Donald Trump claimed he wanted to create history for his second term of presidency. And he did when he became the first president to be a convicted felon. The People of the State of New York v. Donald Trump was a criminal case against Trump; he was charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in order to conceal his payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
In May 2024, Trump was guilty of 34 felony counts of fraud making him the first president and president-elect to have been convicted of a crime. The trial consists of Trump’s former personal lawyer claiming that he paid Daniels $130,000 in exchange for her silence before the 2016 presidential election. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office claimed that Trump committed a crime by improperly recording the money which he reimbursed Cohen as legal expenses. However, hush-money payments are not illegal. The Office accused them of falsifying the business records to conceal a violation of state election law. Trump’s lawyers claimed that they wanted to squelch the stories to protect his family.
Prosecutors claimed that Trump tried to illegally influence the outcome of the 2016 by preventing damaging stories of his personal life from becoming public. Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo claimed: “ This was a planned, long-running conspiracy to influence the 2016 election, to help Donald Trump get elected through illegal expenditures to silence people who had something bad to say about his behavior. It was election fraud, pure and simple.”
This is not Trump’s first time in trouble with the law. In 2021, Trump was impeached for the second time in the wake of the January 6th Capitol Attack. In 2023, Trump was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation in the E. Jean Carroll v. Donald J. Trump case against American author E. Jean Carroll. In 2024, Trump was found guilty of business fraud.
In 2024, Trump was the subject of four federal cases: which is the falsifying of business records, mishandling of national security documents, attempting to overturn the 2020 U.S. presidential election, and racketeering to overturn the 2020 U.S. presidential election in Georgia.
In January 2025, in the wake of Trump’s second term, it came to light that Trump would not be punished; he would be free to return to the White House without any jail time or fine. Trump’s no-penalty sentence is called an unconditional discharge which is rare for felony convictions. Trump took office on January 20, 2025, as the 47th president of the United States.
