A Civic Outreach Project

A Republic, If You Can Keep It

A Fact-Based Examination of Ongoing Threats to Core American Principles

America was founded in rebellion against the arbitrary concentration of power in the person of a king. In forming our new nation, our Founders feared nothing more than executive abuses of power. They structured our entire Constitution to prevent such a concentration. Articles I and III create the legislative and judicial branches, each empowered to check executive power. Article II limits executive powers to an explicit list, and the Tenth Amendment reserves all other powers, not otherwise delegated in the Constitution, to the States and the people. Despite these limits, our executive controls the machinery of government—military, law enforcement, and numerous other departments with enormous influence over our everyday lives—making it the most powerful institution on the planet. Such power demands a president with the honesty and character to resist the temptation to abuse his office. If he does not, that responsibility falls to legislators and judges with the integrity to check him. As James Madison wrote, "The accumulation of all powers … in the same hands … may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."¹

1.1: Abuse of Executive Orders & Emergency Declarations

In his first year back in office, Trump signed 225 executive orders, whereas President Obama issued just 277 over eight years. Those orders, in turn, are underpinned by far more emergency declarations than any other modern American president has issued. Traditionally, executive orders direct federal agencies and implement laws Congress has already passed, and emergency declarations unlock specialized, temporary powers for a genuine crisis. Neither was meant to create new law or claim powers the Constitution grants to Congress, but that is exactly how Trump has used them. Citing declared "emergencies," he imposed sweeping tariffs—a tax on American businesses and families—pushing the average tariff rate to its highest level since 1909 and costing the average household roughly $1,000 in 2025 alone. When the Supreme Court ruled that the law he relied on gave him no such power, he announced a new 10% global tariff that same day. Numerous federal courts have found his other orders unlawful as well, from turning the machinery of the federal government against law firms that crossed him to attempting to end birthright citizenship. Meanwhile, GOP lawmakers who condemned Obama's and Biden's far more modest use of executive orders have gone almost entirely silent. When the Senate voted to block Trump's tariffs on Canada, only four Republicans joined the effort, and House Republican leadership even tried to rewrite the chamber's rules so as to leave no record of its members' abandoned principles. Our Founders gave the power to tax and make law to Congress, the branch closest to the people, precisely so no single man could wield it. When a president seizes that power by decree, and the lawmakers charged with stopping him refuse to act, these tools become instruments of exactly the kind of concentrated power our entire system of government was designed to prevent.²

1.1.A: Exorbitant Executive Orders & Emergency Declarations

Within Trump's first 100 days in office, he issued 142 orders — 7.2 times the historical average. Within his first year in office, he issued 225 executive orders, whereas President Obama, over his entire 8-year term, issued 277, and President Biden, over his entire 4-year term, issued 162. The result is a significant increase in executive power and sweeping changes that affect states and citizens alike, as well as a wave of litigation challenging these orders. As of July 7, 2026, Just Security's litigation tracker counts 407 cases pending against the Trump administration, and numerous executive orders have been found unconstitutional or otherwise unlawful. Regarding emergency declarations, no president in modern American history has invoked them more frequently or over a broader range of issues. In his first 100 days in office, Trump declared 8 emergencies, whereas Clinton declared 2, Obama declared 0, and Biden, who came into office during a pandemic, declared 2. Trump is on pace to issue 6.5 times as many non-IEEPA emergency orders as the average presidential term this century — more, in fact, than every administration since 2000 combined. Like his executive orders, Trump's emergency declarations have spawned numerous lawsuits and repeatedly been found unconstitutional or otherwise unlawful.³

1.1.A.I: DNC Abuses & GOP Elite Double-Standard

While no modern president has come close to the number and reach of Trump's executive orders and emergency declarations, Democratic presidents have been accused of unconstitutionally overstepping their authority — and in some cases, courts have agreed. For instance, in 2022, Biden relied on the pre-existing COVID-19 national emergency declaration to issue an executive action that would have forgiven a portion of the student loan debt of millions of Americans, but the Supreme Court struck it down, reasoning that such an impactful policy required congressional authorization. More than 40 GOP senators filed an amicus brief with the Court, claiming Biden's action violated the separation of powers. Ron DeSantis stated: "He does not have the Constitutional authority to do this … It is an abuse of power. It's not Constitutional." Though a handful of GOP lawmakers spoke out against Trump's far more limited uses of executive authority during his first administration, that pushback has all but disappeared in his second administration. The double standard of GOP politicians is repeated and deepened in right-wing media. Fox News ran a headline saying Biden's student loan forgiveness plan showed a "chilling disregard" for the law. Laura Ingraham condemned it as a unilateral violation of the Constitution and an abuse of power. Sean Hannity attacked Obama for instituting an "imperial presidency" and claimed Biden was "ignoring an entire branch of government." Today, confronted with Trump's far more extensive emergency declarations and executive orders, those same hosts celebrate rather than condemn. Hannity called Trump "a force of nature," signing executive orders "at the speed of light." Laura Ingraham — who once called Obama a "tyrant" and "would-be dictator" for his executive orders — said Trump's were "like Christmas every day."⁴

1.1.B: Illegal Tariffs

The second Trump administration utilized emergency declarations and executive orders to institute the largest series of tariff increases since the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which was passed by Congress, not by executive order, and was widely blamed for deepening the Great Depression. The administration imposed initial tariffs of 25% on Canada and Mexico and 10% on China, citing fentanyl concerns. Then, on "Liberation Day," Trump imposed reciprocal tariffs on more than 80 nations, ranging from a 10% baseline to 46% on Vietnam, 36% on Thailand, and 145% on China. It was, as a percentage of GDP, the largest tax increase in 30 years. The average American household paid $1,000 more in 2025 and $820 more in 2026. A survey of small businesses found that 81.5% raised or considered raising prices, 41.7% delayed or considered delaying expansion, and 33% anticipated layoffs. Overall, American businesses paid at least $160 billion in tariff payments before the Supreme Court struck the tariffs down as unconstitutional. That same day, despite the Supreme Court ruling, Trump instituted a new 10% global tariff.⁵

1.1.B.I: GOP Lawmakers Cede Taxing Power to the Executive

GOP lawmakers have repeatedly blocked actions by Democrats to challenge Trump's tariffs and reassert Congress's tax authority. Though the Senate passed resolutions to block Trump's tariffs that singled out Canada, all but 4 Republicans voted against the resolutions, which were then rendered meaningless when House Republican leadership refused to bring them to a vote. House Republicans also passed measures to actively shield the president's tariffs; Speaker Mike Johnson went so far as to try to change long-standing procedural rules to prevent GOP House members from having to vote on Trump's tariffs at all, insulating them from future criticism. It failed, but only because 3 of 218 Republican House members broke ranks to vote with Democrats. The vast majority of GOP lawmakers, including their leadership, have simply abandoned their constitutional responsibility, ceding unprecedented power to the executive.⁶

1.1.C: Energy Policy Overreach

On his first day in office, Trump signed three separate directives gutting federal environmental protections. The directives targeted the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Clean Air Act, and the Clean Water Act, all laws a Republican president had signed more than 50 years earlier with broad bipartisan support. His first executive order directed the Council on Environmental Quality to rescind its own regulations and ordered agencies to review projects for nothing beyond the bare legal minimum, hollowing out the process that assesses a project's environmental impact before issuing permits. The second executive order declared a "national energy emergency," even though home and auto fuel prices had fallen sharply throughout the final year of the Biden administration. Trump used that manufactured emergency to fast-track drilling and pipeline permits, stripping wetlands and streams of protection under the Clean Water Act and waiving Clean Air Act fuel standards. His third action was a memorandum that froze all new permits and leases for wind energy nationwide and indefinitely. To date, the Trump administration has spent approximately $3.9 billion in taxpayer dollars to buy back offshore wind leases. Litigation is still pending against several of these orders, but a federal judge ruled Trump's wind freeze was "arbitrary and capricious" and, ultimately, unlawful. Unfortunately, that ruling did not affect the buyouts, and American taxpayers will not get their $3.9 billion back. In the final analysis, Trump is utilizing unprecedented emergency declarations and executive orders to turn back 50 years of bipartisan, congressionally approved environmental progress.⁷

1.1.D: Targeting Opposition Law Firms

A series of Trump executive orders targeted specific, named law firms that had either represented his political opponents or pursued cases against him. Susman Godfrey was targeted because it represented Dominion Voting Systems and secured a $787.5 million settlement against Fox News for broadcasting false claims about the 2020 election. Paul Weiss was targeted because it hired attorney Mark Pomerantz, who worked on Trump's fraud investigation for the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. Perkins Coie was targeted because it represented Hillary Clinton. Jenner & Block was targeted because it hired Andrew Weissmann, a lead prosecutor on Robert Mueller's team. Nine other firms, rather than fight the might of the federal government, capitulated and agreed to provide a total of over $940 million in pro bono services for Trump-allied causes. Four firms fought back and won. In the Perkins Coie case, Judge Howell, in a 102-page ruling, noted that no American president had ever done anything like this and concluded: "Settling personal vendettas by targeting a disliked business … for punitive government action is not a legitimate use of the powers of the US government or an American President."⁹

1.1.E: Miscellaneous Executive Orders Exceeding Executive Authority

While it would take far too long to go through every Trump executive order, a few others deserve mention. In addition to targeting law firms, several executive orders targeted universities to achieve blatant partisan policy goals, often without meaningful investigation or due process for the universities involved. Another executive order was issued with the express goal of preempting States' rights to regulate AI and protect their citizens from its potential harms. Finally, a Trump executive order eliminated birthright citizenship, despite the plain language of the Fourteenth Amendment and a century and a half of American constitutional tradition. A Reagan-appointed federal judge called it "blatantly unconstitutional" three days after it was signed. On June 30, 2026, the Supreme Court agreed, ruling 6-3 that the order violated the Constitution.¹⁰

1.2: Unqualified & Partisan Cabinet

1.2.A: Fox News Host, Pete Hegseth: War Department

1.2.B: Top Campaign Donor, Elon Musk: Special Employee

Though technically not a Cabinet member, Trump made Elon Musk a Special Government Employee and co-head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which was given access to federal payment systems, Social Security records, and personnel systems covering the entire federal workforce.

It had the power to direct mass layoffs across dozens of agencies. No agency created via executive fiat, without any congressional authorization, has ever wielded comparable authority in American history. Elon Musk is the wealthiest person in the world, with a personal fortune exceeding the combined wealth of the bottom 46% of all humanity. In 2024 alone, he spent $250 million in support of Trump and GOP election efforts. He had direct business interests in over 70% of the agencies and departments targeted by DOGE and held hundreds of billions in private business interests directly affected by the agencies he was restructuring. He also had a history of using his X platform to spread election misinformation. While acting as a Special Government Employee, he called for the impeachment of federal judges who ruled against DOGE. Musk originally promised to cut over $2 trillion — 28% of the federal budget — and routinely misrepresented the cuts DOGE achieved. In the final tally, after traumatizing our federal workforce and accessing the private financial and personal data of millions of Americans, DOGE cut a small fraction of 1% of the federal budget. In June 2025, the experiment ended spectacularly — with Trump calling Musk "CRAZY" and Musk telling the world that Trump was in the Epstein Files. Perhaps more than any other Trump appointment, Musk's should be a red flag, warning Americans that government power is now for sale.¹³

1.2.C: Loyalist with No Experience, Kash Patel: FBI Director

Trump appointed Kash Patel, a staunch political loyalist, as director of the FBI. Every previous FBI director since the bureau's inception had extensive senior law enforcement experience. Patel had none. He never led a law enforcement agency of any size,

let alone one with 38,000 employees. Patel had proven his loyalty to Trump in numerous manners, including authoring a children's book trilogy — "The Plot Against the King" — in which a wizard named "Kash" saves "King Donald" from the villainous "Hillary Queenton." He also produced a song in which the January 6 rioters, who violently attacked the Capitol and postponed the peaceful transfer of power, perform the Star-Spangled Banner. Prior to becoming FBI director, he baselessly claimed the FBI "was planning January 6th for a year." Since becoming FBI director, he has assigned a SWAT team to serve as his girlfriend's bodyguards. There are reports, based on over 20 sources, that Patel has engaged in excessive drinking. He has announced, on his private social media platform, investigations into Trump's political opponents. Finally, he has opened new investigations into the 2020 election, despite 6 years having passed, 62 courts having found zero basis for fraud, and Trump's own former AG, Bill Barr, having unequivocally stated there was no evidence of fraud sufficient to change the election outcome. Rule of law requires a level of impartiality and fidelity to facts that Kash Patel clearly does not possess.¹⁴

1.2.D: Miscellaneous Under-Qualified & Partisan Cabinet Members

While it would take far too long to go through every Trump appointment, the trends are clear. Of Trump's 23 cabinet members, 20 had financially benefited him in some way prior to their appointment. As previously noted, Musk gave over $250 million to Trump and other GOP campaigns in 2024 alone. Linda McMahon (secretary of education) gave at least $20 million to MAGA Inc. Howard Lutnick (secretary of commerce) gave over $10 million to MAGA Inc. Scott Bessent (treasury secretary) gave over $1.4 million to Trump's campaign and affiliated committees. Jared Isaacman (NASA administrator) gave $2 million to Trump's inaugural fund and $2 million to MAGA Inc. Overall, Trump's inaugural fund took in over $16 million from Trump appointees alone. Biden's cabinet, in comparison, donated less than $100,000 combined to his 2020 campaign or a related super PAC. A senior White House official publicly confirmed that believing the 2020 election may have been fraudulent, despite insufficient evidence, was a prerequisite for senior appointment in the Trump administration. Trump's appointees are the most partisan and uncompromising officials ever chosen to operate our executive branch in modern American history. Regarding conflicts of interest, Steve Feinberg (deputy defense secretary) founded and ran one of the largest private equity firms in the world with extensive investments in defense contractors, and Chris Wright (energy secretary) was the chief executive of Liberty Energy, a major fracking company. All in all, the Trump administration consists of extremely unqualified, highly partisan, and immensely wealthy business insiders who gave Trump hundreds of millions to ensure he ascended to power. It operates on a level of "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" cronyism unlike anything our nation has ever seen.¹⁵

1.2.E: GOP Lawmakers Approve Partisan Appointments

Most presidential appointments, including all cabinet-level positions, require Senate approval in accordance with our Constitution. As Alexander Hamilton simply stated in Federalist Paper No. 76, Senate confirmation is designed to prevent "the appointment of unfit characters …" Though Trump put forth nominees regardless of qualification, conflicts of interest, and documented misconduct — many of whom donated lavishly to Trump-related political funds — they could not have ascended to their positions without the consent of the vast majority of GOP senators. Not a single Trump nominee — no matter how far outside the norm of acceptability — was formally rejected by the current GOP-controlled Senate. They have simply abandoned their constitutional responsibility to ensure the executive is run by honorable, qualified individuals.¹⁶

1.3: Incapacitation & Politicization of Executive Oversight

Four days into his second term, in the middle of the night, Trump fired 17 inspectors general, the independent watchdogs embedded in nearly every federal department and major agency, and 10 more in the months that followed. The law required him to give Congress 30 days' notice; he gave none. The Defense Department's inspector general had just opened an investigation into Elon Musk's SpaceX, and three other fired inspectors general oversaw agencies that had investigated or fined Musk's companies. USAID's inspector general was fired the day after reporting that Trump's cuts were putting hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of food assistance at risk. Inspectors general are part of a network of watchdogs Congress created to police the executive branch, along with the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Office of Government Ethics (OGE), and the Office of Special Counsel (OSC). They serve as Congress's eyes and ears, root out waste, fraud, and abuse, and save American taxpayers billions of dollars every year. The Trump administration has undermined every one of them. It fired the heads of the OGE and OSC without cause, told agencies they need not "feel compelled to cooperate at all" with the GAO, and pulled funding from the council that supports inspectors general, taking 15 oversight websites dark overnight. Meanwhile, GOP lawmakers who once threatened Biden's agencies over undocumented claims of noncooperation have capitulated. They approved partisan inspectors general on party-line votes and advanced a 49% cut to the GAO's budget—actions that would have been unthinkable a decade ago. With executive oversight gutted, almost no one is left to police the Trump administration for waste, fraud, and abuse, opening our nation up to new levels of corruption, most of which we may never learn about.¹⁷

1.3.A: Elimination & Politicization of Inspectors General

At the center of executive oversight is the inspector general system, which is composed of independent officials who are embedded in nearly every federal department and major agency. In the middle of the night, just 4 days into his second term, Trump fired 17 Inspectors General and 10 more in the months that followed, all without notice and all without cause. Under the Inspector General Act of 1978, a president is required to give Congress 30 days' notice before firing an IG. Not a single notice was given, in clear violation of the law. Robert Storch, fired as Defense Department IG, made the mistake of opening an investigation into Trump ally Elon Musk's SpaceX to determine if they were following federal reporting protocols protecting state secrets. Three other fired IGs also happened to be investigating Musk's companies. The USAID IG, Paul Martin, was terminated hours after publishing a report warning that Trump's cuts to USAID were putting hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of food assistance in danger of spoiling or being stolen. Only 8 of the fired IGs have been replaced, meaning entire portions of our government are operating under no independent scrutiny. Those IGs Trump has replaced have deep political ties to Trump and his allies. Anthony D'Esposito, the new Department of Labor IG, is credibly accused of congressional ethics violations and is currently running for Congress in direct violation of the Hatch Act. Chris Fox, the new Intelligence Community IG, was previously an advisor to Tulsi Gabbard, the then-director of national intelligence. Fox was hired to oversee his own former boss. In summation, U.S. executive oversight has been rendered inoperable.¹⁸

