Documented wrongdoing by Donald Trump and by officials of both Trump administrations, from
before each of them first took office. This page holds
21 records about 1 person.
What is here, and what it takes to be here
Donald Trump: conduct before his campaign launch on . Everything from the
campaign onward is in the register.
Officials: conduct before each person’s first appointment. Someone who served in the first
term, left, and returned in 2025 is also listed for what they did in between; those records are marked Between terms.
A record is listed only if it reached one of the legal outcomes below, and each is backed by at least two
independent sources: court records, official reports or major news outlets. Press allegations alone do not
qualify. A charge is not a conviction, and a pardon does not erase one; each record says which applies. These
records sit outside the grading scale, which measures the use of official power.
Legal status, in plain words
Convicted
A criminal court convicted the person. A later pardon, vacatur or reversal is stated in the record.
Pleaded guilty
The person pleaded guilty or no contest to a criminal charge.
Charged
The person was indicted or criminally charged. A charge is not a conviction; the record gives the outcome (dismissed, acquitted or pending).
Civil liability
A civil court entered a judgment or found the person liable, for example for fraud, discrimination or defamation.
Settled, no admission
A government enforcement action or civil suit ended in a settlement, without an admission of wrongdoing.
Official finding
An inspector general, ethics office, congressional committee or regulator found wrongdoing.
Sworn allegation
Someone made the allegation under oath, in a deposition, court filing or testimony, and no court has ruled on it.
Documented, no finding
The conduct is well documented by independent reporting or the record itself, but no court or official body has made a finding about it.
Donald J. Trump
Took office
First and second terms: President of the United States 2017–2021, 2025–present
The four student deferments were legal and widely used by college students of the era. The 1968 bone spurs medical deferment, obtained after Trump's student deferments expired at graduation, came from Dr. Larry Braunstein, a podiatrist in Jamaica, Queens — a building owner named Fred Trump. Braunstein's daughters told the New York Times in 2018 that their father provided the diagnosis as a 'favor' to Fred Trump, the landlord. Trump has described his bone spurs in varying ways over the years, at times saying they had healed on their own and at other times appearing not to remember which foot was affected. He has praised military service at Veterans events while criticizing specific veterans including John McCain for being captured.
The DOJ brought one of the largest housing discrimination lawsuits of 1973 against the Trumps, alleging their agents told Black rental applicants apartments were not available when they were available to white applicants, coded applications by race, and directed minority applicants to housing in predominantly Black neighborhoods. Trump denied the allegations vigorously and counterattacked the DOJ. The company settled in 1975 and was sued again in 1978 for violating the decree.
Trump met Roy Cohn at the private disco Le Club around 1973, when the Justice Department sued Trump and his father for refusing to rent to Black tenants; Cohn countersued the government for $100 million and remained Trump's lawyer for 13 years. Cohn's clients included Salerno and Castellano. For Trump Tower and Trump Plaza, Trump bought ready-mix concrete from a company those two controlled. A federal investigation later concluded that Trump Plaza most likely benefited from connections to racketeering. When Trump sought a New Jersey casino license, he did not disclose a federal grand jury inquiry into how he obtained an option on the Penn Central rail yards. No charge or finding was ever made against Trump.
The women who accused Trump of sexual misconduct covered a range of circumstances: models and contestants at Trump-owned beauty pageants, women at events and parties, employees in business settings, and strangers at social venues. The common elements across many accounts were unwanted kissing or groping in private settings with no witnesses. After the October 2016 Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump said 'when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab 'em by the pussy,' multiple women came forward stating the tape described what Trump had done to them. Trump called all accusers liars and threatened to sue them.
USA Today's 2016 investigation found that Trump and his companies had been involved in more than 3,500 lawsuits in U.S. federal and state courts over the previous three decades; separately, hundreds of contractors, vendors and employees had filed lawsuits or liens saying they were not paid. Among those who reported not being paid: drapery installers, piano players, porters, waiters, dishwashers, real estate brokers, plumbers, and hundreds of hourly workers. Trump's standard response was to challenge the quality of work — often leaving small contractors to choose between expensive litigation or accepting partial payment.
