Editorial: Trump's Place in the Record Books

Perhaps one day the Guinness Book of World Records will devote a separate volume to the unprecedented achievements of our nation’s 45th president, Donald J. Trump. 

As of yesterday, Mr. Trump became the first American president to earn the coveted status of “convicted felon.” 

In his Hush Money trial in Manhattan, a jury of Trump’s peers – 12 New Yorkers – voted unanimously to convict the former president on 34 felony charges related to a “scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex,” according to Associated Press. 

But, let the historical record show the former president is also the first ever to have:

• Been elected President of the United States without prior political office or active-duty military experience;
• His home raided by the FBI;
• Seen the economy lose 2.9 million jobs during his presidency;
• Seen the unemployment rate increase by 1.6 percentage points to 6.3 percent during his presidency;
• Claimed to have received “love letters” from the Communist leader of North Korea;
• Had a federal investigation and special counsel inquiry in addition to two impeachments in a single term;
• Faced federal charges under the Espionage Act;
• Seen the federal debt rise from $14.4 trillion to $21.6 trillion, during his single term in office;
• Refused to pledge publicly a “peaceful transition of power” should he lose a presidential election;
• A judge issue findings that he – the former President of the United States – committed “rape”;
• Been out on bail in 4 jurisdictions (federal and state);
• Inspired the creation of a “lie tracker” in The Washington Post that found he committed 30,593 during his four years in office;
• Been booked, processed, and had his fingerprints taken following an indictment;
• Been indicted on felony charges in a RICO case;
• Been threatened with jail time by a judge during a criminal trial;
• A judge issue a “gag order” against him to protect the safety of jurors, court staff, members of the judge’s family and others;
• His mugshot taken (and to have then monetized images of said mugshot);
• Been convicted by a judge and fined for 10 “Contempt of Court” citations;
• Received a plurality of votes in favor of conviction in the U.S. Senate following impeachment in the U.S. House of Representatives;
• Been impeached twice while President;
• Been elected after having 5 times cited unverified “bone spurs” as a reason for avoiding the Vietnam War;
• The physician who issued him a clean bill of health tell the public, after the fact, that the words on the health report had been drafted by the President himself, not a medical doctor;
• His campaign manager, deputy campaign manager, foreign policy advisor, lawyer, political advisor, and fundraiser all convicted of felony crimes;
• Committed dereliction of presidential duty by sitting in the White House watching close to 3 hours of live television coverage of the U.S. Capitol being sacked and doing nothing to stop it;
• Called American military service members who died in combat “suckers and losers”;
• Been found liable in court for “Sexual Assault”;
• Been found liable in court for “Defamation” against his sexual assault victim;
• Refused to lay flowers at the graves of American soldiers on European battlefields, after having been officially scheduled to do so;
• Said publicly of a veteran who spent 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam and who earned a Silver Star, two Legion of Merit Awards, a Distinguished Flying Cross, three Bronze Star Medals, two Purple Hearts, two Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medals, and the Prisoner of War Medal: "He's not a war hero, he's a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren't captured, okay? I hate to tell you.";
• Approximately 18 women claim publicly he sexually abused or harassed them;
• Surpassed Richard M. Nixon in criminality as president;
• Suggested publicly that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) should perhaps be abandoned;
• An adult film star describe in court an uncomfortable sexual encounter she had with him in a hotel room;
• Have been recorded saying “I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. ... Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything.”;
• Been impeached twice in the same single term of office;
• Encouraged protesters who were shouting in unison that the Vice President should be hanged;
• Made up stories inflating the crowd size at his Inaugural Address at the U.S. Capitol; 
• Insulted a federal judge and members of the judge’s family in his own criminal trial;
• Had the National Archives and Records Administration accuse him of federal crimes pertaining to the Presidential Records Act;