1.3.A.I: Incapacitation of the Council of Inspector Generals on Integrity & Efficiency

The Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) serves as the coordination and support body for the various IGs throughout the executive branch. It was established by the bipartisan Inspector General Reform Act of 2008, signed into law by Republican President George W. Bush. It provides training for IG staff and operates Oversight.gov, a website where the public and journalists can access all IG reports, audits, investigations, and findings. It also operates whistleblower reporting portals through which government employees can report waste, fraud, and abuse in their respective agencies without fear of repercussions. In September 2025, the Trump administration pulled all funding from CIGIE for fiscal year 2026, despite funds being made available by Congress. It was, in effect, an illegal impoundment of congressionally appropriated funds that crippled executive oversight. Fifteen government oversight websites went dark overnight. Under pressure from Republican Senators Grassley and Collins, the Trump administration eventually restored funding, but simultaneously imposed a new rule requiring CIGIE to request funding every 90 days, making it beholden, for its survival, to the very executive branch it is supposed to police for waste, fraud, and abuse.¹⁹

1.3.B: Refusal to Cooperate with Government Accountability Office

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent, non-partisan agency with power to audit government expenditures to discover waste, fraud, and abuse on Congress's behalf. It is essential for making government operations efficient, transparent, and legal. Russ Vought — the president's director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), a self-proclaimed Christian Nationalist, and one of the architects of Project 2025 — publicly told agency heads they don't need "to feel compelled to cooperate at all with GAO." The GAO staff has subsequently reported "significant access issues" and resistance from numerous Trump-controlled executive agencies. As of September 2025, the date of the last publicly available GAO report, the Trump administration has illegally refused to disburse congressionally approved funds across 7 separate programs, including $3 billion for EV charging stations, funds for Head Start programs, and funds for energy infrastructure projects in primary schools across the U.S.²⁰

1.3.C: Incapacitation of the Office of Government Ethics

The Office of Government Ethics (OGE) was established through the bipartisan Ethics in Government Act of 1978. It ensures that executive officials comply with conflict of interest and other ethics-based laws and regulations. For instance, it reviews the financial disclosures of over 27,000 senior executive branch officials to ensure they have no conflicts of interest and are acting in the public's best interests rather than their own. In February 2025, Trump fired OGE Director David Huitema, who had nearly five years left on his term and had been confirmed by a bipartisan Senate vote. Trump fired him without cause and without explanation, which was likely illegal. No permanent replacement has been confirmed in the more than 17 months since. At least 5 top White House officials' financial disclosures are missing from OGE's database entirely, and records for approximately 1,200 agency employees were requested by journalists and never provided by their agencies. Trump's own financial disclosures were filed late, omitted entire categories of information, and revealed glaring conflicts of interest, including $1.4 billion in income from cryptocurrency ventures while he was simultaneously setting cryptocurrency policy as president.²¹

1.3.D: Incapacitation of the Office of Special Counsel Leadership

The Office of Special Counsel (OSC), not to be confused with investigative special counsels created within the DOJ, is an independent federal investigative and prosecutorial agency established by the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. It has two primary functions: protecting whistleblowers who report waste, fraud, and abuse from retaliation, and investigating and prosecuting violations of the Hatch Act. The Hatch Act prohibits executive branch employees from engaging in partisan political activity, including campaigning, fundraising, or using government resources for partisan purposes; it exists to prevent the machinery of government from being used as a partisan political weapon. On February 7th, 2025, Trump fired OSC Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger in a one sentence email that provided no cause or explanation. Since Dellinger's firing, Trump Administration officials have engaged in numerous Hatch Act violations with little apparent consequence. Elon Musk, while serving as a Special Government Employee, wore a "Make America Great Again" cap during an official Oval Office event, which employment attorneys said may constitute engaging in partisan political activity while on duty. Kristi Noem used her position as Secretary of Homeland Security to produce a video blaming Democrats for the government shutdown and directed TSA to play it at airport security checkpoints nationwide. A Hatch Act attorney with 26 years of experience called it a violation that "completely runs afoul of the Hatch Act."²²

1.3.E: GOP Lawmakers Abandon Oversight Principles

In May 2024, James Comer, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, wrote a letter accusing Biden administration agencies of failing to comply with congressional oversight and threatened to withhold appropriations. The letter offered no documented instances of obstruction, so it remains unclear whether the underlying accusation was accurate. Still, it demonstrates that GOP lawmakers understand the importance of oversight. Today, with Trump in the White House, they have demonstrated no such understanding. They have, through party-line votes, approved numerous Trump-appointed IGs with partisan ties to Trump and the GOP that, in the past, would have disqualified them. Rather than standing up for the GAO and requesting that the Trump administration comply with routine audits, Tom Cole, the GOP House Appropriations chair, proposed a 49% reduction to GAO's budget, which passed the House Appropriations Committee on a party-line vote. Since Trump fired the OGE director without stated cause, the GOP has not nominated a replacement, held a hearing on the matter, or taken any action to compel Trump appointees to comply with basic ethics requirements. Since the firing of the OSC Special Counsel, there has been essentially no congressional GOP response, and the Hatch Act Enforcement Transparency and Accountability Act, sponsored by Democrats, has attracted no Republican support and remains stalled. Once again, GOP lawmakers have simply abandoned their constitutional responsibilities, making the executive beyond reproach.²³

1.4: Failure to Comply with Court Orders & Acts of Congress

In March 2025, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration not to fly migrants out of the country and to turn around any planes already in the air. That same day, the administration flew more than 260 migrants to a Salvadoran prison. The judge later found "probable cause" to hold the government in criminal contempt for its "willful disregard" of his order, and a whistleblower has since alleged that government lawyers misled the court. Another federal judge ruled that the administration had violated the "plain language" of his "clear and unambiguous" order to release frozen federal funds. The courts are not the only branch being defied. Congress created and funded USAID, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Department of Education, and Voice of America, and the administration has moved to gut or close every one of them, terminating 83% of USAID's programs and directing that the Department of Education be shut down. It has refused to spend money Congress appropriated, at one point freezing all federal grants, loans, and financial assistance in a single memo. It has even begun raising money on its own, selling $1 million expedited green cards and soliciting donations from corporations it regulates for a $400 million White House ballroom. Our Constitution divides the power to make, execute, and interpret the law among three co-equal branches precisely so that no single branch can dictate to the rest. This brilliant design is not, however, self-executing: it depends on leaders in every branch respecting both the limits on their own power and the roles the Constitution assigns to the others. The Trump administration's defiance of this division of power is not politics as usual, where one branch negotiates and compromises with the others; it is one branch ignoring explicit limits on its power, overriding the role of the other branches, and refusing to stop even after courts have ruled its actions unlawful.²⁴

1.4.A: Disrupting or Shutting Down Congressionally Created Entities

The Trump administration has routinely disrupted and even shut down several congressionally created and funded agencies, challenging Congress's role as lawmaker. Immediately upon assuming the presidency, Trump began to unilaterally terminate 83% of USAID's programs and fire 94% of its staff. In February 2025, Trump fired the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) director and installed loyalist Russell Vought, who actively tried to sabotage the agency, halting work, canceling contracts, firing staff, and starving its funding. Congress created the CFPB in the Dodd-Frank Act to be an independent agency that would oversee banks and lenders, enforce consumer protection laws, and shield Americans from the type of predatory lending that played a role in creating the 2008 financial crisis. In March 2025, Trump signed an executive order directing Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to take steps to close the department, ending a more than 40-year effort to equalize educational opportunities for all American children. That same month, the Trump administration went after Voice of America, a reliable source of news for people living in authoritarian societies the world over since the end of WWII. Trump made Kari Lake, election denier and MAGA loyalist, the acting CEO of its parent agency, whereupon she fired over 1,000 journalists, shut down VOA broadcasting for 420 million listeners, and tried to get the few remaining stations to broadcast pro-Trump network OANN. All these affected agencies were created and funded through valid acts of Congress, and several federal courts have determined that the Trump administration was acting well beyond its authority, usurping Congress's traditional role as lawmaker.²⁵

1.4.B: Usurping the Power of the Purse

Our Constitution gives the power of the purse — the power to spend and raise money — to Congress, not the executive. It does so through the Appropriations Clause and the Taxing and Spending Clause, both of which are very clear and unambiguous. The power of the purse is widely regarded as Congress's most fundamental power. James Madison, in Federalist No. 58, called it the "most complete and effectual weapon" for neutralizing an overreaching executive. But, as explained above and as will be detailed below, the Trump administration is simply refusing to spend congressionally allocated funds and has even begun to raise funds of its own. In the process, it is rendering our Congress ineffectual, robbing it of its role as a co-equal branch in our constitutional system.²⁶

1.4.B.I: Illegal Impoundment of Congressionally Approved Funds

The Constitution's Appropriations Clause gives Congress the sole power to spend money from the U.S. Treasury. When the executive refuses to spend money that Congress appropriated, it is called an impoundment, and it is illegal unless the executive follows the specific procedures set out in the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. The Trump administration has routinely failed to follow these procedures and, therefore, has routinely and illegally frozen congressionally approved funds. In January 2025, the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) froze all federal grants, loans, and financial assistance — trillions of dollars, affecting everything from Medicaid disbursement to housing aid. A federal judge blocked this unprecedented maneuver within days, but the White House continued to pick off congressionally approved funding piecemeal. The GAO has identified numerous illegal impoundments, including funding for museums and libraries, emergency disaster relief, EV charging stations, and Head Start. In the first Trump administration, the GAO determined that withholding military aid from Ukraine — done in an effort to pressure Ukraine into investigating Trump's political rival, Joe Biden — was also a violation of the Impoundment Control Act. Clearly, the Trump administration does not respect Congress's vital role in determining what taxpayer money gets spent on, nor their limited role in our constitutional system. It is an administration assuming powers it is not constitutionally entitled to.²⁷

1.4.B.II: Executive Illegally Raising Funds

The Constitution's Tax and Spending Clause provides Congress the sole power to collect and appropriate federal revenue. The executive, on the other hand, has no such constitutional authority. Regardless, the Trump administration has increasingly relied on privately funded arrangements to bypass Congress's power of the purse altogether. In September 2025, Trump issued an executive order creating what became known as the "Gold Card" program, allowing individuals to pay $1 million and corporations $2 million for an expedited green card. Rather than being treated as revenue paid to the Treasury, the payments are structured as a "gift" directly to the Department of Commerce, where the funds are then used at the executive's discretion. The administration has also solicited private donor funds to construct major public works entirely outside the congressional appropriations process. To build a new White House ballroom, now estimated at $400 million, the administration solicited tax-deductible contributions from 37 donors, including major federal contractors, technology companies, and cryptocurrency platforms — several of which have substantial business or regulatory matters pending before the very administration soliciting their money. Separately, the Treasury Department organized a "Trump Accounts Summit," at which President Trump personally called on American business leaders to help fund "Trump Accounts," a new government children's savings program. The summit resulted in pledges from more than two dozen major corporations to make matching $1,000 contributions on top of the federal government's own seed deposit. While past administrations have, on occasion, relied on privately funded arrangements, none has done so on this scale or used them so routinely to substitute for Congress's constitutional control over raising funds. The result is a growing shadow executive — funded by corporations and individuals with business before the government — that does not answer to Congress and, therefore, does not answer to the American people.²⁸

1.4.C: Failure to Comply with Court Orders

Article III of the Constitution vests "the judicial Power of the United States" in the federal courts — meaning the courts, not the president, have final say on what the law requires and whether government action is lawful. Our courts have no direct control over the Treasury, the military, law enforcement, or any aspect of our civil service. Their authority depends upon leadership in other branches respecting our Constitution. In J.G.G. v. Trump, Federal Judge Boasberg issued a temporary restraining order requiring that planes carrying migrants out of the U.S. not take off or turn around if already in the air. That same day, despite Judge Boasberg's ruling, the Trump administration flew over 260 migrants to a Salvadoran prison. Boasberg subsequently ruled there was "probable cause" to hold the government in criminal contempt, writing that the government's conduct demonstrated "a willful disregard for" the court's "Order." Though an appeals court later vacated this finding on procedural grounds, the underlying conduct was not disputed. A subsequent whistleblower filed a report with Congress alleging that government lawyers misled Judge Boasberg. In State of New York v. Trump, Federal Judge McConnell ordered grants and loans the Trump administration had frozen restored, but the administration continued to withhold funds, claiming his order was "ambiguous." Judge McConnell later ruled that the Trump administration had violated the "plain language" of his "clear and unambiguous" order. Instances could be multiplied. No administration in modern history has been as willing to ignore court orders as the Trump administration.²⁹

1.5: Elimination & Politicization of the Civil Service

The Trump administration has pushed more than a quarter of a million people out of the federal civilian workforce, shrinking it to its smallest size in more than half a century. Only about 10,000 of those departures went through normal, regulated channels, and the cuts were made with little regard for the quality of anyone's work. DOGE even fired as many as 350 employees responsible for overseeing and securing America's nuclear weapons stockpile. Though the decision was soon reversed, it was clear DOGE acted without any conception of the importance of the people it fired. Scientists have been among the most affected by this purge. The CDC lost nearly a quarter of its workforce, and nearly 400

scientists working on the congressionally mandated National Climate Assessment were dismissed without cause. At the FBI, Kash Patel purged agents tied to past investigations of Trump without identifying any misconduct on their part, instituted a polygraph that asked agents whether they had criticized him, and fired 15 agents over a five-year-old photo of them taking a knee at a peaceful 2020 protest. The administration also stripped more than 1 million federal employees of their collective bargaining rights, which a federal judge ruled exceeded the president's authority and was likely retaliation against unions that opposed him. When the House voted to restore those rights, 195 Republicans voted no, and the bill has stalled in the Senate. For much of the nineteenth century, the U.S. government ran on a "spoils system," in which each new president replaced much of the federal workforce with political allies and campaign supporters, regardless of qualifications. The result was an inexperienced workforce and rampant corruption. Beginning with the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883, lawmakers built a qualified, reliable, and honest civil service dedicated to serving the American public rather than personal and partisan interests. The Trump administration is undermining that achievement, turning us back 140 years. Our government is only as good as the people who work for it, and when those people can be dismissed en masse without regard to their work or purged for partisan reasons, the civil service stops serving the public and starts serving whoever holds power.³⁰

1.5.A: Haphazard Elimination of the Civil Service

The Trump administration fired, or otherwise coaxed, over a quarter of a million people from our civilian workforce, bringing it to its lowest size in more than half a century. The cuts were made arbitrarily, not based on quality of work. Only about 10,000 of these firings were accomplished through normal, regulated channels. One novel approach was offering every federal employee, regardless of their importance to their respective agency, a severance package in exchange for resignation. In another measure, the Trump administration directed agencies to fire all first-year employees, citing poor "performance" without evidence, though the courts later found this improper, and some were reinstated. In total, DOGE-driven firings accounted for roughly 34,000 of these departures. In one instance, DOGE fired 350 employees responsible for overseeing and securing the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile. Though the administration reversed course within 24 hours, the DOGE officials involved in these firings reportedly did not even know what the employees did. Past administrations, including the Clinton administration, oversaw major reductions in the federal workforce, but the Trump administration's efforts were the most careless and abrasive in modern American history.³¹

1.5.B: War on Science

Several of the Trump administration's attacks on our civil service have specifically targeted the scientific community to service flawed partisan narratives. The CDC has lost nearly one quarter of its workforce, and it currently has no director, principal deputy director, chief of staff, or chief medical officer. Secretary of Health and Human Services RFK Jr. gutted the CDC's vaccine advisory panel, which consisted of leading experts in the field, and replaced them with his own picks, including vaccine skeptics with limited relevant expertise. The Trump administration also fired more than 800 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration employees, many of whom worked on climate change. Nearly 400 scientists working on the National Climate Assessment Report, which is required by an act of Congress, were dismissed summarily and without cause. In 2025, over $3 billion in scientific research grants was either cut or frozen. Trump's 2026 budget requested $44 billion in cuts across all federal science-research agencies. Dr. Francis Collins, former National Institutes of Health director under both Republican and Democratic presidents, summed up the Trump administration's approach to America's science policy as "move fast and break things without a whole lot of interest in what the consequences might be." He added, "I just find it heartbreaking."³²

