fraud related to hush money payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels, renewed interest in this statement Trump allegedly made during his 2016 presidential campaign took hold:  

“A candidate under federal investigation ‘has no right to be running.’ Further, it would be ‘virtually impossible for (a president under indictment) to govern.'”

The text in question is an accurate paraphrase of statements made at two separate Trump rallies held in November 2016 — a Nov. 3 rally in North Carolina, and a Nov. 5 rally in Colorado. The statements made by Trump were in reference to the Oct. 28 revelation to Congress by then-FBI Director James Comey that his agency had reopened a criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton.

The phrasing at issue appears to stem from reporting by CNN’s KFile. In July 2023, that team published a story unearthing multiple statements made by Trump following Comey’s disclosure (emphasis ours):

On November 3, 2016, in Concord, North Carolina, Trump made similar comments. “If she were to win, it would create an unprecedented Constitutional crisis that would cripple the operations of our government,” he said.

“She is likely to be under investigation for many years, and also it will probably end up – in my opinion – in a criminal trial. I mean, you take a look. Who knows? But it certainly looks that way.” […] “She has no right to be running, you know that,” Trump said. “No right.”

Trump added at a November 5, 2016, rally in Denver that as “the prime suspect in a far-reaching criminal investigation,” Clinton’s controversies would make it “virtually impossible for her to govern.“

The paraphrased collection of statements is sometimes incorrectly cited as a direct quote. However, as displayed in the meme shown here, the portions within the quotation marks are statements Trump made in November 2016, and the paraphrased portions accurately reflect these statements’ intent. As such, the claim is True.

Sources

On May 25, 2024, a photograph went viral on X allegedly showing a giant bird’s foot, resembling that of a dinosaur. “A Southern Cassowary claw. Just in case you didn’t think that birds are dinosaurs,” read the caption on the post, which had more than 15.9 million views as of this writing.

A Southern Cassowary claw. Just in case you didn’t think that birds are dinosaurs pic.twitter.com/1q9V1rIQxv

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) May 25, 2024

Google reverse-image search results showed that the photograph also circulated on 9GAG, Instagram and Reddit. “The foot of a Male Southern Cassowary, the world’s most dangerous bird, which sports massive claws that could easily disembowel a full grown man,” one post read.

In short, because the viral photograph authentically showed a claw of a male southern cassowary, we have rated this claim as “True.”

The photograph was first shared on Jan. 15, 2019, by Sarah Davis, then a doctoral candidate at the University of Texas at Austin. “Holding the claws of a male southern cassowary… Just in case any of your friends still need convinced that 🐦 = 🦖! ,” she wrote, adding the hashtag #birdsaredinosaurs. 

In later posts, Davis added that the bird “died of natural causes after a long and healthy life. He’s now being used to study avian anatomy, color, and feathers as part of multiple graduate research projects.” She also wrote that “cassowaries are native to Papua New Guinea and Australia, and are fruit eaters. But, that doesn’t mean they don’t know how to use those impressive claws…”

In January 2019, popular science website Live Science published an article on the topic, titled “Why This Enormous, Scaly Foot Looks Like It’s from a Dinosaur,” that included comments from Davis on the viral photograph. Davis told Live Science she studied “avian and nonavian dinosaurs, and analyzing modern birds provides valuable insights into the anatomy of extinct dinosaurs”:

For this project, Davis and other students were dissecting the cassowary to compare its anatomy with the anatomy of other flightless terrestrial birds, “particularly ostriches and emus,” described in published studies, she said.

“In this case, we are only looking at closely related species and looking for subtle differences in their legs,” Davis said. Cassowaries, ostriches and emus are all flightless, but their lineages lost the ability to fly independently of each other. Clues to those divergent evolutionary pathways might be retained in subtle variations in their leg muscles. “Those differences are what we are looking for,” she said.

…

“Cassowaries won’t hesitate to kick at animals — and people — if they think they’re threatening them, and the claw is a very effective tool for self-defense,” Davis said.

