Thousands of tweets and lies later, Trump will officially be booted from the White House at noon on Jan. 20.
Donald Trump's four years in office have been a chaotic sprint, marred by staff turnover, lies, and law breaking.
As both the year, and Trump's single term in office come to an end, the American Independent Foundation has compiled a list of numbers that best define the last four years of the Trump administration.
Here are 16 figures that sum up the Trump era.
7 associates indicted
Trump once famously said that he only hired the "best" people. However, seven of the people who worked for his administration or for his 2016 campaign were later indicted for or convicted of federal crimes.
They include:
- Former campaign CEO turned White House strategist Steve Bannon, who was charged with allegedly defrauding donors to a private effort to build Trump's long-promised border wall between the United States and Mexico.
- Former campaign chair Paul Manafort, who is currently serving a 47-month prison sentence for eight counts of tax fraud, bank fraud, and failing to file a foreign bank account. (He was convicted in 2018.)
- Longtime ally Roger Stone, who was convicted of seven counts of lying to Congress, witness tampering, and obstruction of justice. Trump commuted Stone's 40-month sentence back in July.
Four other Trump associates were also charged with various crimes, including Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former campaign staffer George Papadopoulos, former deputy campaign manager Rick Gates, and Trump's longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. (More on their guilty pleas below.)
4 guilty pleas from former associates
Four of the aforementioned associates pleaded guilty to their crimes.
They are:
- Flynn, who first pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his communications with a Russian ambassador in December 2017. Flynn later tried to recant that guilty plea, before Trump's Justice Department stepped in to announce it was dropping the charges altogether. After that, Trump announced he was pardoning the former aide. Flynn's case was later formally dismissed on Dec. 8, following Trump's pardon.
- Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his communications with purposed Russian agents as he sought "dirt" on then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. He served just 12 days in prison.
- Gates, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy and lying to the FBI and in return agreed to cooperate with federal investigators against Manafort. He served 45 days in prison and was sentenced to an additional three years probation for his cooperation.
- Cohen, Trump's former personal attorney and "fixer," who pleaded guilty to eight counts of tax evasion, making false statements to a financial institution, unlawful corporate contributions, and excessive campaign contributions. He was sentenced to three years in prison and has been serving his time in house arrest since May, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
36 administration officials accused of violating the Hatch Act
Dozens of Trump administration officials have flagrantly violated the Hatch Act over the last four years, the federal law that "limits certain political activities of federal employees" in order to "ensure that federal programs are administered in a nonpartisan fashion, to protect federal employees from political coercion in the workplace, and to ensure that federal employees are advanced based on merit and not based on political affiliation," according to the Office of Special Counsel.
In layman's terms, federal employees are essentially barred from a host of certain actions, such as engaging in campaign activity on the job, hosting political fundraisers, or carrying out any sort of partisan political activity inside a federal building.
A report from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) found that at least 36 Trump administration officials violated the Hatch Act, some of them multiple times over.
Former White House counselor Kellyanne Conway is one of the biggest Hatch Act offenders, and violated the law so many times that the Office of Special Counsel recommended she be fired from her role.
The office also said on Monday that Peter Navarro, the director of the White House Office for Trade and Manufacturing Policy, violated the Hatch Act for repeatedly criticizing President-elect Joe Biden during the campaign.
The rest of the list includes:
- Trump's daughter and senior adviser Ivanka Trump
- Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner
- Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
- Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue
- Attorney General Bill Barr
- White House chief of staff Mark Meadows
- Department of Housing and Urban Development Regional Administrator Lynne Patton
- White House deputy communications director Jessica Ditto
- Alyssa Farah, press secretary to Vice President Mike Pence
- Helen Aguirre Ferré, special assistant to the president and director of media affairs
- Stephanie Grisham, first lady Melania Trump's communications director and former White House communications director
- Nikki Haley, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations
- Federal Communications Commission commissioner Michael O'Reilly
- White House social media director Dan Scavino
- Former White House principal deputy press secretary Raj Shah
- Trump's executive assistant Madeline Westerhout
- Jacob Wood, deputy communications director for the Office of Management and Budget
- Former Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke
- Chad Wolf, Trump's unlawfully appointed acting secretary of Homeland Security
- Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie
- EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler
- Pence's chief of staff Marc Short
- Director of national intelligence John Ratcliffe
- Former Energy Secretary Rick Perry
- Trump's national security adviser Robert C. O'Brien
- Mark Morgan, acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection
- Stephen Miller, Trump's senior policy adviser
- White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany
- Trump's economic adviser Larry Kudlow
- David M. Friedman, U.S. ambassador to Israel
- Education Secretary Betsy DeVos
- Postmaster General Louis DeJoy
- U.S. Ambassador to Brazil Todd Chapman
- Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson
4 press secretaries
Staff turnover was also a major storyline of the Trump era.
Over the course of four years, Trump had four press secretaries whom he used to spread countless lies.
It started with Sean Spicer, who immediately got off on the wrong foot when he lied about the size of Trump's inauguration crowd.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders — who admitted under oath that she lied from the podium — succeeded him.
Grisham then took over upon Sanders' departure. She was the most forgettable of the bunch, as was most notable for not holding a single press briefing during her tenure.
Grisham was ultimately replaced by former Fox News talking head Kayleigh McEnany, who broke her vow never to lie to the public the first day she took over, and has since been blurring ethical lines by working for Trump's reelection campaign while still holding her role as press secretary.
4 chiefs of staff
Like his press secretaries, Trump also tore through chiefs of staff.