1.5.C: Politicization of the FBI

The FBI is our nation's primary law enforcement and domestic intelligence agency. Its credibility and independence are critical to our nation's health. As previously noted, Trump made Kash Patel, a radical loyalist without any experience, our FBI director. Patel has conducted a sustained purge of agents and senior leaders tied to previous investigations

into Trump, including the Mar-a-Lago documents case and the January 6 investigation. The Bureau has publicly released no information indicating any of these investigations were improper, nor that the agents acted in anything but a professional manner. Multiple former senior officials, many of whom were praised and promoted for their work ethic in the past, are suing Patel directly, alleging a documented "campaign of retribution." Patel also instituted a loyalty-test-style polygraph exam, which included questions about whether agents had made negative comments about Patel personally. In September 2025, Patel fired 15 agents over a five-year-old photo of them taking a knee during a peaceful 2020 George Floyd demonstration. The FBI Agents Association, a nonpartisan body that represents FBI employees, has repeatedly and publicly condemned Patel's firings as unlawful, claiming they violate due process, strip the Bureau of "valuable expertise," destabilize "the workforce," jeopardize recruitment efforts, and undermine our national security.³³

1.5.D: Targeting Government Employee Unions

In March 2025, Trump signed an executive order stripping 75% of unionized federal employees — over 1 million people — of their collective bargaining rights. In a subsequent challenge, Federal Judge Paul Friedman found that Trump clearly exceeded his authority while suggesting the order was motivated by retaliation against unions for opposing his administration. He then issued an injunction, preventing any further tampering with union contracts. That same March, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced the termination of 47,000 TSA employees' collective bargaining rights. In a subsequent challenge, Federal Judge Marsha Pechman ruled that Noem's actions appeared to be retaliatory and issued yet another injunction. Regardless, Noem signed a new declaration in September again terminating their rights. Federal Judge Jamal Whitehead then ruled that the original injunction "by its plain terms" prohibited Noem's actions. The House of Representatives responded, passing the Protect America's Workforce Act, with every Democrat and 20 Republicans backing the bill. Meanwhile, 195 House Republicans voted against giving government employees basic labor rights, and the bill has since stalled out in the Senate, unable to obtain the needed Republican support. The current Trump administration and the Republican Congress have made it clear that it is open season on the American civil service. Not the law, nor even court orders, will stand in the way of their hostile campaign.³⁴

1.6: Illegal Deployment of Troops & Paramilitary Forces in American Cities

In June 2025, Trump sent National Guard troops and 700 active-duty Marines into Los Angeles over the objection of California's governor. A federal judge ruled the deployment illegal and found that it violated the Posse Comitatus Act, the 1878 law making it a crime to use the military for domestic law enforcement. Trump then sent troops toward Portland and Chicago over those governors' objections as well, and courts ruled against him there too, with one judge finding "no credible evidence" to support his justification. In Washington, D.C., more than 2,300 Guard

troops have patrolled the streets carrying M4 rifles for over a year, even though violent crime was at a 30-year low. Alongside the military, the administration has unleashed a rapidly growing paramilitary force of masked ICE and Border Patrol agents, who have shot at least 33 people since Trump took office, killing 9. In Minneapolis, where federal agents outnumbered city police 5 to 1, they killed two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called Good a "domestic terrorist" and falsely claimed Pretti had been brandishing a handgun, and no one has been charged in either death. Retired four-star General James Mattis, Trump's own former secretary of defense, warned, "We must reject any thinking of our cities as a ‘battlespace’ that our uniformed military is called upon to ‘dominate.’" Our military exists for national defense, not for use against U.S. citizens, and policing has traditionally been a core power reserved to the states. Yet Trump now speaks of an "invasion from within" and says American cities should serve as "training grounds of our military." Meanwhile, the GOP Congress has refused to pass a single restraint on these deployments, tripled ICE's budget, and rejected even basic reforms, such as banning masks and requiring agents to display identification. Make no mistake: the second Trump administration is a new chapter in the way the American government treats its own citizens.³⁵

1.6.A: Deployment of National Guard & Active Military

Trump has ordered the deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles, Memphis, Portland, Chicago, and New Orleans. Though the Republican governors of Louisiana and Tennessee gave their blessing, the governors of California, Oregon, and Illinois were not consulted and objected vociferously. They subsequently sued the Trump administration and won. Federal Judge April Perry of Illinois determined that there was "no credible evidence" to support Trump's justification for the deployment. Federal Judge Charles Breyer of California ruled that Trump's actions "were illegal" and violated the "Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution." In addition to National Guard troops, Trump also deployed 700 active-duty Marines to Los Angeles. Judge Breyer, who handled this challenge as well, determined that Trump violated the Posse Comitatus Act and permanently enjoined him from future deployment. Not only is Trump violating the law while subjecting American citizens to their own military, but his orders have cost the American taxpayer over $1.5 billion.³⁶

1.6.A.I: Trump's Continued Threats to Militarize America 

1.6.B: Federalization of D.C.'s Police Department & Deployment of National Guard

In August 2025, Trump federalized Washington, D.C.'s police department and deployed over 2,300 National Guard troops, who have been patrolling the streets carrying M4 rifles for over a year now. In doing so, he declared a "crime emergency," despite the fact that violent crime was at a 30-year low. The vast majority of D.C. residents, 80%, oppose the current occupation, and 61% reported feeling less safe since the deployment. Elected officials in D.C. have also been less than enthused. Mayor Bowser, though initially cooperative, has since called the deployment an "authoritarian push." The elected City Council has been consistently opposed and sent letters to state governors requesting the withdrawal of their Guard troops. Unfortunately, as a federal district, Washington, D.C., has fewer protections than other U.S. cities. A federal judge ruled the deployment unlawful, but an appeals court has stayed that ruling while it considers the administration's appeal. For now, Trump's federal takeover, though against the will of the majority of people who call Washington, D.C., home, will continue.³⁸

1.6.C: ICE & Border Patrol Deployments

The Trump administration has deployed a rapidly growing force of ICE and Border Patrol agents onto American streets. ICE's workforce alone has grown 120% in under a year, to over 22,000 agents. Both ICE and Border Patrol are paramilitary forces, often driving armored vehicles and wearing body armor, camouflage, and face masks that hide their identities. They often utilize bulk explosives for breaching buildings and brandish an assortment of weapons, from Glocks to AR-style rifles with laser sights to submachine guns. Since Trump took office, ICE and Border Patrol agents have shot at least 33 people, killing 9. At least 32 more died in ICE custody in 2025 alone — the highest number in over 20 years — bringing total deaths connected to immigration enforcement to at least 41. Their tactics have given rise to numerous complaints and civil rights concerns, including failures to properly identify themselves as government agents, use of excessive force, wrongful detention of U.S. citizens, improper racial profiling, retaliation against and targeting of protesters, and evidence tampering. The Trump administration has countered by claiming that ICE and Border Patrol agents suffer constant and escalating physical attacks from illegal immigrants and protesters alike, but those claims have often not held up in court and, in some cases, have proven fabricated. Of 558 people charged nationally with assaulting or impeding federal immigration agents, 191 cases were dismissed, and 22 ended in acquittal. As a comparison, the DOJ's typical dismissal rate is roughly 8%, but in cases resting on the claims of ICE and Border Patrol agents, it is 34%. Clearly, Americans are increasingly exposed to paramilitary law enforcement that is violating their civil rights in an unprecedented fashion.³⁹

1.6.C.I: ICE & Border Patrol Utilization of Military Tactics

Both ICE and Border Patrol have regularly engaged in military-style operations in U.S. cities that are excessive. As just one example, after midnight on September 30, 2025, roughly 300 heavily armed, masked agents stormed 7500 South Shore Drive in Chicago. A Black Hawk helicopter hovered above the building while agents rappelled directly onto the roof. Inside, agents deployed flashbang grenades and broke down doors across the complex without warrants. Residents, including families, were held at gunpoint, marched outside into a parking lot in their pajamas, and zip-tied by their wrists and, in some cases, ankles. The Trump administration publicly claimed that Tren de Aragua, a violent Venezuelan gang, had taken over the building. But out of roughly 130 residential units, only 37 people were arrested — just 2 of whom were alleged gang members — and to date, no one arrested that night has been criminally charged with anything. Court records later revealed that DHS's own internal justification for the raid made no mention of Tren de Aragua at all, instead citing intelligence about squatters unlawfully occupying vacant apartments. Eighteen former residents who were forced from their homes have since filed federal tort claims and are collectively seeking $90 million in damages.⁴⁰

1.6.C.II: ICE Deployment in Minneapolis

One of the more controversial ICE deployments, known as Operation Metro Surge, was in Minneapolis, Minnesota. At the peak of the operation, over 3,000 federal agents were on the streets. To put that in perspective, the Minneapolis Police Department has only 600 officers total; federal agents outnumbered actual Minneapolis police 5 to 1. Neither city nor state officials were consulted prior to the deployment and strongly opposed it throughout. The operation's economic toll was severe. The City estimated nearly $700 million in wage losses and increased costs. Several waves of high-level federal prosecutors resigned in protest. A federal judge overseeing the operation found that ICE violated 96 court orders during the surge, which is more than some federal agencies have violated in their entire history. A comprehensive Human Rights Watch report, based on interviews with more than 130 people, detailed widespread complaints of agents using disproportionate force, including smashing car windows, unnecessarily pointing firearms at bystanders, aggressively throwing individuals to the ground, and restricting the movement of non-targeted citizens. On social media, all Americans saw ICE agents kill two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Good was leaving an anti-immigration-enforcement protest in Minneapolis in her Honda Pilot. ICE Agent Jonathan Ross opened fire on her vehicle, hitting her at least three times. Just 18 days later, Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse, was shot and killed by Border Patrol agents. Though most onlookers agree that agents exceeded reasonable force in both cases, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem labeled Good a "domestic terrorist" and falsely claimed that Pretti was brandishing a handgun. Subsequently, federal officials stonewalled local police, preventing them from accessing evidence and properly investigating the killings. Six months later, the DOJ has confirmed that it will not pursue charges in Good's killing, and the nominal joint DHS-FBI investigation into Pretti's death has produced no charges and no public findings.⁴¹

1.6.D: GOP Lawmakers Shield Military & ICE Deployments

Despite repeated incidents and court findings that Trump's deployments have been illegal, congressional Republicans have refused to pass any legislation that would in any way restrain Trump from utilizing the National Guard, active-duty military personnel, or paramilitary forces, such as ICE and Border Patrol, in American cities against American citizens. In terms of troop deployments, they actively resisted holding oversight hearings until Democrats forced their hand. Once held, GOP lawmakers, rather than scrutinize the deployments, used their platform to publicly defend Trump's policies. Many claimed that the deployments were necessary to fight crime even though crime rates have declined substantially over the past 30 years. Though there are multiple Democrat-authored bills that would impose basic reporting and notice requirements on the president before the deployment of troops, they have failed to gain a single Republican cosponsor and are going nowhere. In terms of immigration, the GOP Congress passed a $170 billion immigration enforcement package, which is more than the combined budgets of every state and local law enforcement agency in America. ICE's budget was tripled, from approximately $9 to $28 billion, making it better funded than all other federal non-immigration enforcement agencies combined. Republican lawmakers also rejected numerous provisions to reel in ICE tactics, including a ban on masks, a requirement to wear badges or visible ID numbers, and a requirement to obtain judicial warrants prior to entering private property.⁴²

1.7: Undermining Federalism

When Democratic-run Maryland suffered historic flooding in May 2025, FEMA repeatedly denied its request for disaster aid while approving aid for Republican-run West Virginia for comparable damage just miles away, a pattern that has repeated, affecting numerous states. During the 2025 government shutdown, the Trump administration withheld $8 billion in energy grants from 16 Democratic-run states, and a Department of Energy attorney admitted in court filings that the

cancellations were based "solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state." Trump froze $16 billion for the Gateway tunnel between New York and New Jersey, then offered to release it if Senator Chuck Schumer would support renaming major landmarks after Trump. His administration has also used its executive power to override state authority, from an executive order blocking state regulation of artificial intelligence to an attempt to kill New York's congestion pricing program, a move Trump celebrated by posting "LONG LIVE THE KING!" before a federal judge ruled that the program could continue. Perhaps most concerning, the administration has even gone after Democratic state officials themselves, subpoenaing Minnesota's governor and Minneapolis's mayor in an investigation a federal judge later found "politically motivated." Our Constitution divides power between the national government and the states, reserving to the States all "powers not delegated to the United States." This federalism, as Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote, "secures to citizens the liberties that derive from the diffusion of sovereign power." It was once the Republican Party's core principle. As Ronald Reagan put it, "The genius of federalism is that people can vote with their feet. If local or state governments grow tyrannical and costly, the people will move. If the federal government is the villain, there is no escape." Yet when Trump declared in February 2026 that "states are just an agent of the federal government," most GOP elites said nothing, and the few who objected offered a muted assessment and took no action. Under Trump, the GOP has abandoned its signature principle: federalism.⁴³

1.7.A: Withholding Funds from Democrat-Run States

The Trump administration has repeatedly frozen congressionally approved funding for Democrat-run states to punish Americans based on their political affiliation. In May 2025, Maryland, a Democrat-controlled state, experienced historic flooding with an estimated $80 to $90 million in damages. Though FEMA approved funds for Republican-controlled West Virginia for comparable flood damage suffered just miles away, it repeatedly denied Maryland's request. Democrat-controlled Vermont and Illinois also had FEMA requests denied that same week, whereas Republican-controlled Alaska, Nebraska, and North Dakota had comparable requests approved. During the government shutdown in 2025, the Trump administration withheld $8 billion in energy grants from 16 Democrat-run states. In a related lawsuit, a Department of Energy attorney openly admitted in court filings that the cancellations were based "solely on the political identity of the grant recipient's state." In October 2025, Trump froze $16 billion for the Gateway Hudson River Tunnel project. In a meeting with Chuck Schumer, Trump offered to release the funding if Schumer would agree to support renaming major landmarks after Trump. A federal judge subsequently ruled against the administration, finding that the states would "suffer irreparable harm" and that "the public interest would be harmed" by further delay. Examples could be multiplied. For the first time in modern American history, the executive branch is using its power to financially punish American states and citizens for their party alignment.⁴⁴

1.7.B: Preempting State Authority

The Trump administration has repeatedly preempted constitutionally guaranteed state authority to create laws and regulations in their sovereign territory. On December 11, 2025, Trump signed an executive order explicitly designed to prevent states from regulating artificial intelligence. The order conditioned federal broadband funding on state cooperation and empowered the DOJ to sue states that attempt to regulate AI. Notably, the U.S. Congress had twice considered and refused to pass bills that would have done something similar, making the Trump administration's actions disrespectful not just to state sovereignty but also Congress's constitutionally mandated authority to legislate. In early 2025, New York City, faced with a major traffic congestion problem, launched a congestion pricing program to encourage drivers to use roads during non-peak hours. Though the Federal Highway Administration had approved the plan, Trump intervened, posting on Truth Social, "CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD… LONG LIVE THE KING!" New York's MTA sued, and Federal Judge Lewis Liman ruled decisively against the Trump administration, writing: "It is difficult to imagine more arbitrary and capricious decision-making than that at issue here." Though the regulation of criminal procedure has traditionally been a core state prerogative, on August 25, 2025, Trump signed an executive order that directed his attorney general to compile a list of states that have eliminated or limited bail and identify federal funding that could be suspended to punish them. More broadly, the administration has repeatedly conditioned disaster and homeland security funding on states adopting unrelated federal priorities, including election-system overhauls and immigration enforcement cooperation. In response, 24 states have filed a lawsuit against the administration. The courts have regularly found the Trump administration's strategy unlawful, with one judge writing that it put states in the position of "relinquishing their sovereign right to decide how to use their own police officers."⁴⁵

1.7.C: Harassment of Democrat State Officials

Perhaps most concerning, the Trump administration has used its power, not just to refuse funds and target the sovereignty of Democrat-run states, but to harass and persecute state officials. When Minnesota officials, including Governor Walz and Mayor Jacob Frey, spoke up against Operation Metro Surge, which flooded their streets with thousands of ICE agents, the DOJ issued grand jury subpoenas targeting them. In June 2026, a federal judge threw out the subpoenas entirely after finding that the investigation was "politically motivated." In May 2025, Ras Baraka, a Democrat candidate for governor of New Jersey, was arrested outside the Delaney Hall ICE detention facility while accompanying three members of Congress on an oversight visit. He was in a public space, complying with orders to leave, when agents arrested him anyway. Though charges were dropped 10 days later, Baraka is suing Federal Prosecutor Alina Habba, a former private Trump attorney, for false arrest and violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. In August 2025, the Trump administration opened a grand jury investigation into New York Attorney General Letitia James, who had won a civil fraud verdict against Trump. After the investigation, U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert concluded that there was not enough evidence to charge her, but Trump took to social media to complain, publicly stating he wanted Siebert "out." Under increasing pressure, Siebert resigned and was replaced with another private Trump attorney, Lindsey Halligan. Halligan secured a grand jury indictment, but a federal judge later dismissed it, ruling that Halligan had been unlawfully appointed to begin with. In the words of Senator Chuck Schumer, "this is what tyranny looks like."⁴⁶

