Legal accountability
Adjudicated personal legal liability
Criminal convictions and civil court findings against the president personally. Jury verdicts, judgments, and formal sanctions only, no allegations, no charges that didn't conclude. The fairest metric in the set: its baseline is near-zero by the whole prior history of the office.
| President | Item | Amount | Status (Aug 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clinton | Paula Jones lawsuit settlement (no admission of wrongdoing) | $850K | Final · settlement |
| Civil contempt of court for misleading testimony; sanction, 5-year law-license suspension + fine | ~$115K | Final · adjudicated | |
| Bush | None on record | 0 | None |
| Obama | None on record | 0 | None |
| Biden | None on record | 0 | None |
| Trump | 34 felony convictions, falsifying business records (jury, May 2024); sentenced to unconditional discharge | 34 counts | Stands · appeal pending |
| Carroll (2023 trial): jury finding of sexual abuse and defamation; paid with interest ($5.6M) in July 2026 | $5M | FINAL · SCOTUS exhausted Aug 17, 2026 | |
| Carroll (2024 trial): defamation damages | $83.3M | Affirmed · cert filed Jul 28 2026, DOJ joined | |
| NY civil fraud: finding of persistent and repeated fraud (liability affirmed on appeal) | penalty $0 | Liability stands · penalty vacated · cross-appeals pending | |
| Trump Foundation: judgment for misuse of charitable funds; foundation dissolved | $2M | Final (2019) |
Analysisthe site's reading · optional
Reading: of the five presidents shown, three (Bush, Obama, Biden) have zero criminal convictions and zero adverse civil findings; Clinton has a civil settlement plus a contempt sanction; and one holds 34 felony convictions (the first in the office's history), a final jury finding of sexual abuse, an affirmed finding of years-long business fraud, and a charity-abuse judgment. The vacated penalty is shown honestly: the money went away on appeal; the fraud finding did not.