Why July 4th Matters More This Year

Happy birthday, America. Your president is a civilly adjudicated sexual abuser, a convicted felon, and a man whose name appears more than a thousand times in the Epstein files. I refuse to sugarcoat any of this on your 250th birthday. You deserve the truth laid out the way a trial lawyer presents evidence to a jury. So here comes the evidence. The Courts Already Ruled In May 2023, a unanimous federal jury in Manhattan found Donald Trump liable for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room and then defaming her. The jury awarded her $5 million. Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan went further in a written opinion, stating the evidence established Trump raped Carroll as most Americans understand the word rape. A second jury later ordered him to pay $83.3 million more for continuing to smear her. Five days ago, on June 29, 2026, the United States Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal. Not one justice dissented. The facts, law and verdict stand. Forever. A Felon in the Oval Office Now the criminal record. On May 30, 2024, a Manhattan jury convicted Trump on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to hide hush money payments to a porn star before the 2016 election. Twelve ordinary citizens heard the evidence and voted guilty 34 times. He became the first American president ever convicted of a felony, sentenced in January 2025, and he carried a criminal record into his second term. No president in 250 years of American history has done what he forced this country to witness. He Lit the Match, Then Freed the Arsonists He summoned the mob. On January 6, 2021, Trump told the crowd he assembled to fight like hell, and his supporters stormed the Capitol to stop the certification of an election he lost. More than 140 police officers suffered injuries. Several died. The House impeached him for incitement of insurrection. Special counsel Jack Smith indicted him on four felony counts for the scheme to overturn the election, and Smith’s report concluded the evidence would have convicted him at trial. On day one of his second term, Trump erased the accountability. He granted clemency to nearly 1,600 rioters, including hundreds of convicted felons, and freed militia leaders convicted of seditious conspiracy. By this June, at least 97 of the people he released had been arrested for new crimes. The Epstein Files Trump fought the release of the Epstein files with everything he had. Congress overruled him, passed the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and the Justice Department finally released millions of pages in 2026. His name shows up more than a thousand times. Flight logs place him aboard Epstein’s private jet at least eight times after he told the country he was never on the plane. His DOJ is still refusing to release the last several million records. You get to decide what his resistance to transparency tells you. Why July 4th Matters More This Year Two hundred fifty years ago, ordinary people risked everything to declare no king rules here. The law binds the farmer and the president alike. Trump attacks reporters, judges, calls sworn jury verdicts hoaxes, and treats the Constitution as an obstacle. Every time he does, he spits on the promise your ancestors bled to secure. Take Your Stand This July 4th, I celebrate America. I celebrate her Constitution, her courts, and her juries of everyday citizens who stared down a president’s legal army and spoke the truth under oath. I refuse to celebrate him. Epstein’s “best friend” and a man adjudicated as a sexual abuser and convicted as a felon belongs in a courtroom answering for his conduct, never on a stage wrapping himself in your flag. Fly your flag high today. It and this country belong to you. Then wake up on July 5th and act like the citizen of a free country. Speak up, show up, and stay loud. Two hundred fifty years of America were built by people who refused to stay quiet. Be one of them. -Mitch Jackson, Esq.