1.7.D: GOP Lawmakers Abandon Federalism Principles

Federalism has traditionally been a favorite principle of the Republican Party. President Reagan promised an era of "New Federalism" that would shift spending and administrative power away from the federal government and back to state and local governments. When President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, GOP elites filed numerous lawsuits that attacked the measure as a violation of federalism. Virginia's Republican attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, called the ACA "an infringement on states’ rights and a ‘national embarrassment.’" The Heritage Foundation, a prominent conservative think tank, published a report arguing that the law's individual mandate "strikes at the heart of American federalism…." Today, in the face of Trump's ongoing attacks on federalism that go well beyond the ACA, those same GOP elites have gone completely silent; offered muted, passionless objections; or actively supported Trump's actions. In February 2026, while discussing his push to "nationalize" elections, which impinges on a core state authority that has been with us since our inception as a nation, Trump said, "states are just an agent of the federal government." GOP elites, though some mildly disagreed when pressed by reporters, took no action. In fact, days later, when Democratic Senator Ed Markey sought unanimous consent for a simple resolution reaffirming the states' constitutional authority to run federal elections, Republican Senator Rick Scott blocked it.⁴⁷

1.8: Abuse of Pardon Power

1.8.A: Subversion of Pardon Procedures

For nearly a century, the DOJ's Office of the Pardon Attorney has served as the standard channel for reviewing pardon applications. Traditionally staffed by career, nonpartisan appointees, the office makes recommendations based on consistent, nonpartisan criteria — such as time served, rehabilitation evidence, and victim impact evidence — to avoid even the appearance of abuse. In March 2025, Trump fired Liz Oyer, a career, nonpartisan pardon attorney. According to Ms. Oyer, she was fired because she refused to restore gun rights to Mel Gibson, a movie star and Trump supporter who was convicted of domestic violence battery. Trump replaced her with Ed Martin, a partisan Trump ally with no prior experience in pardon review and a former defense attorney for rioters who stormed the Capitol on January 6. What is more, over his two terms, it is estimated that approximately 92% of all clemency actions Trump has issued — including pardons, reprieves, remissions, and commutations — have bypassed the DOJ altogether. There appears to be no workable standard beyond corrupt favoritism. Insiders, former officials, and legal watchdogs have all gone on record to note that the traditional federal pardon procedure has been, under Trump, systematically dismantled in favor of a chaotic system based on personal connections and political lobbying.⁴⁹

1.8.B: Pardons for Co-Conspirators & Political Allies

During the first Trump administration, the Russia investigation led to the conviction of 6 Trump staff members and close political allies. Though all were afforded full due process, Trump pardoned 4 of them, including Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos, and Roger Stone. More than just political allies, these were alleged co-conspirators suspected of having evidence that could be used against Trump. In his second term, Trump granted preemptive pardons to his allies being investigated for attempting to subvert the 2020 election with him, including Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Mark Meadows, and Sidney Powell. Trump also pardoned more than 1,500 individuals charged in connection with the Capitol riot and granted clemency to Proud Boys and Oath Keepers who were convicted of seditious conspiracy after full jury trials. Disgraced Republican Representative George Santos, who lied to voters about who he was and stole from political donors, served just 3 months of a 7-year sentence before Trump intervened, granting him clemency. Examples could be multiplied. Repeatedly, Trump has stepped in to pardon or grant clemency to people who have been suspected of committing crimes with him, as well as former high-ranking Republican officials duly convicted of crimes that violate the public trust.⁵⁰

1.8.C: Clinton's Pardon of Marc Rich: GOP Elite Double-Standard

Though no president has come anywhere near abusing the pardon power as much as Donald Trump, there have been notable abuses in the past. In 2001, Bill Clinton pardoned Marc Rich. Mr. Rich was indicted for fraud and racketeering but fled to Switzerland, where he lived as a fugitive for 17 years, evading trial entirely. At the time of his pardon, Mr. Rich had not served a day of any sentence, nor admitted any wrongdoing. Even more concerning, his ex-wife had donated extensively to the Clinton Presidential Library, Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign, and the Democratic Party generally. Plainly stated, it was a corrupt pardon. The House Government Reform Committee, controlled by Republicans, held public hearings, issuing 70 subpoenas and calling 40 witnesses. Both Republicans and Democrats joined together to condemn Clinton's actions. The House issued a report entitled "Justice Undone: Clemency Decisions in the Clinton White House." Today, in response to far more extensive and abusive pardons, Democrats have introduced several pieces of legislation designed to prevent abuses of the pardon power from any president, regardless of party. They include the No President is Above the Law Act and the Pardon Integrity Act, but Republican lawmakers have systematically blocked or filibustered their efforts. When John Thune, who joined Republicans and Democrats alike in condemning Clinton's Marc Rich pardon in 2001, was asked about Trump's blanket pardon for the January 6 offenders, he responded blithely, "Look, I don't have any comments… We're not looking back, we're looking forward." Of course, going forward, there were many more Trump pardons of both his political and financial allies still to come, but Senator Thune has yet to take any action and continues to actively prevent it.⁵¹

1.9: Politicization of Private Enterprise & Independent Economic Institutions

1.9.A: Implementation of State-Controlled Capitalism

The Trump administration has repeatedly injected our government into private enterprise, moving us closer to a system of state capitalism that is typically associated with countries like China. In June 2025, Trump approved the acquisition of U.S. Steel by Nippon Steel, a Japanese company. As part of the deal, the president received a "Golden Share," empowering him to veto plant closures, asset moves, or capacity reductions. In August 2025, the U.S. government took a 10% equity stake in Intel in exchange for grant money, becoming its largest single shareholder. The Pentagon has also taken an ownership interest in MP Materials, a rare-earth mining company. In exchange for export licenses to China, Nvidia and AMD have agreed to give the U.S. government 15% of their sales revenue. In February 2026, after Anthropic refused to drop conditions that its technology could not be used in autonomous weapons or for mass domestic surveillance of U.S. citizens, Trump personally ordered every federal agency to "immediately cease" using its technology. Defense Secretary Hegseth designated Anthropic a "Supply-Chain Risk to National Security," a designation normally reserved for companies that are seen as an extension of foreign adversaries, rather than American companies simply following their own ethical principles. While our government has undertaken similar measures during wartime or a financial crisis, the Trump administration's actions, under current conditions, are unprecedented and run a risk of deterring foreign investment, politicizing business decisions, and triggering retaliatory protectionism from other nations whose markets U.S. companies need for growth.⁵³

1.9.B: Undermining Independence of the Federal Reserve

The Trump administration has repeatedly sought to undermine the independence of the Federal Reserve, embarking on a sustained pressure campaign to assert control. Trump publicly called then-Fed Chair Jerome Powell, whose reputation was essential to the health of global markets, a "numbskull" and "incompetent." In August 2025, Trump fired Fed Governor Lisa Cook based on unproven allegations of mortgage fraud, marking the first time in the Fed's 111-year history that a president interfered to fire a governor. The Supreme Court later ruled that Cook could remain in her position while her legal challenge to the firing proceeds. In January 2026, the DOJ announced an investigation based on routine cost overruns for a construction project at the Fed's D.C. headquarters. Federal Judge Boasberg quashed related subpoenas and ruled that Trump's actions were an improper attempt to "harass and pressure Powell." Despite the ruling, the Justice Department vowed to appeal and continued pressuring Powell in the months that followed. In early 2026, a coalition of more than a dozen of the world's leading central bankers — concerned about the potential for global financial instability and runaway inflation — took the unprecedented step of issuing a joint statement warning against continued political interference in U.S. monetary policy.⁵⁴

1.10: Adoption of Authoritarian Symbols

When members of Congress proposed putting George Washington's portrait on the nation's first coins in 1792, Washington rejected the idea as "monarchical." Trump has taken the opposite path. His administration has moved forward with a $1 coin bearing his portrait, added his signature to the $100 bill—a first in U.S. history—and proposed a $250 bill featuring his face.

When the director of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing objected, she was demoted and reassigned. After replacing the Kennedy Center's board with loyalists who then elected him chairman, Trump renamed the national memorial the "Trump Kennedy Center"; when a court ruled the renaming illegal, he closed the center down. Even America's 250th birthday became a celebration of Trump, from a military parade that coincided with his 79th birthday to a UFC fight on the South Lawn of the White House. Our Framers made a conscious decision to have a president, not a king. In monarchies, crowns, thrones, and royal images on currency are not incidental decorations; they condition people to associate the state with a ruler rather than the rule of law. From Washington on, American presidents deliberately avoided this visual and ceremonial language, understanding that a republic depends not only on legal limits on power but on a political culture that sees power as emanating from the people. At the heart of our once proud, democratic political culture, Trump and GOP elites are, for the first time in our nation's history, pushing the trappings of authoritarianism, undermining the identity that makes us one people and dividing us into two incompatible cultures.⁵⁵

1.10.A: Trump's Image on Currency & Official Documents

When our first national mint was built in 1792, some members of Congress proposed coinage featuring a portrait of the sitting president, George Washington, but he rejected the idea as "monarchical." Since that principled stand, only one living president, Calvin Coolidge in 1926, has appeared on our currency. The public rejected the coins, and more than 850,000 were melted down and destroyed. Trump's hand-picked Commission on Fine Arts, which was previously a non-partisan advisory body, designed a new $1 coin featuring Trump's portrait on the front and a reverse design depicting him after his assassination attempt. The caption on the back reads, "FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT," which was his primary message to the people who stormed our Capitol on January 6. In March 2026, the Trump administration announced that Trump's signature would appear on the $100 bill, a first in U.S. history. There is also a proposed $250 bill featuring Trump's face. When Patricia Solimene, the Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and Printing director, raised objections to the bill, she was demoted and reassigned. In April 2026, a limited-edition passport was proposed with a stern portrait of Trump, as well as his Truth Social caption, reading, "Welcome, but be good!" No developed democratic nations have the likeness of their sitting political leader inside their passports, and of over 1,000 currencies in circulation featuring a living leader, almost every single one was issued by a monarchy and features a king or queen, not an elected leader of a republic.⁵⁶

1.10.B: Politicization of Non-Partisan Cultural Institutions

The Trump administration has engaged in unprecedented efforts to politicize our most cherished non-partisan cultural institutions. In February 2025, Trump fired several Kennedy Center board members, replacing them with loyalists who then elected Trump as chairman. No sitting president has ever served on the Kennedy Center board, let alone chaired it. Subsequently, Trump and the new board fired Deborah Rutter, the Center's president, installing Richard Grenell, a Trump loyalist with no arts administration background, to replace her. They then rebranded the entire institution, naming it the "Trump Kennedy Center." Former board member Joyce Beatty filed a lawsuit arguing that the new name desecrated a national memorial. The court agreed, ruling that the renaming was illegal and ordering Trump's name be taken down. Numerous artists, several touring Broadway companies, and even the National Symphony canceled their scheduled appearances. Private donations and corporate sponsorships have plummeted. As of this writing, Trump has closed down the Kennedy Center and canceled a $257 million renovation, holding a national cultural treasure hostage until the courts agree to put his name on the building. Unfortunately, the Kennedy Center has not been the only cultural institution targeted by the Trump administration; the Smithsonian, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and others are fighting against Trump administration interference to honor their mission and retain their non-partisan identity.⁵⁷

1.10.C: Politicization of America's 250th Birthday

Our nation's 250th birthday, the Semiquincentennial, fell in 2026. Unfortunately, the Trump administration used this incredible milestone to yet again aggrandize Trump. In June 2025, a military parade was held in the streets of Washington, D.C., ostensibly to honor the Army's 250th

anniversary, but it also happened to coincide with Trump's 79th birthday. Traditionally, the U.S. does not hold military parades. They are extremely expensive, confuse our time-honored military-civilian divide, and are typical of military dictatorships, not constitutional republics. A year later, the Trump administration hijacked more celebrations. America250, an official bipartisan commission created by Congress a decade earlier, was supposed to plan the anniversary celebrations, but Trump created a separate entity called Freedom250 that allegedly secretly diverted both private donations and congressionally approved funds. Subsequent events catered to the MAGA base, rather than the broader American public, and included a Trump speech at Mount Rushmore in which he openly and viciously attacked Democrats, an IndyCar race through the National Mall, and a UFC fight on the South Lawn of the White House. Fighter Josh Hokit, after winning his match, used his post-fight interview to declare, on our nation's 250th birthday, "Michelle Obama is a man. Am I right, America?"⁵⁸

1.11: Human Rights Violations

On September 2, 2025, a U.S. military strike on a boat in the Caribbean left two men alive, clinging to the wreckage. A second strike was ordered specifically to kill them. Even John Yoo, the Bush-era Justice Department lawyer who wrote the legal justifications for torture after 9/11, said the Defense Department's own guidelines make killing incapacitated combatants "clearly illegal." Since September 2025, the administration has carried out 66 such strikes, killing 221 people without trial, without congressional authorization, and without releasing any verifiable evidence that they were the drug traffickers it claims. At home, Trump invoked the eighteenth-century Alien Enemies Act to send roughly 200 Venezuelan men to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador without a hearing. ICE has repeatedly arrested and detained U.S. citizens, including children, and at least 32 people died in ICE custody in 2025 alone. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is prosecuting its enemies on flimsy charges and going after universities that defy it and even law firms that dare to represent clients the president does not like. Our federal agencies have ramped up facial recognition, social media monitoring, and the purchase of private geolocation data to track Americans. All of this is an affront to our Bill of Rights and later amendments that enshrine our rights to personal security, due process, and equal treatment under the law—rights that belong not only to citizens but to every person by virtue of their humanity. American history, from the abolition of slavery to women's suffrage to the Civil Rights Movement, is largely the history of making good on those promises. Yet the GOP lawmakers who chair every congressional committee have repeatedly blocked Democratic subpoenas, resisted holding oversight hearings, and kept what little oversight they allow behind closed doors. Our best selves have always aspired to the self-evident truth at the heart of our Declaration of Independence: "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights." Any political party that works against that core truth is not worthy of power.⁵⁹

1.11.A: Extra-Judicial Killings on the High Seas

Since September 2025, the Trump administration has engaged in 66 strikes in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean that have killed 221 people. Though it claims the strikes target cartels trafficking drugs, there has been no verifiable evidence released to the public to back up that claim. The 221 people killed received no trial or legal process of any kind. Though Congress holds the power to declare war, the Trump administration never sought or received an Authorization for the Use of Military Force. In one incident on September 2, 2025, an initial strike left two men alive and clinging to wreckage in the open water, but a second strike was ordered specifically to kill the survivors. Legal scholars across the spectrum recognize that this event was likely a war crime. Even John Yoo, the Bush-era Justice Department lawyer who wrote the legal justifications for torture and warrantless surveillance after 9/11, stated plainly that the Defense Department's own guidelines make killing incapacitated combatants "clearly illegal." The UN's human rights chief and multiple UN special rapporteurs have repeatedly condemned these strikes as unlawful extrajudicial killings, with some even calling for those responsible to be prosecuted for homicide. Despite these clear, permanent, and irreversible civil rights violations, GOP committee leadership has repeatedly declined to compel public, sworn testimony from Defense Secretary Hegseth, limiting oversight largely to closed-door briefings.⁶⁰

1.11.B: Immigrant Rights

The Trump administration has systematically trampled on the civil rights of immigrants living in and coming to the United States. Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office attempting to end birthright citizenship for children of undocumented parents, directly contradicting the Fourteenth Amendment; though the Supreme Court struck the order down 6-3 in June 2026, Trump signed two new executive orders attacking birthright citizenship just weeks later. The administration has also sought to deny bond hearings to large numbers of detainees, effectively holding people indefinitely while their cases remain unresolved. At least 32 people died in ICE custody in 2025 alone. In March 2025, Trump invoked the eighteenth-century Alien Enemies Act to deport roughly 200 Venezuelan men to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador, without providing them any due process. In New York City alone, ICE made at least 800 "collateral arrests" of people who were never even the target of an enforcement action, 85% of whom had no criminal history at all. Despite explicit agency policy prohibiting it, ICE has repeatedly and wrongfully arrested and detained U.S. citizens, including children, sometimes using violent force. As one federal judge put it, "The Constitution does not permit the government to arrest thousands of individuals and then disregard their constitutional rights because it would be too challenging to honor those rights."⁶¹

1.11.C: Assorted Other Civil Rights Violations

Beyond extrajudicial killings on the high seas and violations of core immigrant rights, Trump administration policies have raised other serious concerns about civil rights generally. While most of these are dealt with in detail in other sections of this document, some will be briefly mentioned here. Based on Trump's public orders, the DOJ is actively pursuing his political enemies despite having insufficient evidence. Journalists are being targeted through criminal actions and intimidation. They have been subject to raids, seizures, and even government spying. The Pentagon barred reporters from the building unless they agreed to strict guidelines that essentially would have made the government their editor-in-chief. Foreign university students have been retaliated against for engaging in constitutionally protected speech. Federal agencies have dramatically ramped up the use of facial recognition software, social media monitoring, and the commercial purchase of private geolocation data to track citizens. Finally, as will be explored in the next sections, federal investigations have been used to target voting rights organizations and local election processes. At no time in modern American history has our government so brazenly violated our core civil rights.⁶²

