Trump's Admission: Did He Break The Law?

Former US President Donald Trump has been involved in a multitude of legal cases throughout his career as a businessman and politician. Trump has been accused of sexual harassment and sexual assault, tax evasion, obstruction of justice, and inciting violence at a 2016 campaign rally, among other charges. In 2024, he was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. Trump has denied any wrongdoing and continues to face multiple criminal cases and investigations.

Trump's hush money payments to Stormy Daniels

In 2018, it was revealed that Donald Trump's then-attorney, Michael Cohen, paid adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 in hush money to conceal an alleged affair between the two in 2006. This was done a month before the 2016 US presidential election, in which Trump was a candidate. Cohen claimed that the payment was an illegal contribution to Trump's campaign, intending to influence the election.

In March 2023, a grand jury indicted Trump for his alleged role in the scandal. He was charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records to hide the payment. In May 2024, Trump was found guilty on all 34 counts, making him the first former US president to become a convicted felon.

In January 2025, Trump was sentenced to unconditional discharge, meaning he will not be imprisoned, fined, or placed on probation. However, his conviction still stands, and he will enter office as a convicted felon. Trump has vowed to appeal the verdict.

Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 election result

After losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden, then-incumbent president Donald Trump pursued an unprecedented effort to overturn the election result. Trump and his allies used the "big lie" propaganda technique to promote claims that had been proven false and conspiracy theories asserting that the election was stolen by means of rigged voting machines, electoral fraud, and an international communist conspiracy.

Trump pressed Department of Justice leaders to challenge the results and publicly state that the election was corrupt. However, the attorney general, director of National Intelligence, and director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency – as well as some Trump campaign staff – dismissed these claims. State and federal judges, election officials, and state governors also determined the claims were baseless.

Trump's legal team sought to bring a case before the Supreme Court, but none of the 63 lawsuits they filed were successful. Trump considered ways to remain in power, including military intervention, seizing voting machines, and another appeal to the Supreme Court.

In June 2022, the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack said it had enough evidence to recommend that the Department of Justice indict Trump, and on August 1, 2023, Trump was indicted by a D.C. grand jury for conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstructing an official proceeding, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights; he pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Trump continues to insist that the election was stolen, telling a group of historians in mid-2021 that the election was "rigged and lost". As late as 2022, Trump supporters continued their attempts to overturn the election, pushing for state legislature resolutions and new lawsuits, raising concerns among legal experts that public confidence in democracy is being undermined to lay the groundwork for baselessly challenging future elections.

Trump's handling of classified documents

During his time in office, Donald Trump's handling of classified information and his attitude towards it worried US federal intelligence officials. They were also alarmed by Trump's mixing with guests during his frequent trips to Mar-a-Lago, viewing the practice as an opportunity for foreign spies to gain access.

In December 2019, Trump privately showed Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward a photograph of himself with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, as well as letters that Kim had written to him, which the US government had classified. Trump asked Woodward not to disclose that he had given them to him. In 2020, CNN published a transcript of two of these letters.

In 2021, Trump told close associates that he regarded some presidential documents, such as the correspondence with Kim, as his personal property.

Trump also illegally and regularly shredded "both sensitive and mundane" papers while at the White House, Mar-a-Lago, and on Air Force One, despite admonishments from his staff and White House counsel. His aides developed special practices to retrieve the piles of torn paper and tape documents back together. Trump White House staffers also frequently used "burn bags" to destroy documents, and on at least two occasions, Trump allegedly flushed documents down the toilet at the White House residence.

In the last few weeks of the Trump presidency, White House staff quit and aides resigned, leaving an increasing amount of work to a decreasing number of staff. A former Trump aide said they were "30 days behind what a typical administration would be", with little interest in the preservation of presidential records.

The day before he left office, Trump designated seven senior Trump administration officials as "his representatives to handle all future requests for presidential records" for compliance with the Presidential Records Act. Trump subsequently added Kash Patel, a former Trump administration official, and journalist John Solomon as "representatives for access to Presidential records of my administration".

In May 2021, the National Archives became aware of missing documents, including correspondence letters with Kim Jong-un and a congratulatory letter from former President Barack Obama. They contacted Trump's representatives, who informed them that Trump would return his correspondence letters with Kim, although he was unclear on how to proceed. An archive official recommended FedEx as a method of transferring the documents, but Trump aides objected to this idea, and Trump did not return the letters.

In January 2022, the National Archives began a process to retrieve 15 boxes that were taken from the White House at the end of Trump's term to his private Mar-a-Lago estate, successfully negotiating with Trump's lawyers to retrieve the documents. Among what was contained in the documents was classified information. Following the discovery, the National Archives notified the Justice Department and the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, which began an investigation into the documents.