Under pressure to start Trump Tower, Trump used a crew of about 200 undocumented Polish workers, paid less than half the union wage, to demolish the Bonwit Teller building on Fifth Avenue in 1980. Union members sued. In a ruling released in April 1991, Judge Charles E. Stewart of the federal court in Manhattan found that Trump, a group of his associates and a union official conspired to avoid paying pension and welfare-fund contributions. In 1998 Trump settled the class action (Hardy v. Kaszycki) for $1.375 million, $500,000 of it to a union benefits fund; the documents were unsealed in November 2017.
The 2019 NYT investigation used IRS data from 1985-1994, finding Trump declared $1.17 billion in losses — an average of $117 million per year — largely from casino and real estate failures. The losses were so large that Trump paid no income tax in eight of the ten years. The 2020 investigation of complete tax returns found Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and $750 in 2017 through aggressive deductions, carried-forward losses, and tax credits. Trump had for decades refused to release his tax returns, claiming he was under IRS audit. He remained the only presidential candidate in modern history to refuse release until his returns were eventually obtained by courts after litigation.
Tony Schwartz spent 18 months with Trump to research and write The Art of the Deal. By his account, Trump's attention span was limited, he rarely focused on any topic for more than a few minutes, and most of what appeared in the book was invented or shaped by Schwartz from fragments of Trump's statements. The book created the public image of Trump as a brilliant real estate dealmaker — an image Trump leveraged throughout his political career as evidence of his fitness for office. Schwartz's 2016 interviews in The New Yorker and subsequent public statements described the book as a fabrication of Trump's public identity and said he feared Trump becoming president.
Trump purchased the Eastern Air Shuttle for $365 million in 1988 and renamed it Trump Shuttle. Unable to make debt service payments on the junk bonds used to finance the purchase, Trump lost control of the airline to creditors in 1992 — it operated for only four years. Trump Steaks were sold through The Sharper Image beginning in 2007 and discontinued within two months due to poor sales. Trump Magazine was launched in 2007 and folded within five months. Trump Vodka was launched in 2005 and discontinued by 2011. The pattern across these ventures was consistent: launch with celebrity promotion, heavy licensing of the Trump name, and eventual failure attributed to market conditions.
Ivana Trump's deposition account described a violent sexual assault during their marriage: Trump had been infuriated by the pain from a scalp surgery and, Ivana said, tore out her hair, pinned her to the bed, and raped her. The account appeared in Harry Hurt III's 'Lost Tycoon' (1993). Ivana issued a statement walking back the word 'rape,' saying she did not use it in a criminal sense but used the word in an 'emotional, not literal sense.' Trump's attorney Michael Cohen, when the account was reported in the press during the 2016 campaign, threatened a reporter and falsely stated that 'you cannot rape your spouse' — a claim that was wrong under New York law even then.
The five teenagers — Yusef Salaam, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Raymond Santana, and Korey Wise — were 14 to 16 years old at the time of their arrest. They gave videotaped confessions after hours of unrecorded interrogation, recanted within weeks, and said the statements were coerced; the trial judge ruled the statements voluntary and admissible, and no court has made a finding of coercion. Their convictions were vacated in 2002 on the newly discovered evidence. In 2002, Matias Reyes confessed to the attack; DNA evidence confirmed his account and proved the five had not committed the rape. The city of New York settled with them for $41 million in 2014. Trump called the settlement 'a disgrace' and continued to maintain the five were guilty. On October 21, 2024 the five sued Trump for defamation in federal court in Philadelphia over his statements about them in the September 10, 2024 debate. His 1989 ads ran in the New York Times, Daily News, New York Post, and New York Newsday.
The Trump Taj Mahal, financed largely with junk bonds, went into Chapter 11 in 1991; Trump gave up half his stake and sold his yacht and airline to repay loans. In 1992 more Trump properties went through bankruptcy, and Trump gave up a 49% stake in the Plaza Hotel to lenders. In 2004 Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts, nearly $1.8 billion in debt, filed for Chapter 11 and Trump's stake fell to about 25%; in 2009 its successor, Trump Entertainment Resorts, filed again. Trump has called it using 'the laws of this country to pare debt'. No court or regulator found wrongdoing in the filings.
According to the New York Times, Donald Trump and his siblings set up All County Building Supply & Maintenance in 1992, which siphoned millions from Fred Trump's buildings by marking up purchases, and the family dodged hundreds of millions in gift taxes by declaring buildings transferred to the children worth just $41.4 million; they sold over the next decade for more than 16 times that. The criminal statute of limitations had long passed; civil penalties for fraud have no time limit. The state Tax Department said it was reviewing the allegations. No outcome of that review has been published.