1.12: Trump’s 1st Impeachment: Abuse of Power & Obstruction

1.12.A: Grounds for Impeachment: Abuse of Power & Obstruction of Congress

In July 2019, roughly two and a half years prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the White House put a hold on $391 million in U.S. military aid to Ukraine, which the GAO would later determine was, in part, an illegal impoundment of congressionally approved funds. Later that month, Trump spoke on the phone with President Zelensky. Zelensky expressed a desire to purchase Javelin missiles, and Trump responded, "I would like you to do us a favor though…" He then conditioned U.S. aid on a Ukrainian investigation of Joe Biden. Ninety-one minutes after the phone call, Michael Duffey, a White House budget official, emailed the Pentagon to emphasize the importance of the hold on U.S. aid and urged Pentagon officials to keep it secret due to its "sensitive nature." Soon, a whistleblower, who received accounts from officials on the call, reported Trump's conversation to Congress, flatly stating, "the President of the United States… [used] the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. Election." Though the White House issued a blanket order for executive officials to defy subpoenas, several high-ranking career diplomats and national security experts in the Trump administration provided testimony to Congress, including U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, former senior director for European and Russian affairs Fiona Hill, acting ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor, and many others. Gordon Sondland, a Republican Trump appointee and donor, testified that he knew aid to Ukraine was being withheld for an improper purpose with the same certainty that he knows "two plus two equals four." He also testified that it was part of a clear "quid pro quo" and that numerous senior White House officials were "in the loop." Overall, witness testimony painted a clear picture: Trump and his Republican political allies in the White House attempted to leverage U.S. aid to attack his political rival in a manner that strengthened Russia, undermined democracy internationally, and undercut U.S. foreign policy.⁶⁴

1.12.B: GOP Lawmakers Nullify the Impeachment Clause

Trump's conduct was precisely what the Framers had in mind when they drafted impeachment into the U.S. Constitution. Regardless, on December 18, 2019, every Republican in the House of Representatives voted against impeachment. It would have ended there, but Democrats had a majority and managed to push it through. Prior to commencement of the trial in the Senate, Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters, "I'm not an impartial juror… I'm not impartial about this at all." Weeks later, he put his hand on a Bible and took an oath to "do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws, so help me God." During the Senate trial, even more information relevant to Trump's guilt surfaced, but Republican senators barred it from the proceedings. Fiona Hill, then the National Security Council's senior director for Europe and Russia, testified that John Bolton, the national security advisor during the events in question, wanted no part of what he called the "drug deal" being cooked up around Ukraine. Bolton's own unpublished manuscript later went further, revealing that Trump personally told him he wanted to keep withholding the $391 million in aid until Ukraine agreed to investigate the Bidens. Lev Parnas, an associate of Rudy Giuliani, provided hundreds of text messages, letters, and photos that illustrated Giuliani's role in the pressure campaign. Still, when it came to a vote, every Republican senator, with the lone exception of Mitt Romney, voted to acquit. In an impassioned speech on the Senate floor, Romney said that the evidence showed "a flagrant assault on our electoral rights, our national security interests, and our fundamental values." He concluded, "corrupting an election to keep oneself in office is perhaps the most abusive and destructive violation of one's oath of office that I can imagine." After his principled stand, Romney became a figure of ridicule among GOP political and media elites. In 2025, he stepped down from public life, rather than face a challenge from within the party he once led.⁶⁵

1.12.C: Clinton's Impeachment & GOP Elite Double-Standard

In 1998, the House of Representatives voted to impeach Bill Clinton on two counts: perjury before a grand jury and obstruction of justice. The first count related to false and misleading grand jury testimony Clinton gave in relation to his affair with Monica Lewinsky. The second was based on allegations that he coached witnesses and concealed gifts and evidence to obstruct a civil lawsuit Paula Jones brought against him. Neither count had anything to do with abusing the office of the presidency. It was general misconduct that any person could engage in, whether president or not. In contrast, the conduct for which Trump was impeached arose directly out of his office. He could not have withheld aid from Ukraine or demanded that they go after his political rival if he were not president. Despite these clear differences, 223 Republicans voted to impeach Clinton on the first charge, and 216 voted to impeach him on the second. Among those who voted to impeach him was John Thune, who said of Clinton, "We are left with one of two equally miserable realities: either the President chooses contempt and complete disregard for the truth, or his conscience is so diminished as to leave him unable to discern the truth from his lies." During Trump's first impeachment, Thune said nothing of the sort, but he did criticize Democrats for their "deeply partisan" rush to judgment, despite evidence demonstrating Trump's guilt. In contrast to no Republicans voting for Trump's first impeachment, five Democrats joined Republicans to vote for Clinton's. Though the majority of Democrats did not think Clinton's conduct reached the high bar required for impeachment, they almost all joined their Republican colleagues to publicly condemn his behavior. In contrast, only a handful of congressional Republicans ever publicly acknowledged that Trump had engaged in any wrongdoing.⁶⁶

1.13: Conservative Justices Expand Executive Power

In Trump v. United States, the Supreme Court's conservative majority held that Trump was "absolutely immune from prosecution for the alleged conduct involving his discussions with Justice Department officials," even though that conduct was pressuring the Department to validate false election-fraud claims. The decision gave presidents absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for acts within their core constitutional powers and at least presumptive immunity for all other official acts, and it barred courts from even inquiring into a president's motives. The long-standing assumption that a president, like any other citizen, is subject to criminal law is over. As Justice Sotomayor warned in dissent, "In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law." In Trump v. Slaughter, the Court overruled a 91-year-old precedent that allowed Congress to protect the heads of independent agencies from being fired without cause. From now on, Congress cannot insulate, as it has for nearly a century, most independent agencies from presidential control. In Trump v. CASA, the Court ruled that lower courts generally cannot issue nationwide injunctions. No matter how clearly unlawful a president's actions are, a lower court can no longer, in most cases, grant relief to anyone but the actual parties before it. In August 2024, the Biden administration asked the Court to narrow nationwide injunctions, but the Court refused, only to grant nearly the same relief to Trump 10 months later, even as he was issuing record-breaking numbers of unlawful executive orders. To be sure, the Court has held the constitutional line against some Trump administration actions, including his tariffs, the elimination of birthright citizenship, attacks on the Federal Reserve, and National Guard deployments. But in the cases that define the limits of presidential power itself, our conservative Supreme Court has altered our jurisprudence to empower Trump in ways most legal experts never thought possible. And we have this Court only because GOP lawmakers manipulated the appointment process, blocking Merrick Garland's nomination for nearly a year, then rushing Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation through while Americans were already casting ballots in 2020, rendering the process of choosing justices inherently partisan and undermining the judicial independence that is the source of the Court's authority.⁶⁷

1.13.A: Conservative Justices' Systematic Favoritism of the Trump Administration

Statistics demonstrate that our current conservative Supreme Court is showing deep favoritism for the Trump administration. The Court has heard an unprecedented number of shadow docket requests brought by the administration. Shadow docket requests are for emergency interim orders heard prior to a lower court hearing the facts and without formal oral arguments. They are decided with little to no explanation through often unsigned opinions. In the past, other presidents rarely sought this kind of emergency relief, but since Trump's inauguration, the Court has heard more than 30 such requests, a new record. According to a New York Times analysis of shadow docket rulings, the Biden administration, in addition to having fewer requests heard, prevailed just 53% of the time, whereas the Trump administration has prevailed 84% of the time. Beyond the shadow docket, one analysis found that between May 1 and June 23, federal district court judges ruled against the Trump administration 94% of the time, while the Supreme Court, over that same period, ruled in favor of the Trump administration 94% of the time. Sitting federal judges are ethically constrained from publicly criticizing the Supreme Court outside of their own rulings, but they have still done so within those rulings: CNN identified at least 77 separate court rulings — from judges appointed by both Democrat and Republican presidents, including several of Trump's own appointees — that call out the Trump administration for acting unlawfully, disregarding constitutional limits, retaliating against opponents, or in some cases openly defying court orders. Freed from that same ethical constraint, numerous retired federal judges, also appointed by both Democrat and Republican presidents, have organized to openly speak out against the Supreme Court's apparent, ongoing bias.⁶⁸

1.13.B: GOP Lawmakers' Politicization of the Supreme Court

The single most important quality of the federal judiciary is its independence from political and private influence. With no direct control over the Treasury, military, law enforcement, or wider civil service, its authority emanates from the integrity and impartiality of its judgment. Sadly, GOP lawmakers have willfully and severely undermined the Court's moral authority. On February 13, 2016, while Obama was president with nearly a year left on his term, Justice Antonin Scalia died. Within hours, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that the GOP-controlled Senate would not even consider an Obama-nominated justice. His reasoning was that it was an election year, and the American people should decide. President Obama nominated Merrick Garland on March 16, 2016, and Garland's nomination then sat for 293 days, the longest such wait in history, far surpassing the previous record of 125 days. Then, on September 18, 2020, while Trump was president and just 46 days before the election, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. Mitch McConnell, Thom Tillis, Mike Lee, Lindsey Graham, and several other Republicans, who claimed that Congress should not approve a Supreme Court appointment in an election year, did a complete 180. Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett, and the GOP Congress, against the will of every Democrat, confirmed her in near record time, severely undermining public perception of the Court's independence and integrity, while going against its own stated principles.⁶⁹

Free and fair elections are the voice of the people, the mechanism by which they make government responsive to their desires and needs. As stated in the Declaration of Independence, "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." Voting is how the people express that consent, and the peaceful transfer of power is how their leaders honor it. But that hallowed tradition is not guaranteed. It is chosen anew each election by the people and by the leaders they entrust with power. It is among the most precious and fragile inheritances we possess.⁷⁰

2.1: GOP Denies 4 Million U.S. Citizens Voting Rights

Nearly 4 million American citizens living in Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico have no voting representation in Congress, and GOP lawmakers have blocked every recent effort to change that. D.C. has more residents than Wyoming or Vermont, yet as a federal district rather than a state, its residents had no vote in any federal election until the 23rd Amendment gave them a say in presidential elections in 1961. Through the late 1970s, many Republicans supported giving D.C. representation in Congress, but as the prospect of adding reliably Democratic seats to Congress became real, their sentiments changed. More recently, Republican leadership has opposed every such measure. In 2020 and again in 2021, the House passed bills to make D.C. a state without a single Republican vote, and Senate Republicans killed both. Puerto Ricans, U.S. citizens since 1917, have fared no better. The Republican Party platform has endorsed Puerto Rican statehood for more than 80 years, yet when the Puerto Rico Status Act, which would have let Puerto Ricans choose statehood in a binding vote, came to the House floor in 2022, 191 Republicans voted against it, and the bill then died in the Senate amid Republican opposition. After the 2024 election, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the reason plain: "We will not allow new states that would provide a partisan advantage to the other side," making it clear that the GOP's opposition to 4 million U.S. citizens having full federal voting rights was about protecting GOP power, regardless of our core principles.⁷¹

2.2: GOP Lawmakers & Conservative Justices Obstruct Campaign Finance Reform

Since the conservative justices' 2010 decision in Citizens United, outside spending on federal elections has increased 28-fold, from $144 million in 2008 to more than $4.2 billion in 2024, and the top 1% of super PAC donors now supply 97% of super PAC funding. Though early campaign finance reform was at least marginally bipartisan, the vast majority of GOP lawmakers always opposed it. Even Republican John McCain's landmark 2002 reform received only 41 votes from House Republicans, compared with 198 from Democrats. Today, that Republican support has vanished entirely. The DISCLOSE Act would not limit spending at all but merely increase transparency by requiring dark money groups attempting to influence our elections to disclose donors who gave more than $10,000. Democrats have introduced it repeatedly since 2010, and it has never received a single Republican vote in the Senate. Meanwhile, conservative justices continue to gut the remaining reforms, case after case. The result is a political system in which billionaires and corporations can spend without limit and, increasingly, without voters knowing who they are—and GOP elites have shown that, if they remain in power, they will keep it that way.⁷²

2.2.A: Conservative Justices Dismantle Campaign Finance Reform

Since 2010, the Supreme Court has split along ideological lines every time it has dismantled a campaign finance protection. It began with Citizens United v. FEC, in which a 5-4 conservative majority eliminated limits on independent corporate spending over the dissent of all four liberal justices. Two months later, a federal appeals court, building directly on that ruling, allowed for the creation of super PACs, which can accept unlimited funds from corporations and billionaires alike. The conservative majority has kept going. In 2011, it struck down Arizona's public financing system. In 2014, it struck down the cap on how much one donor can give in total. In 2022, it struck down a limit on repaying candidates' personal campaign loans. And in 2026, it struck down the 50-year-old limits on what parties can spend in coordination with their own candidates. Each time, every liberal justice dissented. Since Citizens United, outside election spending has increased 28-fold, from $144 million in 2008 to more than $4.2 billion in 2024. By 2012, the top 1% of super PAC donors provided 77% of super PAC funding. By 2024, that figure had risen to 97%. The ultra-wealthy, thanks to our conservative Supreme Court justices, now have a vise grip on political messaging throughout America. Former Republican Senator John McCain once noted that America goes through cycles of reform and corruption and added, "Right now … we’re at the height of corruption, thanks to the United States Supreme Court."⁷³

2.2.B: GOP Lawmakers Obstruct Campaign Finance Reform

Conservative Supreme Court justices are not the only political force preventing meaningful campaign finance reform. Though Congress has passed several campaign finance reform bills over the years, some with at least partial bipartisan support, most Republicans have always been against them. For example, the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill of 2002, though championed by Republican John McCain, was originally passed by the Senate 59-41, with 47 Democrats and 12 Republicans voting yes and 3 Democrats and 38 Republicans voting no. The House vote was similar, though some Republicans voted with Democrats — 176 Republicans, 81% of Republicans in the House, voted no. Today, even limited Republican support for campaign finance reform has vanished. For example, the Disclose Act, which has been repeatedly introduced in the Senate since 2010, has never received a single yes vote from a Republican Senator. The Act does not even limit spending. It only requires the disclosure of who is spending. Regardless, Republican Senators have unanimously killed it every time Democrats have introduced it.⁷⁴

2.3: GOP Lawmakers & Conservative Justices Enable Gerrymandering

In 2016, the North Carolina Republican legislator who led the redrawing of his state's congressional map explained its design plainly: "I propose that we draw the maps to give a partisan advantage to 10 Republicans and 3 Democrats because I do not believe it’s possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and 2 Democrats." That is gerrymandering—redrawing district lines so that elected officials choose their voters, rather than voters choosing their elected officials.

