California Rep. Adam Schiff said Sunday he believes President Trump could spend time in jail once he leaves the White House, after his former attorney Michael Cohen implicated him in campaign finance violations.
“My takeaway is 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,” the California Democrat said on ABC’s “This Week.”
Schiff, who likely will lead the House Intelligence Committee next year, has been a persistent critic of Trump’s during special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. Trump referred to him on Twitter last month as “little Adam Schitt.”
The congressman was reacting to a sentencing memo filed by prosecutors Friday against Cohen, who said he violated campaign finance law “in coordination with and at the direction of” Trump when paying off women alleging affairs during the 2016 campaign.
Schiff said Sunday that Trump may end up needing a pardon from his successor.
“We have been discussing the issue of pardons that the president may offer to people or dangle in front of people, the bigger pardon question may come down the road as the next president has to determine whether to pardon Donald Trump,” Schiff said.
