‘A Big Deal’: Trump’s Latest EO Targets Regulations That Trap the Unwary
The U.S. is “drastically overregulated.” The current Code of Federal Regulations contains “over 48,000 sections” and spans “over 175,000 pages.”
Overshadowed by reports on President Donald Trump’s Middle East visit, the election of a new pope, and a trade agreement with the United Kingdom, his latest Executive Order — “Fighting Overcriminalization in Federal Regulations” — went largely unnoticed. Yet its significance cannot be overstated. It might be the only thing standing between you and criminal charges for something you had no idea was a crime.
The May 9 Executive Order begins by declaring that the U.S. is “drastically overregulated,” noting that the current Code of Federal Regulations contains “over 48,000 sections” and spans “over 175,000 pages.” The EO seeks to address the growing concern over this vast and complex web of regulations, many of which carry criminal penalties that most ordinary Americans are unaware of.
It criticizes the current system for enabling criminal prosecution without clear intent, or “mens rea.”
The order describes the current regulatory environment as “absurd and unjust” and claims it “allows the executive branch to write the law, in addition to executing it. That situation can lend itself to abuse and weaponization by providing Government officials with tools to target unwitting individuals. It privileges large corporations, which can afford to hire expensive legal teams to navigate complex regulatory schemes and fence out new market entrants, over average Americans.”
Its purpose is to protect Americans from being criminalized for unknowingly violating obscure or overly technical regulations, while still allowing for accountability in cases of willful or harmful misconduct.
The order calls for significant reform of regulatory enforcement and outlines a detailed plan to achieve it. In short, the head of each agency must submit — and publicly disclose — an annual report to the Office of Management and Budget detailing “all criminal regulatory offenses enforceable by the agency or the Department of Justice.”
For everyday Americans — and especially for entrepreneurs — having access to such a list could be a game-changer.
As widely followed anonymous internet lawyer “Cynical Publius” emphasized in a recent post on X, this executive order “is a big deal.” He explains its significance in layman’s terms:
Trump is forcing the federal government to spell out everything that is a crime under federal law. The other thing the EO does is to force the government to add a “mens rea” element to most of these “crimes”; i.e., you have to be aware of the fact that you are committing a crime in order for it to be a crime.
Thus, if you decide to build a pond on your property and the EPA has some obscure regulation saying that is a crime, you would need to be aware of the criminal nature of the act before you did it in order to be guilty of anything.
He underscored the structural advantage enjoyed by large corporations, which are better equipped to navigate complex regulatory frameworks and exclude new competitors, often at the expense of ordinary Americans. According to Cynical Publius:
This is really important and is a theme I keep coming back to. Regulatory schemes like Dodd-Frank and the CFPB are created ostensibly to help the “little guy,” when in reality they create byzantine layers upon layers of compliance requirements that only mega-corporations can afford to navigate. Those sorts of laws are anti-competitive and hurt most of all the “little guy” they purport to help.
In case you missed it, the below EO is a big deal. Trump is forcing the federal government to spell out everything that is a crime under federal law. The other thing the EO does is to force the government to add a "mens rea" element to most of these "crimes"; i.e., you have to… pic.twitter.com/8SmaPXtota
— Cynical Publius (@CynicalPublius) May 13, 2025
Critics of the order argue that it could allow criminals to evade prosecution by simply claiming ignorance of the law. In practice, however, cases would likely be adjudicated using a “reasonable person” standard. For instance, a large corporation with an in-house legal team would be held to a higher level of accountability than a sole proprietor, who cannot reasonably be expected to know the thousands of regulations that might apply to his business.
The following quote from Dr. Floyd Ferris — one of the antagonists in Ayn Rand’s 1957 classic Atlas Shrugged — underscores the need for this executive order.
There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be enforced nor objectively interpreted—and you create a nation of law-breakers—and then you cash in on guilt.
In other words, it’s unsurprising that, even in a busy news cycle, the legacy media largely ignored this story. They grasp that the implications are unfavorable to their interests.
Trump campaigned on ending the federal government’s regulatory assault on Americans and this executive order is a key step toward fulfilling that promise.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on LinkedIn or X.