When that map reached the Supreme Court in Rucho v. Common Cause, the Court acknowledged that such gerrymandering is "incompatible with democratic principles." Yet the conservative majority ruled that federal courts are powerless to stop it, claiming no workable standard existed, even though scholars and mathematicians had presented the Court with several, many of which have already been implemented in some states, mostly Democratic-run. In 2026, in Louisiana v. Callais, the conservative majority went further, striking down a majority-Black district drawn to protect a community's representation, turning the 14th Amendment on its head, and putting up to 19 minority-controlled congressional seats at risk. Congress could step in to stop the practice—providing each voter a fair opportunity to elect a representative of their choice—and Democrats have tried, but Republican lawmakers have blocked every effort. The Freedom to Vote Act would have required states to draw congressional districts through independent processes and banned maps that unduly favor either party—rules binding Democrats and Republicans alike—but in October 2021, every Senate Republican voted against even allowing it to be debated. Again and again, GOP political elites have done everything they can to ensure that this undemocratic practice, which robs Americans of their most fundamental right, remains the norm.⁷⁵

2.3.A: Conservative Justices Legalize Gerrymandering

In the 2019 case Rucho v. Common Cause, conservative Supreme Court justices held that courts cannot prevent partisan gerrymandering, no matter how extreme. Though Justice Roberts, writing for the conservative majority, recognized that the practice "is incompatible with democratic principles," he claimed there was no workable standard for courts to apply. But the reality is that scholars, mathematicians, and political scientists have created numerous, highly precise, workable redistricting standards, many of which were presented to the Court. In the 2026 case Louisiana v. Callais, the conservative Supreme Court, which had already weakened the Voting Rights Act in previous decisions, gave Republican-controlled state legislatures a powerful new tool to challenge and dismantle majority-Black districts nationwide. Specifically, the conservative justices ruled that the creation of a majority-Black district in Louisiana, meant to protect a distinct community's right to representation, was itself an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, turning decades of Supreme Court precedent on its head. Within days of the decision, several Republican-led states went to work redrawing their maps, leading to the dismantling or fracturing of several majority-Black districts, and the process has only just begun. Across the nation there are up to 19 minority-controlled federal congressional seats and roughly 191 minority-controlled state legislative seats in danger of being altered or eliminated, which would effectively disenfranchise millions of Americans.⁷⁶

2.3.B: GOP Lawmakers Block Efforts to End Gerrymandering

In addition to the rulings of the conservative Supreme Court justices, GOP lawmakers have blocked numerous legislative efforts to end the absurd practice of state legislatures disenfranchising their own citizens. For example, the Freedom to Vote Act, originally introduced in 2021, would have required states to draw congressional districts using independent methods and banned drawing maps that are unduly favorable to any political party. In October 2021, every Republican voted against even allowing the law to proceed to a debate on the Senate floor. When it was reintroduced three months later—this time merged with the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act—every Republican again voted against a simple debate. Our Democratic lawmakers have repeatedly tried to end gerrymandering for all Americans, Republican and Democratic, but our GOP lawmakers have repeatedly used their power to ensure it remains a common practice.⁷⁷

2.4: Trump Orders State Legislatures to Gerrymander Election Wins

"We are entitled to five more seats," Trump declared in August 2025, demanding that Texas Republicans redraw their congressional map mid-decade to hand the GOP more House seats. Redistricting has traditionally followed each new census, when population shifts require new maps. Since 1970, only two states—Texas in 2003 and Georgia in 2005, both under Republican control—had voluntarily redrawn their congressional maps mid-decade for partisan advantage. Leading up to the 2026 midterms, Trump decided to make the exception the norm, launching a public and private pressure campaign on Republican state officials nationwide. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson called individual state senators to lobby them. Vice President JD Vance acted as the White House's "enforcer," personally traveling to Indiana to pressure reluctant Republican lawmakers and hosting a D.C. summit to coordinate map-drawing efforts. Trump and his allies threatened to primary any state legislator who refused, and in Indiana alone, Trump-aligned PACs spent nearly $500,000 to pressure state officials. Some legislatures refused to sell out their voters, but others folded. As of early June 2026, eight Republican-controlled states had redrawn their maps to engineer 16 new Republican-leaning seats. Only after Texas acted did Democratic-run California respond, with voters approving a map projected to offset Texas's gains, still leaving Republicans with a 10-to-11-seat advantage. Both parties have gerrymandered over the years, but Republicans, statistically speaking, have done so more, and only Republicans are refusing to pass legislation that would end the practice for both parties. And now, at Trump's direction, they have turned it into a mid-decade arms race.⁷⁸

2.4.A: Democratic-Run States Gerrymander in Response

As a response to Republican gerrymandering prior to the 2026 midterms, California passed a ballot initiative that allowed for redistricting. The resulting map is projected to give Democrats a net gain of 4 to 5 seats, roughly balancing out Texas's gerrymander but still leaving Republicans with a 10-to-11-seat advantage. Virginia Democrats attempted to redistrict, but the state's Supreme Court struck down their efforts. Other Democratic-run state redistricting efforts have either stalled because of internal opposition or because these states—unlike most Republican-controlled states—had previously created independent redistricting boards for the express purpose of preventing gerrymandering. Significantly, no Democratic-run state had any intention to redistrict in 2026 until Republican-run states initiated their efforts. Furthermore, though both Democratic- and Republican-controlled states have engaged in gerrymandering in the past, Republicans have, statistically speaking, done so far more aggressively.⁷⁹

2.5: A Long History of GOP Elite Election Disinformation

2.5.A: GOP Elite Disinformation After the 2016 Election

In 2016, Trump won the Electoral College and, therefore, the presidency but lost the popular vote by almost 3 million ballots. After the election, he claimed, without providing any evidence, that he would have won the popular vote but for "millions of people who voted illegally." Out of 135 million votes cast in 2016, there were four documented cases of voter fraud at the time he made his claim. One involved a mayoral race in Miami; the other three were committed by Trump supporters. Regardless, the Trump Administration established a Voter Fraud Commission, including Mike Pence as Chair. The Commission met just twice and never issued a report. A subsequent lawsuit under the Federal Advisory Committee Act forced the Commission to turn over the materials it considered. These documents revealed no evidence of voter fraud in the 2016 election and only extremely marginal voter fraud historically.⁸¹

2.5.B: GOP Elite Disinformation Concerning Mail-In Ballots

GOP elites in the Trump Administration, Congress, and right-wing media have consistently sought to undermine Americans' faith in mail-in ballots. As of April 2026, 83% of Republicans expressed worry about fraudulent mail-in ballots, but their concerns are totally unfounded. According to the conservative Heritage Foundation's own data, only 0.00006% of mail-in ballots throughout history have been found fraudulent. Statistically speaking, a person is 109 times more likely to be struck by lightning in their lifetime than cast a fraudulent mail-in ballot. Furthermore, America has a long tradition of absentee or mail-in voting. During the Civil War, Union troops voted via mail-in ballot. Ever since, mail-in voting has been a staple of U.S. military service. Starting during World War I, lawmakers expanded absentee voting to non-military personnel. As of 2019, five states conducted all their elections through mail, 29 states allowed for "no excuse" mail-in voting, and every other state allowed mail-in voting based on a valid excuse. In numerous elections from 2018 to 2026, Donald Trump has cast his ballots via mail, and it's not a mystery why. Mail-in ballots are highly beneficial. They increase voter turnout by removing physical barriers like long lines, rigid work schedules, and transportation issues. They give voters the time to thoroughly research local candidates from home, and they create a secure, reliable paper trail that election officials can easily audit. Regardless, the GOP elites know that Democrats are almost twice as likely to vote by mail, and so they have repeatedly sought to undermine mail-in voting to the detriment of all Americans.⁸²

2.5.C: GOP Elite Disinformation About Noncitizens Voting

Another favorite source of election integrity disinformation among GOP elites is fraudulent votes cast by illegal immigrants. As of April 2026, 82% of Republicans agree that there are "large numbers of fraudulent ballots cast by non-citizens." As of 1926, all states had already banned noncitizens from voting in federal elections. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 made it an explicit federal crime for any noncitizen to vote in a federal election and provided for up to a year in prison and a fine of up to $100,000. Furthermore, every state's voter registration process already requires affirmation of citizenship under penalty of perjury, and most states cross-check registrants against the federal SAVE database to flag potential noncitizens. According to the conservative Heritage Foundation's own database, there have been only 100 cases of noncitizens voting from 1982 to 2025, which is roughly 0.000008% of the 1.3 billion votes cast in presidential elections during that period. Despite all of this, GOP politicians and right-wing media continue to inflame unsupported concerns about illegal immigrants voting in federal elections, propagandizing their own base in the process.⁸³

2.5.D: GOP Elite Disinformation After the 2020 Election

After the 2020 election, GOP elites, both politicians and media, flooded the right-wing information ecosystem with false claims of voter fraud. Among the most impactful of those claims was that Dominion voting machines deleted millions of Trump votes nationwide, but both state election officials and federal cybersecurity experts in the Trump Administration determined these rumors to be totally unfounded. In Maricopa County, Arizona, there were fraud allegations that poll workers deliberately gave voters Sharpie pens, which would supposedly cause ballot-scanning machines to reject their votes, but Sharpies were, in fact, the recommended pen for these types of ballots, and subsequent audits confirmed no votes were invalidated because of pen type. Trump loyalist Rudy Giuliani presented a video clip of Fulton County election workers supposedly pulling suitcases of fraudulent, hidden ballots from under a table, but subsequent investigations by the Trump-led FBI and the Republican-controlled Georgia Bureau of Investigation found that the video depicted standard, secure ballot storage lockboxes, kept under tables as normal practice — nothing fraudulent. These examples could be multiplied. In the end, Trump and his allies filed more than 60 post-election lawsuits, claiming fraud across at least a dozen states. They lost all of these cases but one, and it involved a minor, narrow technical issue unrelated to fraud that did not change the outcome. Repeatedly, federal and state judges, including eight Trump-appointed judges, dismissed, and at times ridiculed, these fraud claims. Though Trump later argued that he lost these cases only on technicalities, that simply is not true. Twenty-nine cases were rejected on the merits after full hearings.⁸⁴

2.5.D.I: Consequences for 2020 Election Disinformation

Though it took time, GOP elites did suffer serious consequences for their election fraud disinformation after the 2020 election. Fox News, whose hosts spread disinformation about Dominion voting machines, settled a defamation lawsuit for $787.5 million, the largest of its kind in U.S. history. Rudy Giuliani, who made false claims about Fulton County, Georgia, election workers, lost a defamation suit for $146 million. The two election workers he defamed, who did nothing wrong, experienced widespread harassment, threats, and intimidation. At one point, they even fled their homes due to death threats. In Georgia, Trump and 18 associates faced a RICO indictment. Trump attorneys Sidney Powell, Kenneth Chesebro, and Jenna Ellis all pled guilty to their portions of the crime. In Michigan, nine Trump lawyers were sanctioned by a federal judge, who called the underlying lawsuit "a historic and profound abuse of the judicial process." Four Trump lawyers, including Rudy Giuliani, were either disbarred or had their law licenses suspended. In all, 22 separate attorneys who worked on Trump's 2020 election challenges or the effort to overturn the results faced some combination of court sanctions, bar discipline, or criminal prosecution.⁸⁵

2.5.E: GOP Elite Disinformation Leading up to the 2026 Mid-Terms

As the 2026 midterms approach, Trump and other GOP elites, including politicians and media, are rehashing old disproven fraud claims and coming up with new ones, priming Republican voters to once again doubt our election results, regardless of evidence. They are again raising concerns about mail-in ballots and illegal immigrants voting without ever considering the empirical data that proves such fraud is incredibly rare. On July 16, 2026, Trump delivered a primetime address from the White House, announcing he had declassified documents supposedly revealing "shocking vulnerabilities" in America's elections. He claimed China had carried out "the largest compromise of election data in history," accessing 220 million American voter files. But Trump offered no evidence any vote, in any election, had actually been altered, and the heavily redacted documents his own administration released did not support his claims. They showed, at most, that voter data, much of it already publicly available, had been accessed, not that any election had been tampered with in any way. Prominent conspiracy theorists immediately seized on the address: Steve Bannon called it "incredibly powerful" and declared the upcoming midterms "are going to be stolen like every other election has been stolen," except, of course, elections Trump wins. History seems bound to repeat itself.⁸⁶

2.6: Trump's Incitement of the January 6th Riot at the U.S. Capitol & GOP Lawmakers' Failure to Uphold Their Oath to the Constitution

At 2:24 p.m. on January 6, 2021, with a mob already inside the U.S. Capitol and a gallows erected outside for Vice President Pence, Trump tweeted not a plea to stop, but an attack: "Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done." Two minutes later, the Secret Service rushed Pence to safety. Earlier that day, after weeks of fraud claims rejected by recounts, audits, and more than 60 lawsuits, Trump had told a crowd at the Ellipse, "We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore," and then sent them toward the Capitol. They took it by force, delaying the certification of a presidential election for the first time in American history. About 140 police officers were injured, beaten with flagpoles, baseball bats, and lead pipes. Throughout the attack, Trump called on no law enforcement agency to defend the Capitol, and when House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy urged him to call off the rioters, Trump reportedly replied, "Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are." Yet when Congress reconvened that night, 147 Republican members still voted against certifying the election. In the months that followed, the vast majority of GOP lawmakers voted against impeaching and convicting Trump and blocked an independent, bipartisan commission to investigate the attack. Later, the Republican National Committee censured the only two Republicans who joined the House inquiry and declared the events of January 6th "legitimate political discourse." Every member of Congress swears an oath to support and defend the Constitution. On January 6th and every day since, the vast majority of GOP lawmakers have been in violation of that oath, and the few who had the courage and conviction to do the right thing have been ostracized and punished by GOP elites for their integrity.⁸⁷

2.6.A: Nature of the January 6th Riot

While Trump was still giving his speech, the first wave of protesters, since identified as members of the Proud Boys—a group of extremists whom Trump had instructed to "stand back and stand by" in a recent presidential debate—were already clashing with police. Soon, joined by other protesters, fresh from Trump's speech, they broke through police lines and breached the Capitol, climbing through smashed windows and busting open doors. Outside the Capitol, protesters erected a noose and gallows for hanging Vice President Pence. Inside, they breached the Senate Chamber, ransacked offices, stole souvenirs, and smeared human feces on the walls. There were Americans brandishing the Confederate flag and symbols of the American Revolution. Some wore gas masks, helmets, and bulletproof jackets. Congress people were evacuated to safety. Some, including Mitt Romney, were nearly cornered by protesters and barely escaped. While some Capitol Police retreated, others put up a fight. Rioters utilized chemical irritants and bludgeoned them with flagpoles, baseball bats, and lead pipes. Officers suffered rib fractures, concussions, and burns. Officer Michael Fanone was dragged down the Capitol steps, tasered, and beaten while suffering a mild heart attack. In total, 140 police officers were injured, and four would later die by suicide.⁸⁸

2.6.A.I: Trump’s Encouragement of an Ongoing Riot & Failure to Protect the Capitol

After the Capitol was breached, Trump, rather than telling the rioters to stop, tweeted, "Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country…" Two minutes later, the Secret Service led Mike Pence to a secure location. As the occupation of the Capitol continued, Trump then repeated more baseless claims of voter fraud via Twitter. Not until roughly 25 minutes after the Capitol had been fully breached did Trump tweet for protesters to "stay peaceful," and even then, he did not call for them to stop. Though the exact time of the call is unknown, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, while in hiding, had a heated exchange with Trump. McCarthy asked Trump to call off the protesters. Trump apparently refused, saying, "Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are." Widespread reports, originating from White House staffers, indicated Trump, "delighted" and "excited," watched the riot unfold from the safety of the White House. The National Guard was not activated until more than two hours after protesters first breached the Capitol. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley subsequently testified under oath that Mike Pence, not Trump, ordered its deployment. In fact, Trump, throughout the insurrection, called on no U.S. law enforcement agencies to defend the Capitol. Not until well into the riot did Trump finally release a video asking his supporters to stand down. Specifically, he said, "We love you, you're very special… I know how you feel, but go home…" Not until two hours later would the Capitol Police, the Metropolitan Police, and the National Guard regain control of our United States Capitol.⁸⁹

Posted after the rioters breached the Capitol and two minutes before the Secret Service moved Pence to safety.

Posted after law enforcement had regained control of the Capitol.

2.6.B: GOP Lawmakers Refuse to Certify the 2020 Election

When Congress, after being driven into hiding by a mob, reconvened at 8:00 PM, 147 Republican members still voted not to certify the election. They did this despite recounts, audits, and the certified electors confirming Biden's victory. They did this despite state and federal election security experts unanimously insisting there was no fraud sufficient to change the outcome. They did this despite 60 federal and state courts, and even eight Trump-appointed judges, rejecting every claim of fraud. Many of these Republicans used their time to yet again amplify false allegations of voter fraud. Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz claimed that some rioters, who just hours earlier marched from a Trump rally to the Capitol, "were not Trump supporters" but "members of the violent terrorist group antifa," launching a baseless conspiracy theory that would grow in the months to come. Many of the 147 Republicans who refused to certify Biden's victory would not have been in Congress but for their acceptance of their own victory in the same election.⁹⁰

2.6.C: Trump's 2nd Impeachment: GOP Lawmakers Refuse to Hold Trump Accountable

Seven days after January 6th, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives began impeachment proceedings against Trump. The charge was "incitement to insurrection." On January 13, all the Democrats, together with 10 Republicans, voted for impeachment. In all, 197 Republicans voted not to impeach, and four abstained from voting. From February 9 to February 13, the Senate conducted a trial, but Trump was acquitted along party lines. Senate conviction requires a two-thirds majority. Forty-eight Democrats, two Independents, and seven Republicans voted for conviction. Forty-three Republicans voted for acquittal. Senate Republican Bill Cassidy, who crossed party lines to vote with Democrats, plainly stated, "I voted to convict President Trump because he is guilty." Some Republicans claimed Trump did nothing wrong; others refused to comment on the biggest vote of their careers; still others expressed concern for Trump's actions but said the circumstances did not warrant conviction. In the years that have followed, almost all of the few Republicans who voted to hold Trump accountable were purged from the Republican Party. Many were primaried by election deniers and defeated; others retired. Today, the GOP, as an institution, stands behind Trump and his Big Lie.⁹¹

2.6.C.I: GOP Lawmakers Obstruct Other Attempts to Hold Trump Accountable

After Republican Senators refused to convict Trump, there was hope for a bipartisan effort to hold him accountable for the riot through other Congressional action. Unfortunately, House Republicans opposed plans for an independent bipartisan commission, consisting of five Republicans and five Democrats, and Senate Republicans later blocked the commission. Instead, House Democrats established a Select Committee, consisting of seven Democrats and two brave Republicans, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. The Republican Party, rather than cooperate with the Select Committee, passed a censure resolution against both Cheney and Kinzinger that also officially declared the events of January 6th as "legitimate political discourse." Soon after that, Cheney was removed from party leadership via a voice vote outside of public view. Several high-profile Republican lawmakers—including Kevin McCarthy, Jim Jordan, Scott Perry, Andy Biggs, and Mo Brooks—refused to comply with Select Committee subpoenas. Both Republican politicians and right-wing media, rather than take the Committee's findings seriously, launched counter-programming and competing investigations while tirelessly labeling the Committee's work a "witch-hunt."⁹²

2.6.C.II: Three States Determine Trump an Insurrectionist

The 14th Amendment of our Constitution bans any person from holding federal or state office if they engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States. Prior to the 2024 election, three states officially determined that Trump's actions on January 6, 2021, constituted an insurrection and attempted to remove him from the ballot. In Colorado, a state district court held a full five-day trial in which both the plaintiff, a group of Colorado voters, and Trump's attorney presented evidence and cross-examined witnesses. After the trial, the court found, "by clear and convincing evidence," that Trump had engaged in an insurrection.

