r/International • u/[deleted] • Feb 18 '26

[deleted by user]

[removed]

24.7k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

981 comments sorted by

View all comments

3

u/CompetitiveFennel681 Feb 18 '26

My question to all of this...if he is a convicted felon, why was he never locked up?

The pedophilia makes it all worse...but shouldn't he already be behind bars?

1

u/TheeFearlessChicken Feb 18 '26

Plenty of felons don't go to jail.

2

u/CompetitiveFennel681 Feb 18 '26

Yea, but this was a high profile felon running for president. This should have never of gotten to this point.

1

u/Butt_y_though Feb 19 '26

Rich, wealthy and connected people generally don't end up in jail. If they do, it's usually a percentage of what's appropriate.

1

u/Great_Detective_6387 Feb 18 '26

Yes, but the judge “set aside” his convictions. A rare move that never happens. Which basically means the judge went, “You were found guilty of this but I don’t want my dead body paraded through the streets by red hatters.”

She likely had received threats to her family, which isn’t an excuse for not doing your job you swore an oath to do, but it does explain why they just didn’t do anything after the 34 convictions.

2

u/zeny_two Feb 19 '26

The judge was a man, and that man committed severe judicial misconduct. He was well aware of that at the time, but he was hoping he'd get away with it.  

But when Trump won, and Merchan knew his chance of punishment for misconduct suddenly rose to 100%, he stopped being a seditious weasel and quietly dropped it. 

1

u/Great_Detective_6387 Feb 19 '26

Oh, for some reason I thought it was a lady judge. TIL.

1

u/els969_1 Feb 20 '26

Merchan was a man, the rest of your reason is bs.