Claim that conviction makes Donald Trump ineligible for presidential run is from satirical account

Soon after former President Donald Trump was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records in a New York hush money case, a comedian’s X post stirred confusion about what it means for the presumptive Republican nominee’s future.

"President Trump has been declared GUILTY on all counts. So what does this mean, legally speaking," a May 30 X post said. "Trump is no longer eligible to run for president and must drop out of the race immediately. The constitution prohibits anyone with a criminal conviction from running. Nikki Haley will be the nominee since she finished second."

The X post shared an image of Trump with the words, "Ineligible to run for president."

It was retweeted more than 600 times an hour after it was posted, but many of the quote reshares seemed to be in on the joke. Some accounts, however, took it seriously; several argued with the post and one international account shared it verbatim with no context that it was satire.

To them, we offer this: There is nothing that would bar Trump from continuing his White House bid. Convicted felons have run for president before. Lyndon LaRouche, convicted of tax and mail fraud conspiracy in 1988, ran multiple times for president.

A comedian who goes by the name "Three Year Letterman" and describes himself as a "Youth Football Coaching Legend" and a "Showstopping Little League Umpire" created the X post. The sports website The Athletic wrote a 2020 profile of the satire account’s creator, agreeing not to name him but describing him as a millennial attorney.

The account’s X post about Trump’s conviction made two other dubious assertions about the verdict’s effect on Trump, including that "double jeopardy" requires he be convicted of all pending charges in other states without a trial and that because he appealed a jury’s verdict in the civil E. Jean Carroll case, he can’t appeal this one.

Featured Fact-check

Facebook posts

stated on December 1, 2024 in a Facebook post

“Chick fil-A’s new policies have people thinking (of a) boycott.”

And the account separately shared a ridiculous analysis of what an innocent verdict would have meant for Trump, including that all other charges against him must be dropped.

The X post tagged rapper Vanilla Ice, the band Whitesnake and the Jiffy Lube car service chain in the Trump photo.

The X account links to a website that shows his "greatest hits" on Twitter, where he interacted with high profile accounts such as Scientology, which blocked him, and U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., who went back and forth with him over actor Kevin Costner.

As for the satire post’s other claims, double jeopardy means that a person can’t be charged twice for the same crime. Trump is facing unrelated racketeering charges in an alleged plot to overturn Georgia’s presidential election results. He’s also facing unrelated federal charges from special counsel Jack Smith relating to efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and mishandling classified documents.

Trump’s appeal of the E. Jean Carroll verdict does not affect his ability to appeal his conviction in New York, which is expected. Trump on Truth Social shortly after the verdict wrote "this is long from over." 

The X post’s claim that Trump can no longer run for president is from a satirical X account. It’s been shared without that context by others, but the claim is False.

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this fact-check.