In Maine, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, after a hearing in which Trump's team was allowed to present evidence, determined that the January 6th attack was "violent enough, potent enough, and long enough to constitute an insurrection," and Trump "used a false narrative of election fraud to inflame his supporters and direct them to the Capitol to prevent certification of the 2020 election and the peaceful transfer of power." In Illinois, a group of voters filed an objection to Trump's candidacy with the Illinois State Board of Elections. The board unanimously voted to deny their objection on jurisdictional grounds, even though its own hearing officer agreed Trump had engaged in insurrection, but the voters then appealed that decision. On appeal, the Illinois state court sided with the voters and removed Trump from the primary ballot on grounds that he had participated in an insurrection against the United States. The Supreme Court took up the Colorado case and unanimously decided that states cannot remove a candidate from the ballot. Significantly, the Supreme Court, as a court of appeal, is not a finder of fact. It in no way found that Trump was not an insurrectionist; it merely decided that only Congress has the power to pass legislation enabling enforcement of the 14th Amendment insurrection clause, and Congress has not done so. Despite the Supreme Court ruling, three official finders of fact determined, after hearing the evidence, Trump is an insurrectionist.⁹³

2.6.D: Trump Pardons January 6th Rioters & Convicted Seditionists

In the immediate aftermath of January 6th, most Americans, both Republican and Democratic, condemned the riot. Even Trump altered his initial stance, releasing a video, calling it a "heinous attack" and saying he was "outraged by the violence, lawlessness and mayhem." But in the years that followed, that consensus collapsed. GOP politicians and right-wing media gradually rewrote the narrative, regardless of empirical reality. Some claimed rioters were antifa or it was a government-planned false flag operation. Others reframed the rioters as peaceful protesters. By his 2024 campaign, Trump was opening rallies with a recording of jailed January 6th defendants singing the national anthem. He began to refer to them as "hostages" and "patriots," and promised mass pardons if elected. On his first day back in office, he delivered, granting clemency to roughly 1,500 January 6th defendants, including those convicted of assaulting police officers. Fourteen defendants convicted of seditious conspiracy, plotting to overthrow our government by force, had their sentences commuted or were pardoned outright, including Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio. The judge who oversaw Rhodes's trial warned that his release "ought to be frightening to anyone who cares about democracy." In the years since January 6th, at least 40 of the pardoned defendants have been rearrested, charged, or convicted of new crimes — including at least 12 who reoffended after receiving their pardons — for offenses including child sex crimes, domestic violence, illegal weapons possession, and reckless homicide.⁹⁴

2.7: Trump Administration Attempts to Subvert the 2020 Election

"I just want to find 11,780 votes," Trump told Georgia's Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, in a recorded call on January 2, 2021, one more vote than Biden's margin in the state. By then, the people inside Trump's own government whose job it was to tell him the truth had already done so. His campaign's own lawyer told White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows there was no fraud sufficient to change the outcome in any key state.

The head of his cybersecurity agency, Christopher Krebs, confirmed the election was the most secure in American history, and Trump fired him within days. Attorney General William Barr, after breaking with decades of Justice Department policy to authorize fraud investigations before states had even certified their results, called claims of rigged voting machines "complete nonsense" and resigned. Trump pressed on anyway. Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue called the pressure "pure insanity"; at one point, Trump told Donoghue and Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen to "just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me." He summoned Michigan's top Republican legislative leaders to the White House to press them to intervene. His team organized Republicans in seven states Biden had won to sign fraudulent certificates falsely declaring themselves their states' true electors. He pressured Vice President Mike Pence for weeks to single-handedly block certification, and he even considered having the U.S. military seize state voting machines. The Select Committee to Investigate January 6th documented it all: a coordinated, multipronged effort to overturn an election his own advisers had told him he lost. None of this is how presidential power was designed to work, and for obvious reasons: a president who can wield the powers of his office to keep himself in power despite losing an election is not a president; he is a dictator. As Republican Liz Cheney plainly put it, "No president can defy the rule of law and act this way in a constitutional republic, period."⁹⁵

2.8: GOP Elite Interference with 2026 Mid-Terms

On January 28, 2026, FBI agents raided the election offices of Fulton County, Georgia, the county at the center of Trump's 2020 fraud claims, on a warrant built on the claims of Kurt Olsen, a lawyer Trump brought into the White House after courts had twice sanctioned him for his conduct in earlier election lawsuits. That June, federal agents raided an Ohio voter-registration nonprofit, even though county officials found that none of the registrations it had flagged resulted in a fraudulent vote.

In the name of election integrity, the Trump White House and GOP lawmakers are taking unprecedented measures to interfere with our election system ahead of the 2026 midterms, raising valid concerns that they may accomplish what they attempted but failed to do in 2020. The executive branch officials who stood in Trump's way last time are gone, replaced with election deniers. The administration has gutted independent election oversight, slashing the DOJ's voting-rights attorneys from 30 to three, stripping CISA of nearly a third of its entire workforce and all of its election-security staff, and forcing out the last independent commissioners at the agency that certifies America's voting systems. Though the Constitution gives the states primary control over elections, subject only to Congress, not the president, Trump has called on Republicans to "nationalize" voting and issued executive orders usurping state authority, which federal courts have struck down. Meanwhile, right-wing media has downplayed or openly cheered these efforts, and GOP lawmakers have targeted the Democratic Party's fundraising platform while leaving its Republican counterpart, with nearly seven times as many fraud complaints, untouched. Rather than protecting election integrity, GOP elites are engaged in a concerted effort to suppress votes, seize control of America's election apparatus, and intimidate election officials to engineer victories for Republicans.⁹⁶

2.8.A: Appointment of Election Deniers Throughout the Executive

In his 2nd Administration, Trump has appointed several election deniers to run our federal election security apparatus. David Harvilicz, who has repeatedly questioned elections without evidence and even publicly called for banning voting machines, is our Assistant Secretary for Cyber, Infrastructure, Risk, and Resilience, a department that directly oversees the security of federal voting machines and election infrastructure generally. The official responsible for securing our voting machines holds the position that those voting machines should not exist. Heather Honey, our Deputy Assistant Secretary for Elections Integrity, previously concocted the debunked conspiracy theory that Pennsylvania had more votes than voters in 2020. Trump actually repeated that conspiracy to the crowd on January 6th, just before they stormed our Capitol. Ms. Honey has also suggested that Trump could seize control of state election administration by declaring a national emergency. Examples could be multiplied. The very people who championed the conspiracies that fueled Trump's 2020 election lies now run our federal election integrity apparatus.⁹⁷

2.8.B: Cuts to Federal Agencies Responsible for Election Integrity

The Trump Administration has also made major cuts to our federal election integrity apparatus. The Voting Section of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division—which was responsible for investigating discriminatory voting practices, suing jurisdictions that violate voters' rights, and reviewing proposed changes to election procedures for legal compliance—was reduced from 30 to three attorneys. In March 2025, Trump issued an executive order pressuring the Election Assistance Commission—which is a bipartisan, independent agency that certifies voting system standards, distributes congressionally appropriated election security grants, maintains the national voter registration form, and provides nonpartisan best-practices guidance to state and local election officials—to change voter registration requirements. The courts blocked Trump's order as unconstitutional, and when the Commission's independent members refused to implement his illegal order, Trump fired two Democratic commissioners. Rather than continue serving without the support of the White House, the sole remaining Republican commissioner resigned, rendering the agency essentially defunct. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)—which is responsible for identifying election cybersecurity threats and coordinating a response in the event of foreign or domestic attacks on our voting systems—lost roughly 1,000 employees, nearly a third of its staff. All of CISA's roughly three dozen dedicated election-security specialists were either fired or reassigned. Finally, Pam Bondi, on her first day as Attorney General, dissolved the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force, which monitors foreign interference in U.S. elections. As Trump and GOP lawmakers publicly spread unfounded rumors about threats to our election integrity, they are, behind the scenes, dismantling our election integrity apparatus.⁹⁸

2.8.C: Interference with State Control of Elections

Our U.S. Constitution primarily delegates the power to control elections to the states. Article I, Section 4 provides that the "Times, Places, and Manner" of elections are to be determined by each state's legislature, subject only to Congress's, not the President's, authority to make changes. The Constitution gives no authority to the President to dictate election procedures at all. Regardless, the Trump Administration has repeatedly attempted to undermine states' constitutional authority and usurp control of our elections. As detailed below, it has tried to seize control of voter data, dictate voter eligibility that would disenfranchise millions of Americans, and even threatened to nationalize elections, despite the plain language of our Constitution.⁹⁹

2.8.C.I: Threats to Nationalize Elections

On February 2, 2026, Trump called into the Dan Bongino Show. After making false claims that people without legal status were brought into our country to vote illegally, without even identifying who brought them in or where they voted, Trump said, "The Republicans should say, we want to take over. We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many, 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting." The next day, when pressed by reporters, Trump made it clear he meant exactly what he said: our elections should be nationalized and overseen by the Republican Party. In other words, not only does he want to destroy the states' constitutionally mandated role in running elections, but he thinks a partisan political party should run them. That is the definition of a one-party, autocratic state, not unlike the Russian dictatorship.¹⁰⁰

2.8.C.II: Attempts to Control State Voter Data

The DOJ has, at Trump's behest, filed 31 lawsuits against 30 states and Washington D.C. to gain access to their voter rolls. The DOJ is supposed to make decisions based on the rule of law, not partisan orders. Though some are still pending, the DOJ has lost every case that has been decided, 25 in total. As just one example, Judge David O. Carter called the DOJ's demands "unprecedented and illegal." The DOJ, according to Judge Carter, was trying to use "civil rights legislation which was enacted for an entirely different purpose to amass and retain an unprecedented amount of confidential voter data."¹⁰¹

2.8.C.III: Attempts to Impose Federal Voter Eligibility Rules

In March 2025, Trump issued an Executive Order that directed states to require either a passport or birth certificate to register to vote in all 50 states. According to one estimate, 9.1% of voting-age Americans, 21.3 million people, lack "ready access" to these documents. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled the Order unconstitutional, stating, "Our Constitution entrusts Congress and the States — not the President — with the authority to regulate federal elections." In March 2026, Trump issued another Executive Order. This one directed the Department of Homeland Security, working with the Social Security Administration, to compile a list of eligible voters in each state. The Order then directed the USPS to deliver absentee ballots only to voters on the verified list. But based on the information used to compile the list, large groups of American citizens, entitled to vote, would be deemed ineligible. Specifically, the list would not include naturalized citizens, people born abroad to U.S. citizen parents, people who've changed their name through marriage, and people born outside a hospital with no matching birth certificate. Naturalized citizens alone account for approximately 1 in 10 of all eligible voters, or roughly 24 million Americans. Judge Indira Talwani struck down the Order, stating simply, "The Constitution does not grant the President any specific powers over elections." These attempts to dictate state implementation of our elections could be multiplied. The Trump Administration has repeatedly tried to nationalize significant aspects of our elections, directly challenging our Constitution.¹⁰²

2.8.D: Raid on Fulton County Election Offices

On January 28, 2026, federal agents raided the Fulton County, Georgia election offices. Numerous items, including all physical ballots and voter rolls, were seized. The raid was done pursuant to a warrant issued by Federal Magistrate Judge Catherine Salinas, but the DOJ's affidavit for the warrant omitted context about the credibility of its key source: a known, disgraced conspiracy theorist now working in the White House by the name of Kurt Olsen. Mr. Olsen had represented Kari Lake in her failed 2022 lawsuit after she lost the governor's race,

and he was sanctioned by the Arizona Supreme Court for making "unequivocally false" claims to the court in that case. A separate federal court also sanctioned him for false statements made while representing Lake in a related Arizona voting-procedures case. Regardless, Trump made Mr. Olsen, a twice court-sanctioned attorney, a special government employee with the title "Director of Election Security and Integrity." Furthermore, the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Atlanta field office, whose team had recently investigated the specific fraud claims behind the raid and found they could not lawfully support a criminal investigation, was given a choice to retire or be reassigned. He retired and was replaced by someone willing to conduct the raid. But perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the raid was the direct involvement of the White House. For some inexplicable reason, the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, was present during the raid — a presence that, given her statutory role has nothing to do with domestic election administration or criminal search warrants, was highly unusual. Finally, after the raid was conducted, Trump personally called the agents, demonstrating his intimate involvement in a highly sensitive encroachment into the constitutionally mandated role of states to run our elections. Though repeatedly subjected to partisan investigations since the 2020 election, not one person in the Fulton County election office has been charged with any crime to date.¹⁰³

2.8.D.I: Right Wing Media Hides Information from Their Audience 

Though a federal raid on a county's election offices, in which the White House was directly involved, should raise red flags for all real journalists, right-wing media has taken a very different approach to reporting the story. A review of available coverage from both Fox News and Newsmax found no mention that the warrant to seize ballots and voter rolls was predicated upon the claims of Mr. Olsen, a disgraced lawyer twice sanctioned in court for lying in election cases. Nor did their coverage raise any questions about why the Director of National Intelligence would be involved in a raid of the utmost constitutional sensitivity. As to Trump speaking directly to FBI agents after the raid, Fox News brought on then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump's former personal attorney, to dismiss any concerns that it was irregular. Newsmax brought on Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville to repeat long-debunked claims of voter fraud, saying "they cheated the heck out of President Trump… the ballot boxes were stuffed." Overall, both Fox and Newsmax framed the raid in a manner designed to bolster Trump's false voter fraud claims, despite both companies paying out massive settlements for their lies in 2020.¹⁰⁴

2.8.E: Attacks on Voting Rights Groups

On June 11, 2026, federal agents executed a search warrant on the Cleveland, Ohio headquarters of Ohio Organizing Collaborative (OOC), a "pro-democracy" group that registers voters. Simultaneously, more than 100 federal agents fanned out statewide, showing up at the homes, workplaces, and even schools of staff, volunteers, and connected community organizers, seizing electronic devices and serving subpoenas. It was a massive operation, though, unlike Fulton County, there was some factual basis for the raid. County election officials had filed formal complaints about irregular voter registrations, but none of the flagged registrations resulted in a single fraudulent vote. Furthermore, just because a registration is flagged, it does not mean there was actual wrongdoing. As an example, in Ohio's broader election-integrity review, 647 cases were flagged, but that resulted in only six indictments, which is a roughly 1% conversion rate from "flagged as a possible violation" to an "actual criminal charge." Benjamin McKean, a political science professor at Ohio State University, called OOC "a completely normal NGO," and said that the raid was "a serious attack on ordinary civil society and almost certainly an effort to influence Ohio's midterm elections." To date, none of OOC's staff, volunteers, or associated community organizers have been charged with any crime.¹⁰⁵

2.8.F: Attacks on DNC Fundraising

In addition to raids on election offices and "pro-democracy" groups, the GOP is going after the Democratic Party's ability to raise funds for campaigning. House Republicans, under the leadership of election denier Jim Jordan, have run a multi-year investigation into ActBlue, Democrats' largest fundraising platform. Trump personally directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to open a DOJ investigation into ActBlue, citing unproven allegations rather than independently verified evidence. Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has also pursued ActBlue on numerous fronts. Paxton's most aggressive actions have coincided suspiciously with his own political interests — specifically, with announcements that his Democratic Senate opponent, James Talarico, was raising record sums through ActBlue. A federal judge in Boston blocked one of Paxton's lawsuits, explicitly citing his "well-known history of filing retaliatory lawsuits." Notably, WinRed, the GOP equivalent of ActBlue, has had nearly seven times more fraud complaints filed with the FTC, despite processing only about half the dollar volume that ActBlue does. In the final months of 2020 alone, the FTC received more than 800 complaints about WinRed. Over that same period, the Trump campaign and RNC combined had to issue more than 530,000 refunds worth over $64 million — roughly 11 times the refund volume the Biden campaign and DNC had to issue. Regardless, Republicans have not subjected WinRed to any investigations, let alone criminal referrals. While there is some indication that ActBlue may have misstated its vetting standards for donors in testimony to Congress, it is the kind of finding that would normally justify a compliance order or fine, not a coordinated multi-year campaign to cripple the organization.¹⁰⁶