The exceptional size and heft of the foot also invoked “a very dinosaurian feeling” — a perspective that Davis wanted to share, she added. 

Davis also said she wanted her post with the picture to “awaken curiosity in people about the relationship between dinosaurs and birds,” adding that “birds are living dinosaurs, and the dinosaurs we see today are equally as interesting as those that went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous.” 

Researchers have found that modern-day birds are descendants of dinosaurs, specifically the theropods.

“Birds that fill the world’s skies today are living dinosaurs, reminders of a distant and strange past. Decades of major new discoveries and studies have convinced researchers that there’s a direct link between modern bird species and theropod dinosaurs,” according to London’s Natural History Museum. “Many features and behaviours that characterise living birds were also found in their dinosaur ancestors. Perhaps most surprising of all was the discovery of dinosaurs with feathers. It completely changed the scientific community’s perception of their appearance and behaviour.”

Numerous articles about the southern cassowary draw attention to the bird’s claws.

Encyclopedia Britannica wrote that the southern cassowary (Casuarius casuarius) inhabits New Guinea, nearby islands and Australia: “The cassowary has been known to kill human beings with slashing blows of its feet, as the innermost of its three toes bears a long daggerlike nail.”

Similarly, Australia’s Queensland Government website warned that “southern cassowary behaviour is unpredictable. Cassowaries can inflict serious injuries to people and pets by kicking with their large clawed feet.”

“They’re most active at twilight, have a claw that rivals Freddy Krueger’s, and are one of the few bird species that have killed humans — but don’t write off this flightless cousin of the emu as a thing of nightmares,” a World Wildlife Fund article on the topic read. “Unprovoked, cassowaries are fairly shy and peaceful, and they play an important role in their tropical forest ecosystem.”

Below you can see a photograph of a female southern cassowary on the beach in Etty Bay, Queensland:

(Getty Images)

This isn’t the first time we’ve fact-checked a bird-related claim. For instance, in April 2024, we investigated whether owl chicks sleep face down because their heads are too heavy. In July 2022 we debunked a false claim that cedar waxwings die when their mates do.

In May 2024, videos surfaced on YouTube alleging CNN leaked footage showing Sean “Diddy” Combs and Jay-Z were involved in illicit sexual activities in “underground play tunnels.” The videos are the first results displayed to at least some Google users when simply searching for both Jay-Z and “Diddy.”

These videos presented no evidence to corroborate their claim about CNN releasing such footage. Further, CNN did not report anything of the sort. The claim is false.

What Inspired This False Rumor?

This rumor claiming CNN leaked footage involving Combs, Jay-Z and “underground play tunnels” was circulating online for at least three reasons.

First, in March 2024, federal Homeland Security Investigations agents and other law-enforcement officers searched Combs’ properties in Los Angeles and Miami. According to The Associated Press, the agents’ search was part of an ongoing federal sex-trafficking investigation conducted from New York. Authorities have not charged Combs in this matter. The New York Times further reported Combs also faces civil sexual assault lawsuits from four women accusing him of rape and a man accusing him of unwanted sexual contact. Combs previously denied what he labeled as “sickening allegations” in a December 2023 Instagram post.

Second, on May 17, CNN published exclusive footage from a hotel’s surveillance feed showing Combs physically assaulting his then-girlfriend Cassie Ventura in 2016. Combs apologized in an Instagram post on May 19, saying in part, “My behavior on that video is inexcusable. I take full responsibility for my actions in that video.”

The third reason the fake videos about Combs, Jay-Z and “underground play tunnels” started cropping up was because the YouTube users posting the clips sought money. The videos we reviewed all displayed skippable YouTube ads, meaning the channels’ owner or owners appeared to be earning advertising revenue based on the promotion of false information.

The Videos Were Created with AI

While an online search displayed plenty of videos promoting these claims, we primarily looked at two of the most popular clips.