In May 2022, the Justice Department subpoenaed the National Archives to obtain the documents and interviewed several White House officials who were present in the days leading up to Trump's departure. The Justice Department also subpoenaed Trump to return all documents with classification markings.

On June 3, the Justice Department sent counterintelligence chief Jay I. Bratt and three FBI agents to Mar-a-Lago to retrieve the documents requested in the subpoena and meet with Trump's legal team. Trump's lawyers claimed that all the documents were stored in a single basement storage room on the property.

On June 8, Bratt emailed Trump's lawyers, instructing them to put a stronger lock on the basement and to keep all documents "preserved in that room in their current condition until further notice".

On June 19, Trump wrote to the National Archives, telling them that Kash Patel and journalist John Solomon should be considered "representatives for access to Presidential records of my administration".

On June 22, the Justice Department subpoenaed Mar-a-Lago surveillance footage, which reportedly showed people putting boxes into other containers and moving them out of the basement storage room. The FBI suspected violations of the Espionage Act and obstruction of justice due to information from "a significant number of civilian witnesses".

On August 8, 2022, the FBI executed a search warrant on Mar-a-Lago, seizing thousands of government documents, some with classification markings. Across three interactions with Trump in 2022, including the August search of Mar-a-Lago, the government recovered approximately 13,000 documents totaling 21,792 pages. Some of the recovered classified documents, including top-secret documents, had been stored in boxes with personal effects such as press clippings, clothing, magazines, and gifts. The government also recovered dozens of empty folders that carried classified markings.

Trump claimed he made a "standing order" to declassify all material brought to Mar-a-Lago, though there is no known documentation of the order, and no former Trump administration official defends this claim. Even had the information been declassified, it would have remained illegal for Trump to take and keep documents that belong to the government.

In November 2022, a special counsel investigation was launched to take over the FBI investigation, under the direction of Jack Smith, a special counsel appointed by United States Attorney General Merrick Garland.

On June 8, 2023, Trump was indicted on 37 criminal charges related to the documents in the Federal District Court in Miami, pleading not guilty to all charges. This was the first time a former US president had faced federal charges.

On July 15, 2024, Judge Aileen Cannon annulled the entire procedure on the grounds that the appointment of special prosecutor Jack Smith was illegal.

Trump's Ukraine call

On 25 July 2019, US President Donald Trump had a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The call was part of a wider campaign by Trump, his administration, and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to pressure Ukraine into investigating Joe Biden, Trump's political rival in the upcoming 2020 presidential election, and Biden's son, Hunter.

During the call, Trump urged Zelenskyy to work with Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr on investigating the Bidens, as well as a conspiracy theory involving a Democratic National Committee server. Trump also requested that Zelenskyy investigate CrowdStrike, an American cybersecurity firm that investigated the cyberattacks against the Democratic National Committee in 2015 and 2016.

The call was made after Giuliani had spoken with Andriy Yermak, an aide to Zelenskyy, about a Biden investigation and a prospective White House meeting between Zelenskyy and Trump. Text messages suggest that the White House meeting was conditional on Zelenskyy's agreement to carry out the investigations.

The transcript of the call was placed on a highly classified server, reserved for the government's most sensitive secrets. This was done for political rather than national security reasons, and access to the transcript was restricted.

The call led to a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump, on charges of abusing the power of his office and obstructing Congress. Trump was impeached but was later acquitted by the Senate.

Trump's tax returns

In 2016, Donald Trump became the first presidential nominee since 1976 not to release his tax returns. Trump repeatedly and falsely claimed that he could not release his tax information while it was under audit by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). However, there is no law preventing a taxpayer from releasing their tax returns, even while under audit.

In 2019, the House Ways and Means Committee subpoenaed Trump's tax records as part of an investigation into how the IRS audits presidential tax returns. Trump sued to prevent their release, but the Supreme Court ruled in November 2022 that the IRS could hand over the information to the committee. The committee found that the IRS failed to audit Trump's taxes during the first two years of his presidency, and that the only audit conducted during his tenure was never completed.

The New York Times published details of Trump's tax returns for 2017 and 2018, the first two years of his presidency. The documents showed that Trump paid no net federal income taxes in 11 of the previous 18 years, and that he paid just $750 in federal income tax in 2016 and 2017.

In 2024, The New York Times and ProPublica revealed that Trump had improperly used tax breaks relating to his Chicago skyscraper, claiming in 2010 that the transfer of funds into a partnership constituted a $168 million loss.

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