Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee in November’s election, has joined an unusual club: presidential contenders who are also convicted criminals.
Before Trump was found guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a historic verdict on Thursday, the most well-known convict seeking the Oval Office had been Eugene Debs, a socialist who conducted his presidential campaign behind bars in 1920.
While Republican Warren Harding won that year’s election by a landslide, defeating Democrat James Cox, Debs managed to secure nearly 1 million votes from his Atlanta prison cell — which Allison Duerk, director of the Eugene V. Debs Museum in Terre Haute, Indiana, called “remarkable.”
“He couldn’t even use his most powerful tool, which was his voice,” she said, adding that he was permitted to put out a short weekly press release during the campaign season but otherwise relied on others in the Socialist Party to get the word out for him.
Trump pleaded not guilty to his charges, which were related to a hush money payment that his former lawyer made to adult film star Stormy Daniels as the 2016 presidential election approached.
After a couple of months imprisoned in West Virginia, Debs was transferred to a federal prison in Atlanta to serve the rest of his sentence.
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Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee in November’s election, has joined an unusual club: presidential contenders who are also convicted criminals.
Before Trump was found guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a historic verdict on Thursday, the most well-known convict seeking the Oval Office had been Eugene Debs, a socialist who conducted his presidential campaign behind bars in 1920.
While Republican Warren Harding won that year’s election by a landslide, defeating Democrat James Cox, Debs managed to secure nearly 1 million votes from his Atlanta prison cell — which Allison Duerk, director of the Eugene V. Debs Museum in Terre Haute, Indiana, called “remarkable.”
“He couldn’t even use his most powerful tool, which was his voice,” she said, adding that he was permitted to put out a short weekly press release during the campaign season but otherwise relied on others in the Socialist Party to get the word out for him.
Trump pleaded not guilty to his charges, which were related to a hush money payment that his former lawyer made to adult film star Stormy Daniels as the 2016 presidential election approached.
After a couple of months imprisoned in West Virginia, Debs was transferred to a federal prison in Atlanta to serve the rest of his sentence.
The original article contains 764 words, the summary contains 212 words. Saved 72%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!