On May 26, 2024, the Lock Trends YouTube channel published a video with the title, “CNN LEAKS New Footage From Diddy And Jay Z’s Underground Play Tunnels!!” As of May 31, the video received nearly 400,000 views.

Similarly, the Celeb Lounge YouTube channel posted a video on May 29 showing the title, “CNN LEAKS Footage Of FBI Agent EXPOSING Jay Z & Diddy!!” It earned over 150,000 views.

These two videos and many others hosted on the same channels all appeared scripted, edited and narrated with the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools. The gossip-centric content of the videos included various clips from news broadcasts, interviews and other footage.

Again, at no time did any of the videos present evidence CNN aired or “leaked” footage about Combs, Jay-Z and illicit sexual activities in “underground play tunnels.” A Google search found no articles on CNN.com about the subject. Further, a search of the Internet Archive’s TV News Archive showed CNN’s TV channel broadcast no news about the matter.

Misleading Thumbnail Images

The “underground play tunnels” video from the Lock Trends YouTube channel featured a misleading thumbnail image showing FBI Director Christopher Wray, Combs, a tunnel and a red arrow. The image displayed a fake quote falsely claiming Wray or someone else on CNN said, “‘Diddy’s’ life is f***ed.”

Similarly, the Celeb Lounge YouTube video also included a misleading thumbnail image of a judge in a courtroom and a masked Jay-Z. The source of the Jay-Z photo may have come from a court appearance in 2021 involving a fragrance company lawsuit. This image also featured a fake quote.

Other videos posted on both Lock Trends and Celeb Lounge displayed similar thumbnail images featuring fake quotes and misleading pictures of Combs, Jay-Z, other celebrities and tunnels.

Most Commenters Didn’t Question the Videos

Users who appeared to believe the video titles about CNN were genuine wrote the vast majority of the comments under the videos on both the Lock Trends and Celeb Lounge YouTube videos. A seemingly endless number of users inexplicably posted comments apparently without realizing the videos’ titles were nothing more than false clickbait. However, thankfully, a tiny minority of users did post comments saying they noticed the videos did not deliver on the promises in the titles.

One user remarked, “Everyone is boasting about the leaked videos. So, where are they?” A different person commented, “There’s no video of Jay-Z [and] underground tunnels. Clickbait title.” Another example of an intelligent commenter read, “No proven facts relating to ‘Diddy’s’ mansion here. No footage from his compound!”

Conclusion

As of this writing, there was no evidence to support the assertion CNN leaked or published any footage as described in the videos’ titles. If, hypothetically speaking, there was even a sliver of credible, publicly-available evidence to support the claim, reputable entertainment media outlets would have published extensive reporting. This has not happened.

In short, the claim appeared made up from whole cloth for the purpose of gaining YouTube advertising revenue. The YouTube videos displayed no disclaimers about gossip or rumors in their descriptions, or on screen at the beginning or end of the videos. The videos appeared be gaming the system in that they promoted either misinformation or disinformation at the top of Google search results for users searching the celebrities’ names.

Despite the fact the videos’ underlying claim was false, the clips about Combs and Jay-Z could seem believable to less adept users because of the lawsuits and property searches involving Combs, as well as the video titles’ mention of CNN, which had exclusively published the hotel surveillance footage on May 17. With that mixture of true and misleading information, as well as emotionally-charged language, such videos with baseless celebrity rumors often appear to supercharge online discussions about claims with no evidential support.

This was not the first misleading rumor related to Combs capturing YouTube users’ attention. For example, we previously published the article, “T.D. Jakes Disparaged in False and Unfounded Rumors Alongside ‘Diddy’ Sex-Abuse Allegations.”

Sources

Este artículo estará disponible en español en El Tiempo Latino.

Donald Trump became the first U.S. president, current or former, to be convicted of a criminal offense when a 12-person jury in New York on May 30 found him guilty on 34 felony counts of business fraud as part of an illegal scheme to influence the 2016 election by making payments to suppress a sordid tale of sex with a porn star.