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Comments
Any motion towards repeal of those selfsame excessive regulations?
That would require congress to get off their asses and actually do something productive. So, no.
regulations= false/lying to the public that they are protected
when in reality it has always allowed criminals ( mostly white collar) to get away with crimes so that they and their lefty/rinos buddies can continue the fleecing of americans
enforce the laws that are on the books and prosecute actual criminals for actual crimes
maga
trump is doing this!!!!!
Been saying this kind of thing for years – Ds (and way too many Rs) are in favor of regulating the crap out of everything, while claiming to be the party of “the little guy.” But all these regulations in reality favor Big Biz, which can hire a phalanx of lawyers to help them comply or at the very least find all the loopholes.
Meanwhile, the regulations crush mom & pop businesses, who have enough on their plate just trying to make a go of their business. So they end up folding, and the vultures at Big Biz are all too happy to swoop in and feast on the remains.
I hate these vile cretins.
This is one of many reasons that I want the personal income tax (if not all income tax) repealed. When you can’t figure out the best way to handle something because there are literally contradictory rules, the system is obviously not designed to be navigated by anyone, even “trained tax professionals”, so how is a normal human being supposed to do it?
If the tax is kept, we need to make it so that both sides have the same amount of time to claim funds from the other. If the IRS can decide six and a half years later that you filed something wrong and owe the Feds money, you should have more than three years to realize you missed a deduction and file an amended return.
It would be interesting to see the “reasonable person” standard interpreted to be tougher on big business than the little guy. What a reversal!
This is a great EO. Imagine that, you can actually read what crimes you must avoid! And if a bad president gets in later, would he dare to repeal it? Would he dare to say explicitly that we should have crimes that we don’t tell people about?
You want to change this. Prevent the alphabet agencies from writing regulations and force congress to vote on each and everyone. The agencies aren’t accountable. Theoretically congress is.
Now if you really want to prevent undue regulations ban lawyers from serving in congress. Lawyers love laws and regulations. The more complex and obscure the better. It is their bread and butter. Banning lawyers would allow common sense laws and regulations to be written by common people in common language and thus comprehensible to most of us.
And then be meat-axed to chum by lawyers in courtrooms.
When I retired, as an experienced 40 year 911 paramedic, my then employer asked me to “stay on” one day a week to help the new guys. I called my local SS office and advised them I would be retiring in March but will continue to work one day a week. I expected to be close to the SS determined maximum I could earn as I am retiring one year earlier than current standards claim is my retirement age. I was told by SS that should be ok as they “don’t typically look at pre retirement income.
So from March to the end of the year I worked one day a week for 31 weeks missing quite a few due to vacation and being old. The following year, I stopped working in April and was notified in September that I made too much money the preceding year and I owed $10,000 payable in 30 days, credit cards accepted. I appealed that decision, and a year later, the Social Security employed judge ruled that “I knew or should have known” that I was way over the approved dollar limit so my appeal was denied. What I should have asked during the hearing was how did SS determine my wages when “pre retirement income” wasn’t generally looked at. I would then have found out that the department of SS asks the IRS for my salary and I would have known what I was told about pre retirement income by SS was them simply talking out of their @$$es.
So that summer I did not receive 3 months of SS checks to finish paying off the over payment.
The dropping of mens rea from regulatory crimes began in earnest in the same era as the (failed) attempts to pass the Bricker Amendment, which ensured that the Federal Government not use treaty “agreements” to end-run prohibitions against exercising new powers not delegated by the constitution.
My favorite example is the regulation outlawing hunting over baited fields. It was tested in a court case in which a guy hunted over a field which had been baited a few days before by someone else entirely unknown to him. Instead of the judge ruling that the regulation was deficient and unfair, he ruled that since the people who wrote it didn’t account for mens rea, they must have left it out on purpose, so the hunter was convicted.
There is no truth to the rumor that that judge was Milhouse’s grandfather.
Who would know crime better than the bloated felon in cheif. LAFFRIOT.
He’s gasping for air.
https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/donald-trump/approval-rating
“Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent”, Harvey A. Silverglate (2009)
Three Felonies a Day: The life of Donald J Trump.
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