On Monday, January 20, 2025, President Trump was sworn into office for the second time, eight years after his first inauguration. However, there are many concerns regarding his new Presidential term. The most concerning fact is that he is a convicted criminal. There has also been much anxiety about the new Executive Orders that Trump plans to enact in his first week of Presidency.
Some concerns can be seen in Jack Smith’s report that went public just days before Trump’s Inauguration. In this report, it included the crimes President Trump was convicted of after his last presidency and the January 6 attack in 2021.
Jack Smith’s Report
Jack Smith was formerly the head of the United States Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section and the lead prosecuting lawyer against President Trump after his last term. He was appointed by Merrick Garland, who worked as a United States attorney general, to investigate President Trump’s more harmful schemes regarding the transfer of power from him to President Biden.
On January 7, 2025, the official report written by Jack Smith that was submitted to Merrick Garland and the Supreme Court went online, almost two full weeks before President Trump’s inauguration into office. As a repercussion, Smith resigned on January 10, 2025, due to the comparison of what was released and what wasn’t to the public.
The Supreme Court denied the motion of the entire report going public, only allowing around half of the report to be found online. The other half is still up for debate about whether or not it will be released. The Court had decided this because of President Trump being elected once again and him needing a peaceful transfer of power without many crimes being charged against him.
The reports that were publicly released included Trump’s hush money claims and the White House attack on January 6, 2021.
Supposedly, the other half of the document “focused on separate charges brought against Trump over his handling of classified documents, but that part of the report was not released because charges against two of Trump’s co-defendants are still pending”.
Smith claimed that there was enough evidence to convict President Trump for everything that was released in the files, however, it didn’t follow through with the prosecution.
Previous Crimes
After his first Presidency, President Trump was convicted of 34 counts of falsification of business records in the first degree. The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners defined this as, “[1] Making or causing a false entry in the business records of an enterprise; [2] Altering, erasing, obliterating, deleting, removing or destroying a true entry in the business records of an enterprise; [3] Preventing the making of a true entry or causing the omission of one in the business records of an enterprise”.
In almost all states, including New York, having false business records is illegal, “Under New York law, falsification of business records is a crime when the records are altered with an intent to defraud. [For a crime] to be charged as a felony, prosecutors must also show that the offender intended to ‘commit another crime’ or ‘aid or conceal’ another crime when falsifying records.”
Prosecutors had three different options on how to charge President Trump. One way was to address the violation of federal campaign finance laws, which is defined as, “Federal law puts limits on campaign contributions to candidates for president and Congress”. The second way was to include the falsification of other business records. Finally, they could include the violation of tax laws.
After the verdict was finally established, Judge Merchan, the head Judge of the trial, appointed Trump’s final sentencing trial for July 11, 2024.
Normally, the New York Law would require violators of these crimes to pay $5,000 and spend around four years in prison. However, Merchant gave President Trump no time behind bars and allowed him to not pay the fees for his crime.
January 6, 2021
Multiple people had sustained injuries during the attack, and at least five people had died, either during, or a couple of days after from the injuries sustained.
Among the people involved in the attack, a multitude of them had been arrested, and as one of his first promises during his campaign, President Trump had promised to release 1,500 people. However, most of the police officers involved are frustrated with the turn of events.
Aquilino Gonell was one of the serving officers at the building. However, in 2022, he retired due to the injuries he sustained. He claimed in an interview, “I remember when I was in Iraq, I came back for my two weeks R&R – rest and recuperation. And when I came back, I saw people move on. People were living their lives and not even thinking about what was happening in that part of the world, and that’s how I feel now. People moved on from that day. Officers like myself, we have not been able to.”
In a different interview, Charles Sicknick, whose son had served and had died during the riot, had claimed that “To them, it’s not a big deal, because it wasn’t their son”.
President Trump’s Executive Orders
Listed down below are eleven out of the nineteen of the Executive Orders that President Trump plans to put into order during his Presidency;
- President Trump plans to pardon 1,500 people who were arrested during the January 6 riots.
- President Trump withheld the Tik-Tok ban and allowed Tik-Tok to be available online once again.
- President Trump plans to decrease inflation and the cost of living.
- Immigration
- President Trump declared National emergency at the border of Mexico
- President Trump plans to continue building the wall alongside the US and Mexico border
- Criminal Cartels are now terrorists
- Trump signed this to prevent drugs from coming in, as well as preventing criminal organizations, such as Tren de Aragua or MS-13 from coming into the country.
- Refugee resettlements have been suspended
- President Trump plans to change birthright citizenship
- President Trump has reinstated the Death Penalty federally
- The U.S. has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Accord
- President Trump had defined the difference between the terms: men, women, male, and female. He also ended Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Programs.