He unceremoniously fired his first chief of staff, Reince Priebus, by tweet, just a few months into his term.
Priebus was replaced by John Kelly, who left after his relationship with Trump grew tense.
Mick Mulvaney replaced Kelly, whose tenure lasted a little more than a year before Trump fired him and replaced him with Meadows.
6 secretaries of defense
Another position that saw massive job turnover was the top job at the Pentagon.
Since Trump took office, six men have held the position of Defense secretary. It started with Jim Mattis, the retired general who resigned in protest over Trump's treatment of American allies.
Mattis was replaced by Patrick Shanahan, the defense contractor who withdrew from consideration after a number of domestic violence incidents within his family came to light.
Mark Esper replaced Shanahan, first as acting secretary before he was confirmed. In between, Trump had to have another acting secretary, Richard V. Spencer, serve in the role due to a federal law which says that a nominee to a position cannot also lead the department for which they are nominated during the confirmation process.
Esper was ultimately confirmed, but Trump fired him after the election, as he was angry that Esper opposed Trump's desire to use military troops against anti-racism protesters.
Trump installed Christopher Miller as acting Defense secretary for the final days of his tenure.
292 times playing golf
Way back in 2016, when he was first running for president, Trump declared that he would not play golf while in office.
"I'm going to be working for you, I'm not going to have time to go play golf," Trump said in August 2016.
However, since his inauguration on Jan. 20, 2017, Trump has visited a golf club 292 times, according to TrumpGolfCount.com.
The White House doesn't always admit that Trump is playing golf when he's at his properties, but of the times he was at a golf property, there is evidence that Trump actually played the game 146 times, per the website that tracks Trump's golf visits.
3 coronavirus outbreaks at the White House (so far)
Trump and his aides have willingly flouted coronavirus prevention measures for the entirety of the pandemic, holding numerous indoor events with maskless guests — situations that cause the deadly coronavirus to spread.
And their reckless behavior has led to three outbreaks within the White House itself, with numerous members of the administration testing positive, including Trump himself.
The first outbreak occurred when Trump announced Justice Amy Coney Barrett as third Supreme Court nominee. Another outbreak later hit Mike Pence's staff. And a third outbreak occurred after Trump held an election night party at the White House.
It's possible a fourth outbreak could be imminent, after Trump campaign attorney Jenna Ellis attended a White House Christmas party just before testing positive for the coronavirus. Trump held those holiday parties, despite dire warnings from his own task force members about the virus.
Trump's campaign lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, also tested positive for the virus around the same time.
More than 300,000 coronavirus deaths
Trump's mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in the United States.
In fact, the nation has the highest death toll of any other country on earth, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Brazil, which has roughly 120 million fewer people residing there, is a distant second.
4.9 million jobs lost
Trump will leave office with the embarrassing distinction of being the only president since World War II to leave office with a negative job creation rate.
As of October, 4.901 million jobs have been lost since Trump took office, according to the Washington Post.
Even George W. Bush, who left office amid what was then the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, left office with more jobs having been created than when he was first sworn in.
Ultimately, Trump did not create "the greatest economy in the history of our country," as he's said multiple times.
Over 25,653 tweets
Trump's use of Twitter was unprecedented for a commander in chief.
Trump used the social media outlet to fire his aides, announce policy positions even his own staff didn't know about, attack anyone he perceived to be a critic, as well as spread lies and disinformation.
Republicans feared being the target of one of Trump's missives on the site, worrying it could damage their standing with the GOP base.
GOP lawmakers allowed that fear to dictate how they voted and reacted to Trump's worst impulses — including standing by Trump's baseless accusations of voter fraud to demand the results of the November election be overturned.
22,247 lies (and counting)
The constant barrage of lies has also been a major storyline in the Trump era.
Trump's lies come so fast and furious that they're hard to keep up with.
The Washington Post attempted to keep a running tally of his lies throughout the last four years. The Post fact checkers have not kept up since Trump's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention on Aug. 27. But as of that date, Trump had made a total of 22,247 lies.
2 counts of impeachment
Trump holds the distinction of being just the third president in history to be impeached, after the House smacked him with two articles of impeachment in December 2019: one for abuse of power and a second for obstruction of Congress. (The Senate ultimately decided not to convict him.)
Trump was handed that outcome after he pressured Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, to dig up dirt on Biden, then his campaign rival by withholding critical military aid to the country and later lying about it repeatedly. Trump's own staffers admitted to the offenses publicly, though Trump himself continues to deny any wrongdoing, suggesting he acted "perfect[ly]."
2 times losing the popular vote
Just five presidents in all of history lost the popular vote but won the White House thanks to the Electoral College.
But Trump now holds the distinction of being the only president to lose the popular vote twice.
In 2020, Trump lost by a whopping 7,062,213 popular votes, 4.5%.
59 lawsuits to overturn the election (and counting)
Trump has refused to accept his 2020 election loss to Biden, with his campaign and GOP allies filing dozens of lawsuits seeking to overturn the outcome and hand the election to Trump.
The effort failed spectacularly, with the campaign notching just one court victory — a procedural one that did not actually have an impact on the outcome of the election.
Every other lawsuit was tossed out, with judges reprimanding the Trump campaign for its lack of evidence and unprecedented demand to overturn the results of a free and fair election.
At the end of the day, Trump will be leaving the White House at noon on Jan. 20, 2021, when Biden is sworn in.
1 term
Though Trump will never admit that he lost, the fact is, he did — by a landslide.
He now joins the club of former presidents who were denied a second term in office.
Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.