The unprecedented conviction raises questions about what’s next for the 77-year-old man who is in line to become the Republican Party’s nominee for president in 2024.

In remarks at Trump Tower a day after his conviction, Trump called the United States “a corrupt country” and declared that he would be “appealing this scam.”

(Trump also repeated many of the false, misleading and unsupported claims he has made about the judge, the judge’s rulings, the district attorney and other issues related to the trial. For more about Trump’s talking points, see our May 30 article, “Trump’s Repeated Claims on His New York Hush Money Trial.” He also repeated false and unsubstantiated claims on other issues, such as taxes and migrants.)

Here, we answer some of the questions raised by the former president’s conviction:

What are the next steps in the case?
What punishment could Trump face? Will he go to prison?
Can Trump vote in the 2024 election?
Can a felon run for president, hold office?
Can Trump pardon himself on this conviction, if he wins?

What are the next steps in the case?

Sentencing and an appeal are up next in this case.

Sentencing by Justice Juan Merchan is scheduled for July 11. Before that date, a probation officer or someone in that department will interview Trump, and potentially others involved in the case or connected to Trump, and prepare a pre-sentence report for the judge. The report includes the personal history and criminal record of the defendant, and it recommends what sentence the defendant should receive, according to the New York State Unified Court System.

“The pre-sentence interview is a chance for the defendant to try to make a good impression and explain why he or she deserves a lighter punishment,” the state court system explains.

Trump’s lawyers have to wait until after the sentencing to appeal the conviction. First, Trump’s lawyers will file motions before the judge “in a couple weeks” saying why they found the trial to be “unfair,” Trump’s defense attorney Todd Blanche told CNN hours after the guilty verdict.

Cheryl Bader, a clinical associate professor of law at Fordham University School of Law, said these motions are typical when a defendant is convicted. The defense attorneys will ask the judge to overturn the jury’s conviction. “It’s rarely, rarely granted, and I don’t think there’s a chance that will happen in this case,” she told us in a phone interview.

Blanche told CNN that if the motions aren’t successful, “then as soon as we can appeal, we will. And the process in New York is there’s a sentencing, and then — and then we appeal from there.”

Bader, a former assistant U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, walked us through the appeals process. “The case is considered completed at sentencing,” she said. “At that point, his lawyers file a notice of appeal … letting the court know that he intends to appeal.”

At that point, they will also request a “stay” on the sentence, meaning a pause on imposing the sentence while the case is being appealed.

This appeal goes to the Appellate Division, First Judicial Department in Manhattan. The appeals court doesn’t retry the case. “They’re not going to substitute their judgment on the facts for the jury’s judgment,” Bader explained. Instead, “they’re looking for where there was error that would have led to an improper prosecution or an unfair trial.”

The appeals process would take several months to a year, she said. After the notice of appeal is given, the record of the case is gathered, including trial transcripts, the indictment, pretrial motions, evidentiary rulings, jury selection and instructions, and more. Trump could also appeal the sentencing. The lawyers need to write their arguments for all of the issues they’re objecting to, and that takes time, Bader said.

And then the appeals court needs to consider the case and write a decision on it.

If Trump ultimately isn’t successful at the appellate level, he can appeal to the highest court in New York state, which is called the Court of Appeals. But the court decides whether or not it takes the case.

After such an appeal to the highest state court, the case would be over — unless Trump tries to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. But there has to be a U.S. constitutional issue for that. “I don’t see one,” Bader said, but perhaps Trump’s lawyers would try to make an argument.

What punishment could Trump face? Will he go to prison?

Whether Trump is sentenced to any time in prison is up to the judge.

Each of the 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, a class E felony, carries a maximum sentence of up to four years in prison. The judge could decide to impose the sentences consecutively or simultaneously. However, under New York law, 20 years is the maximum prison time that Trump could get — not 187 years, as Trump falsely claimed in his May 31 remarks.

