Has Donald Trump been acquitted of the 34 felony charges or were charges dropped?
Executive summary
Donald Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts in the New York hush‑money case on May 30, 2024, but the conviction was later discharged by the court on January 10, 2025 [1] [2]. Separately, multiple other criminal prosecutions against him — including Georgia state racketeering charges — were dropped or otherwise ended after his 2024 election victory: the Georgia case was reassigned and ultimately dropped by special prosecutor Pete Skandalakis on November 26, 2025 [1] [3] [4] [5].
1. What happened in New York: conviction, sentencing delay, then discharge
A Manhattan jury found Trump guilty on all 34 counts of first‑degree falsifying business records related to payments tied to Stormy Daniels on May 30, 2024; sentencing was postponed and then, after post‑trial litigation, the court issued an unconditional discharge on January 10, 2025, effectively sparing him punishment in that matter as reported in summary timelines [1] [2]. Reuters and other outlets recorded continued legal fights over the conviction into late 2025, including government filings urging reversal — demonstrating the conviction remained the subject of appeal and political contest [6] [1].
2. Georgia RICO case: reassignment, difficulty finding a prosecutor, then dismissal
Fulton County’s racketeering indictment, originally brought by District Attorney Fani Willis in 2023, was routed through state appeals and judicial review that led to Willis’s disqualification from the case; Georgia’s courts sought a successor prosecutor but the docket shows difficulty finding one, and Pete Skandalakis ultimately took the role and dropped the charges on November 26, 2025 [1] [3] [4] [5]. Reporting stresses that the dismissal marked “the last pending criminal prosecution” against Trump in that reporting window and framed it as the end of efforts to hold him criminally responsible in Georgia [3].
3. Federal cases and other prosecutions: mixed outcomes and policy context
Federal prosecutions tied to election interference and classified documents were also affected by prosecutorial decisions after the 2024 election. Special counsel Jack Smith moved to dismiss the federal election‑interference indictment on November 25, 2024, and other federal matters were cited as dropped after Trump’s return to the presidency, with the Justice Department invoking longstanding policy on indicting a sitting president in the reporting [2] [4]. Channel 4’s factcheck and CNN summaries note several charges were dismissed across jurisdictions following the election, though the timing and legal grounds differ by case [7] [5].
4. Legal distinction: “dropped” vs. “acquitted” vs. “discharged”
The sources distinguish three outcomes: (a) acquittal — an acquittal would mean a jury or judge found the defendant not guilty at trial; Reuters, Wikipedia timelines and others do not report an acquittal on the 34 New York counts [1] [6]; (b) discharged sentence — the New York court issued an unconditional discharge on Jan. 10, 2025, after conviction, which is not the same as an acquittal but does remove punishment in practice [1] [2]; and (c) dropped/dismissed charges — the Georgia RICO indictment and some federal matters were dismissed or voluntarily dropped by prosecutors after the 2024 election and later procedural developments [3] [4] [2]. The reporting treats the New York discharge and the Georgia charge drops as separate legal events with different implications [1] [3].
5. Competing narratives and political framing
News organizations emphasize different takeaways: outlets like The Guardian and CNN portray the Georgia dismissal and New York discharge as the dissolution of major criminal exposure for Trump following his election, framing prosecutorial moves as decisive [4] [5]. Other reporting documents ongoing legal maneuvers — appeals, friend‑of‑court briefs urging reversal, and administrative decisions — indicating the legal story remained contested in courts and public opinion [6] [1]. Sources also note partisan implications: prosecutors, judges and the president’s allies frame outcomes as vindication, while critics argue procedural or policy decisions, not exculpatory fact findings, produced the results [3] [4].
6. Limits of available reporting and what’s not here
Available sources do not mention any outright appellate reversal of the New York conviction as of the cited reports; they report a discharge [1] [2]. Available sources do not describe any new guilty verdicts after those entries. The provided materials cover major case dispositions through November 26, 2025, but do not include full court opinions, all briefing details, or later judicial actions that may have occurred after those dates [1] [3] [4].
Bottom line: Trump was not “acquitted” of the 34 New York felonies; he was convicted and later received an unconditional court discharge on Jan. 10, 2025. Other prosecutions, most notably the Georgia racketeering case, were reassigned and ultimately dropped by the special prosecutor on Nov. 26, 2025 [1] [3] [4] [2].