Trump bragged on the Howard Stern show that he would 'go backstage' before shows and that contestants 'are standing there with no clothes' — and that 'I'm allowed to go in because I'm the owner of the pageant.' Former Miss USA and Miss Teen USA contestants described the behavior; for the 1997 teen pageant, contestants were as young as 15. Other contestants said they did not see it, and the Trump campaign denied the accounts. Trump's ownership gave him structural access that contestants could not easily refuse.
Carroll, a longtime advice columnist, alleged Trump attacked her in the dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman in Manhattan in approximately 1996. Trump denied knowing her and described her as 'not my type.' The jury in May 2023 found Trump liable for sexual abuse (not rape, under the definition in New York law at the time) and defamation, awarding $5 million. In her first suit, over Trump's June 2019 denials, Judge Kaplan found Trump liable for defamation on summary judgment in September 2023, and in January 2024 a jury awarded $83.3 million in compensatory and punitive damages — one of the largest defamation awards in U.S. history. The Supreme Court declined to review the $5 million verdict on June 29, 2026 and denied rehearing on August 17, 2026; the Second Circuit rejected Trump's appeal of the $83.3 million award on September 8, 2025, and Trump, joined by the Justice Department, petitioned the Supreme Court in July 2026. Multiple other women made similar allegations; Trump denied all.
In a New York magazine profile published October 28, 2002, Trump said he had known Epstein for fifteen years and called him a 'terrific guy' who liked women 'on the younger side.' NBC footage from November 1992 shows the two together at a party at Mar-a-Lago, and a businessman who organized a 1992 'calendar girl' event there at Trump's request says the only guests were Trump and Epstein. Trump later said he had fallen out with Epstein and barred him from his clubs. No court or official body has found wrongdoing by Trump in connection with Epstein.
Trump University promised to teach students Trump's real estate 'secrets' through courses taught by his handpicked instructors. In practice, it was found to be a high-pressure sales operation that extracted money from vulnerable people — including elderly retirees — through a series of escalating upsells. New York's attorney general sued for $40 million; a California class action settled for $25 million in 2016.
In 2007 a $100,000 foundation check settled fines the town of Palm Beach had assessed against Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club; later foundation payments settled a claim against his Westchester golf club and bought a $10,000 portrait of Trump for one of his properties. The New York Attorney General sued in June 2018. In November 2019 Justice Saliann Scarpulla found that Trump breached his fiduciary duty, and Trump admitted in court papers to using the foundation to settle his companies' legal obligations, to buy the portrait and to run a January 2016 Iowa fundraiser as a campaign event. He paid $2 million to eight charities.
To close sales, a condo-hotel needs a share of its units sold; buyers alleged that the Trump SoHo's sellers inflated the number. Their August 2010 suit called it a 'substantial and ongoing pattern of fraudulent misrepresentations and deceptive sales practices.' In late 2011 the Trumps and their partners settled, returning 90 percent of the deposits plus fees, and the buyers agreed not to cooperate with prosecutors unless subpoenaed. In May 2012 Kasowitz met District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.; the office dropped its case against Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. Vance said the donations had no influence.
The birther conspiracy theory — the claim that Obama was born in Kenya or elsewhere outside the U.S. — had no factual basis. Hawaii state officials repeatedly confirmed the birth certificate's authenticity. Obama released both a short-form and long-form birth certificate. Federal courts dismissed challenges to Obama's eligibility. The theory persisted in certain quarters as a form of racial delegitimization of the first Black president. Trump became its most prominent mainstream advocate, using it to build his political profile before his 2016 presidential campaign. Trump's 2016 acknowledgment that Obama was born in the U.S. came without apology and included the false claim that Clinton had started the birther controversy.
FinCEN found that the Trump Taj Mahal willfully failed to implement an effective anti-money-laundering program, failed to report suspicious transactions, failed to properly file currency transaction reports and failed to keep required records; many of the violations from 2010 and 2012 had been found in earlier examinations, and examiners had cited problems since 2003. The casino admitted the violations. FinCEN had already penalized the Taj $477,700 in 1998, after the IRS found it broke the reporting rules 106 times in its first year and a half of operation in the early 1990s, when Trump owned it.