Norman Eisen, a CNN legal analyst and a senior fellow in governance studies for the Brookings Institution, said that “in the most serious” cases of business records falsification in New York that he studied, “a sentence of imprisonment was routinely imposed.” Trump’s case “is the most serious one in NY history,” he wrote on X, predicting that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin “Bragg will likely ask for incarceration & Merchan will consider it.”

While possible, Bader, with Fordham’s School of Law, told us she doesn’t think incarceration will happen.

For a first-time convicted felon, with a low-level, nonviolent felony and a person of advanced age, “under any circumstance like that, there’d be a relatively low chance of incarceration,” she said.

“On the other hand, I could see the prosecutor arguing that here’s a man who has shown disrespect for the court system and the rule of law and has violated the court’s orders on numerous occasions. He is not remorseful. And that in order to promote general deterrence, he needs to be punished,” she said in describing a possible argument from the prosecutor.

Bader said any incarceration sentence “would be only a token amount of time to make the point that Trump is not above the law.” Other sentencing possibilities include probation or a “conditional discharge” with conditions other than incarceration or probation.

The “simplest” option might be for the judge to fine Trump, she said.

Can Trump vote in the 2024 election?

Yes, Trump can vote as long as he is not in jail on Election Day, which this year is on Nov. 5.

Trump owns homes in New York and Florida, but in 2019 he changed his primary residence to Florida. However, Florida law does not apply in Trump’s case because he was convicted in New York. Instead, New York law applies.

“If you were convicted outside Florida, your voting rights are governed by the state where you were convicted,” as the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida explains on its website.

In 2021, New York state enacted a law that “restores the right to vote for a person convicted of a felony upon release from incarceration, regardless of if they are on parole or have a term of post-release supervision,” the New York State Board of Elections says. “If a convicted felon is not incarcerated, they are eligible to register to vote.”

Can a felon run for president, hold office?

Yes. According to Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution, there are three qualifications to serve as president: He or she must be at least 35 years old upon taking office, a U.S. resident for at least 14 years and a “natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States.”

“These qualifications are understood to be exclusive,” Josh Chafetz, a Georgetown University law professor, told us last year when we were writing about Trump’s federal indictment related to allegations of mishandling sensitive classified documents after he left office. “Anyone can be president so long as they meet the constitutional qualifications and do not trigger any constitutional disqualifications.”

“Someone can run for president while under indictment or even having been convicted and serving prison time,” said Chafetz, who pointed to the example of Eugene V. Debs, the late labor leader, who, in 1920, ran for president from prison on the Socialist Party ticket and got almost 1 million votes.

There is an exception to that rule. The Constitution says in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment that no U.S. officeholder, including the president, can serve if they are convicted of “engag[ing] in insurrection or rebellion” against the U.S. — something Trump has not been charged with either in this case or the three others he faces.

Six Colorado voters successfully sued in state court to prevent Trump from appearing on that state’s ballot, citing the constitutional amendment barring insurrectionists from holding federal office. But the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the state ruling, “[b]ecause the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the States, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates.”

Can Trump pardon himself on this conviction, if he wins?

The short answer is no.

Trump was convicted in New York for offenses in violation of state law. Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution states that a president has the “[p]ower to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States.” According to Constitution Annotated, a government-sanctioned record of the interpretations of the Constitution, that means the power extends to “federal crimes but not state or civil wrongs.”

In a case decided in 1925, Ex parte Grossman, the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed that interpretation, writing that the Constitution’s language specifying presidential pardon power for offenses “against the United States” was “presumably to make clear that the pardon of the President was to operate upon offenses against the United States as distinguished from offenses against the States.”

The New York governor has the power to pardon Trump for his conviction of crimes under state law. That’s currently Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat. After the verdict, Republican Rep. Nick LaLota called on Hochul “to immediately announce her intention to pardon President Trump and pre-emptively commute any sentence. To not do so is to allow America to become a banana republic.” Hochul released a statement on May 30 saying, “Today’s verdict reaffirms that no one is above the law.”

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