• Publicly compared himself as a tough guy to Al Capone, saying admiringly, “If you looked at him in the wrong way, he blew your brains out.”;
• Have made vaguely incestuous remarks about his own daughter to the hosts of The View television show: ““If Ivanka weren't my daughter, perhaps I would be dating her.”;
• Repeatedly insulted publicly a Gold Star family;
• Failed to head off hundreds of thousands of “preventable” American deaths due to the Covid-19 pandemic that health experts argued could have been avoided with stricter public health measures on his watch;
• Had to shut down a university named for him – and exclusively focused on teaching his real estate sales methods – due to fraud.
• Buried his late wife on his own golf course;
• Argued that he did more than any other president “since perhaps Abraham Lincoln” for Blacks Americans;
• Doctored a hurricane forecast map with a Sharpie to make the public think his own weather prediction had been correct;
• Won a presidential election partly on the promise he would require Mexicans to pay for a wall to be built between Mexico and the United States;
• Called a federal prosecutor “deranged” in a case against himself;
• Told a radio host in a live broadcast he enjoyed barging in on young beauty pageant contestants as they were changing clothes: “You know, no men are anywhere. And I’m allowed to go in because I’m the owner of the pageant. And therefore I’m inspecting it… Is everyone OK? You know, they’re standing there with no clothes. And you see these incredible-looking women. And so I sort of get away with things like that,” he said, according to Rolling Stone;
• Mused publicly about “the late, great Hannibal Lecter”;
• Reassured presidential debate-watchers about both the size of his hands and his penis;
• Bragged publicly and repeatedly about his test results on a standard cognitive test;
• Ordered the cutting-down of a row of mature Crepe Myrtle trees planted in the White House Rose Garden by First Lady Jackie Kennedy;
• Been banned from social media platforms (including Facebook, TikTok, and Twitter) for inciting violence;
• Had his lawyers argue in appeals court that a U.S. president should be “immune” from prosecution for ordering the killing of a political opponent, as long as the killing is part of the President’s “official duties” and the Chief Executive has not been impeached, convicted and removed from office;
• Refused to reveal his own tax records after promising the public repeatedly he would do so;
• Paid no federal taxes for at least 10 years;
• Been charged with 88 felony counts (originally 91) in multiple federal and state jurisdictions;
• Joked about being “a dictator on Day One” of his next administration;
• Won a presidential term on his party’s published platform of only a single plank: to embrace whatever might be the candidate’s priorities;
• His own company found liable for civil fraud and fined $355 million by a judge;
• Met privately with a post-Soviet Russian leader with only language interpreters and no State Department or CIA staff present;
• Publicly asked Russia to hack the emails of his opponent in a presidential race;
• Sued his own niece for defamation;
• A U.S. District Judge accuse him of a “pattern of abuse of the courts” for filing frivolous lawsuits for political purposes,” “under[mining] the rule of law, and “amount[ing] to obstruction of justice.”;
• Made multiple false claims of winning golf tournaments at his own resort;
• Mounted and publicly displayed phony pictures of himself on the cover of Time magazine at his own resort;
• Lived in the White House with a First Lady who grew up in Communist Slovenia;
• His own hotel in Washington, D.C. be the subject of “Emoluments Clause” lawsuits from the Attorney General of the District of Columbia, accusing the President of using the site to funnel cash contributions while in office;
• Refused to concede his loss in a presidential election (in both the Electoral College and the national popular vote) to the certified winner of the election;
• Publicly declared "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?" 
• Been "released on his own recognizance" by a judge.
• Publicly ridiculed mask-wearing as a precaution against the Covid-19 virus, then contract the virus and have to be MEDEVACed from the White House to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and be put on a respirator;
• Used a Presidential Pardon for a chief political strategist for accused crimes of skimming money from a fraudulent fundraising scheme to solicit donations to “Build the Wall” between Mexico and the United States;
• Been accused in court of marital rape by a former wife;

And the list of record achievements by the 45th President of the United States goes on and on. But, we’ll leave it to the Guinness Book of World Records to fully compile and organize the volume(s) …