2.9: GOP State Legislatures Suppress Voting

In 2025 alone, 17 Republican-controlled states passed 32 laws restricting access to the ballot. Beyond the White House and the GOP Congress, Republican officials at the state and local level have made it harder for eligible Americans to vote, often in ways that fall hardest on voters likely to support Democrats. In Tarrant County, Texas, the day after Trump vowed to end mail-in voting nationwide, county commissioners voted to cut polling places from 331 to 216 and to reduce early voting sites. As a University of Houston political scientist summed it up, "Fewer voting sites means fewer voters." In Pennsylvania, a provision of the state's 2019 mail-voting law requires voters to handwrite a date on their ballot's return envelope that serves no verification purpose, and thousands of otherwise eligible voters have had their ballots rejected as a result. Though several courts have ruled the requirement unconstitutional, Pennsylvania Republicans keep litigating to preserve it. In Georgia, Republican lawmakers have repeatedly failed to fix a well-documented equipment shortage in high-turnout, Democratic-leaning precincts. None of these measures stops fraud; each one simply stops voters. A party willing to win elections by making it harder for its fellow citizens to vote has abandoned the most basic principle of self-government.¹⁰⁷

2.10: Attempts to Create Voter ID Laws Disenfranchising Millions of Americans

An estimated 21.3 million voting-age American citizens, 9.1% of the total, lack ready access to a passport or birth certificate. Yet Trump and almost the entire GOP Congress are dedicated to passing the so-called SAVE Act, which would require Americans to present one of those documents in person to register to vote, among numerous other restrictive provisions. The stated justification is voter fraud, a story GOP politicians and right-wing media have spent more than a decade selling to their voters. But repeated Republican-backed efforts to find widespread fraud have come up empty. Data from the Heritage Foundation, which openly promotes the SAVE Act, shows that only 0.00006% of mail-in ballots over a 20-year test period were fraudulent; a person is 109 times more likely to be struck by lightning in their lifetime than to cast a fraudulent mail-in ballot. The DOJ's own dedicated fraud-detection unit examined the 2002 and 2004 federal elections and found that only 0.00000013%, 1 in 770 million, of all ballots cast were proven fraudulent. By comparison, a person has roughly a 1 in 292 million chance of winning the Powerball jackpot. As to noncitizen voting, the Heritage Foundation's data again shows that there were just 100 cases from 1982 to 2025, out of 1.3 billion presidential votes cast. That is the very problem the SAVE Act claims to solve, but as Georgetown Law professor Steve Vladeck has said, "the solution would be much, much worse than the disease."¹⁰⁸

2.11: Trump's Repeated Efforts to Illegally Manipulate Election Narratives

In May 2024, a New York jury convicted Donald Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to hide hush-money payments meant to keep damaging stories from voters before the 2016 election, making him the first American president, current or former, ever convicted of a crime. While GOP elites are eager to discuss the novelty of the legal theory used against Trump, they rarely acknowledge that the scheme itself was confirmed under oath by Trump's own longtime ally, the publisher of the National Enquirer.

In 2016, Trump also went on live television to ask Russia to find his opponent's missing emails, while his campaign chairman, son, and son-in-law met with Russian nationals promising dirt on Hillary Clinton. Though investigators did not find sufficient evidence to charge him with conspiring with Russia, he was clearly encouraging them to interfere with our elections. And when investigators came looking, Trump tried to stop them from finding anything they could communicate to the American public. Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report documented 10 episodes of potential obstruction of justice. Later in his term, Trump used the leverage of the presidency itself to try to manufacture a scandal against his 2020 rival, withholding military aid from Ukraine unless it announced an investigation into Joe Biden outside of the constitutional protections of due process, an effort that triggered his first impeachment. Whether the tool is a hush-money payment, a foreign adversary's stolen emails, or the machinery of the federal government itself, the pattern is the same: when Trump cannot win the argument on the merits, he tries to rig the story voters are told. Having already been convicted, impeached, and investigated for exactly this conduct, Trump has shown no sign of learning his lesson. If anything, he has only grown bolder as GOP lawmakers run interference for him, and there is every indication he will keep manufacturing whatever narrative he needs, with neither the law nor respect for his own voters' trust standing in his way.¹⁰⁹

2.11.A: Felony Conviction for a Catch & Kill Scheme

In May 2024, Donald Trump, after a full jury trial with a full defense, was convicted on 34 felony counts. Specifically, he falsely logged company payments to his attorney and fixer Michael Cohen as "legal expenses" when they were, in fact, reimbursements for hush money paid to hide news stories from the American public prior to the 2016 election. While running for president, Trump arranged with the publisher of the National Enquirer, David Pecker, to run positive stories about Trump, negative stories about his rivals, and to alert Mr. Cohen if he heard of any women trying to sell stories. It was a classic "catch and kill" scheme intended to control the election narrative. In all, AMI, the National Enquirer's parent company, and Michael Cohen arranged three payments on Trump's behalf. Stormy Daniels, an adult-film actress, was paid $130,000 to stay silent about an alleged 2006 sexual encounter with Trump, which took place soon after his wife gave birth to Baron Trump. Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, was paid $150,000 for the rights to her account of an alleged affair with Trump. A Trump Organization doorman was paid $30,000 for a story alleging Trump fathered a child out of wedlock. Though Trump was ultimately found guilty, his catch and kill scheme largely worked. While the Wall Street Journal reported on the AMI-McDougal payment days before the election, neither McDougal's own account, the doorman's allegation, nor the Daniels payment became public until well after Trump had already won.¹¹⁰

2.11.B: Other Attempts to Influence Election Narratives

As previously noted, Trump's first impeachment was for attempting to extort Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden outside the protections of U.S. due process. While his abuse of power and efforts to obstruct Congress were the focus of the impeachment proceedings, the obvious goal of Trump's actions was to undermine the reputation of his primary political rival, who ran against him in the next presidential election. In addition, at the start of Trump's first term, it became clear that Russia had engaged in a disinformation campaign designed to get Trump elected. Among other things, they engaged in hacking and used troll farms to create echo chambers on social media. The bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee later found that Trump's campaign and transition team had at least 140 total contacts with Russian nationals, which is extremely unusual. Two Trump campaign associates were charged and convicted of lying to the FBI about their own contacts with Russians, and two more were convicted of lying to Congress about related matters. Trump's campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was an unregistered lobbyist for pro-Russian Ukrainian political interests. On June 9, 2016, Trump Jr., along with Manafort and senior adviser Jared Kushner, met with Russian nationals to get dirt on Hillary Clinton. On July 27, 2016, on live TV, Trump encouraged Russia to release hacked Hillary Clinton emails. Two years later, during a joint press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump took Putin's side over that of every U.S. intelligence agency. Republican Senator John McCain would later call it "one of the most disgraceful performances by an American President in memory." Though in the end it was not proven that Trump committed a crime, he clearly encouraged and attempted to obscure Russia's efforts to create a false narrative to influence the outcome of U.S. elections.¹¹¹

For nearly 50 years, since the abuses of Watergate, Republican and Democratic administrations alike have honored an unwritten but essential norm: the Department of Justice, though housed within the executive branch, does not act as the president's personal law firm. It investigates and prosecutes based on evidence, not political loyalty, and it serves Rule of Law, not partisan interests. Equally important is the maxim that "no one is above the law." The wealthiest and most powerful among us, as well as an administration's political allies and enemies, are equal under the law. Once a president treats the DOJ as an instrument of his own will, he and his allies become above the law, and Rule of Law is replaced by a Ruler, rendering the people defenseless against the colossal power of the state. An independent Department of Justice is essential to preserving Rule of Law and our power, the people's power. As Thomas Paine wrote in 1776, "In America the law is King."¹¹²

3.1: Unprecedented Politicization of the DOJ

The lawyer who defended Donald Trump at his hush-money trial, where a jury convicted Trump on 34 felony counts, now runs the Department of Justice. Todd Blanche, whose legal work for Trump was paid nearly $10 million by Trump's PAC, was first installed as deputy attorney general and is now attorney general. Other Trump defense attorneys have held the Department's third- and fourth-highest posts, and no prior president in our history has appointed his own personal criminal defense lawyers to top Justice Department positions. Trump has also installed loyalists as U.S. Attorneys, including Fox News host Jeanine Pirro in Washington, D.C., and has repeatedly bypassed the Senate's constitutional role in confirming them.

When the law's 120-day limit on unconfirmed appointees has run out and federal judges have named replacements, Trump has fired the judges' picks within hours and maneuvered to keep his own in place. Beneath them, the career workforce has been hollowed out. The DOJ has lost 3,402 attorneys, roughly 26% of its lawyers, at three to four times the normal rate of turnover, including prosecutors fired without cause for working on cases involving Trump. For more than 50 years, since Richard Nixon's abuses, administrations of both parties maintained a firewall between the White House and the Justice Department, with leaders whose allegiance was to the rule of law rather than a party or a person, and career attorneys whose independence ensured the same rules applied whether the target was a stranger or the president's own ally. Trump has shattered that firewall, and a GOP-controlled Congress has abandoned its long-standing principles to look the other way, confirming his defense lawyers to their posts and blocking legislation designed to protect the Department's independence. Right-wing media, which spent years treating a 30-minute conversation between Bill Clinton and Attorney General Loretta Lynch as a grave threat to DOJ independence, now either ignores or defends a Justice Department run by the president's own lawyers. America did not have a deep state, but Trump is creating one, turning our DOJ into his own personal law firm, staffed with attorneys he has paid millions.¹¹³

3.1.A: Appointments of Private Trump Attorneys to Run DOJ

We have an adversarial legal system in which lawyers are bound to their former clients through strict ethical rules, barring them from participating in any investigation or action against their former clients' interests. For that and other very good reasons, no prior president, in our 250-year history, has appointed his own personal criminal defense attorneys to top Justice Department positions. Trump has appointed three such attorneys. Todd Blanche, initially Trump's Deputy Attorney General (second highest ranking position) and now Attorney General (top position), was Trump's lead defense attorney in the hush-money case that resulted in a jury finding Trump guilty on 34 felony counts. He was also the lead attorney in Trump's stolen documents and federal election interference cases. In all, Trump's PAC paid Blanche nearly $10 million for his representation. Trump made Emil Bove, who worked on both the hush-money and classified documents cases, his Acting Deputy Attorney General and then Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General (third highest position). Since his appointment, a former senior DOJ attorney filed a whistleblower complaint alleging Bove told DOJ attorneys to disobey federal court orders, to essentially say, in his words, "f**k you" to the courts. John Sauer, whom Trump made Solicitor General (fourth highest ranking position), argued Trump's presidential immunity case before the Supreme Court. Outside D.C., Trump made Lindsey Halligan, who represented him in the stolen documents case, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Finally, he appointed Alina Habba as Acting U.S. Attorney for New Jersey. She represented him in the E. Jean Carroll case, in which a jury found him civilly liable for sexual abuse and defamation. She also represented him in his New York civil fraud case, in which a judge found him liable for a decade-long scheme to intentionally defraud banks, insurers, and lenders. Federal courts subsequently determined that Trump illegally appointed both Habba and Halligan, and they were forced to step down. In all, that makes four Trump criminal defense attorneys and one Trump civil defense attorney holding, at one stage or another, the four highest ranking positions in the DOJ, as well as two of the 94 U.S. Attorney positions nationwide. All of them, due to basic rules surrounding attorney-client relations, are ethically barred from taking any action against Trump, even if they were to learn he is engaging in serious criminal conduct.¹¹⁴

3.1.B: Appointment of Partisan Political Loyalists

In addition to appointing his own private attorneys, Trump has appointed numerous partisan loyalists. Trump first crossed paths with his initial Attorney General Pam Bondi when she was serving as the attorney general of Florida. As her office was weighing whether to join a

fraud lawsuit against Trump University, Trump's personal charity gave her a $25,000 political contribution. The State of Florida, under Bondi, did not end up joining the fraud lawsuit against Trump University, but Trump's charity was later found, in a separate lawsuit, to have illegally used charitable funds for political and personal gain, including the political contribution to Pam Bondi. Under federal law, charities are supposed to give money to charitable causes, not political campaigns. Trump also appointed Jeanine Pirro, a deeply partisan Fox News host whose on-air conduct was central to Dominion Voting Systems' $787.5 million defamation lawsuit, as U.S. Attorney in Washington, D.C. Ed Martin, an election denier and attorney for numerous January 6th rioters, initially ran the Trump DOJ's "Weaponization Working Group" and now serves as Trump's Pardon Attorney. Examples could be multiplied. The Trump administration has sought to politicize our DOJ in broad daylight. Chad Mizelle, a DOJ chief of staff in the Trump administration, has publicly solicited "pro-Trump" attorneys on X to apply for DOJ jobs. DOJ attorneys are supposed to serve the rule of law, not any partisan political faction.¹¹⁵

3.1.C: Elimination of Career Prosecutors

The DOJ has lost 3,402 attorneys, which is roughly 26% of its attorney workforce, and approximately 2,000 more support staff since the start of the second Trump administration. Though some turnover is expected between administrations, this is 3 to 4 times the normal rate. Though there was no indication of misconduct, numerous career prosecutors were targeted for their work on Trump-adjacent cases. More than a dozen prosecutors who had worked on Special Counsel Jack Smith's team and approximately two dozen attorneys who handled January 6th prosecutions were summarily fired without cause. 53 career prosecutors have resigned in protest, refusing to carry out what they consider to be unjust orders to either show favoritism to Trump's allies or pursue his enemies. While principled resignations and targeted firings have had a serious impact, the biggest hit came through DOGE's Deferred Resignation Program, which offered all DOJ employees—regardless of their importance or the quality of their work—full pay and benefits to resign. Approximately 4,000 DOJ employees took the deal, leaving major branches of the DOJ severely understaffed. The Civil Rights Division has lost roughly 70% of its attorneys. The National Security Division has lost approximately 50% of its career managers. The Appellate Section has lost over 40% of its attorneys. An open letter from over 200 former Department of Justice career employees sums up the situation: "Having no use for the expertise of career staff, the Administration launched a coordinated effort to drive us out… We left because this Administration turned the Division’s core mission upside down."¹¹⁶

3.1.D: Undermining the Constitutional Scheme for Choosing U.S. Attorneys

U.S. Attorneys are the chief federal law enforcement officers representing the U.S. government in their specific judicial district. Typically, the president nominates a U.S. Attorney, and then the Senate confirms them, but the Trump administration has made a mockery of this process. Rather than go through the Senate, Trump has repeatedly hired unconfirmed, interim U.S. Attorneys who are typically Trump loyalists without the usual, relevant experience. Under the law, they can only serve for 120 days. After that period, U.S. District Court judges, in the district in question, have the power to appoint someone to serve until the vacancy is properly filled. This has happened on four separate occasions during the second Trump administration, but rather than honoring the choice of U.S. District Court judges, Trump has, on each occasion, fired the new U.S. Attorney within hours, and then maneuvered to keep his unconfirmed pick in charge anyway, often the very person the statute had just term-limited out. This behavior that is totally contrary to the spirit of the law, openly nullifying the Senate's advice and consent role provided for in the Constitution. It also shows contempt for the judiciary's role in assuring we have qualified U.S. Attorneys dedicated to rule of law and not partisan interests. To add insult to injury, the administration has announced these firings through social media posts from top DOJ officials deriding "rogue judges." In fact, these judges are simply following the law — it is the Trump administration that has gone rogue under our constitutional system.¹¹⁷

3.1.E: GOP Lawmakers Enable Politicization of the DOJ

Rather than act as a constitutional check on Trump's blatant politicization of our DOJ, GOP lawmakers have enabled him. For the first time in our nation's history, they allowed the appointment of not one but three of Trump's personal criminal defense attorneys to top DOJ positions. Rather than investigating a DOJ that is, on Trump's orders, actively pursuing his political enemies and doing favors for his political allies, GOP lawmakers have aimed their oversight machinery backwards, investigating those who investigated Trump. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley has built an entire investigation around Jack Smith's subpoenas, though they were routine, lawful investigative steps, and no court has found otherwise. Finally, GOP lawmakers have repeatedly blocked legislation designed to prevent executive abuses of the DOJ. They killed the Special Counsel Independence and Integrity Act, which would have protected Special Counsels from politically motivated firings; they killed the Protecting Our Democracy Act, which would have included a log of communications between the White House and DOJ leadership, along with several other provisions designed to prevent executive overreach; and they killed the Prohibiting Political Prosecutions Act, which would have created guardrails designed to prevent the misuse of the justice system to target political enemies. All these legislative efforts would have applied equally to Democrat and Republican presidents, but GOP lawmakers consistently blocked them from becoming law.¹¹⁸

3.1.F: A DOJ Run By Trump's Own Defense Lawyers

GOP elites, both politicians and right-wing media, have not always had such a dim view of DOJ independence. On June 27, 2016, former President Bill Clinton had a roughly 30-minute conversation with then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch while there was an ongoing investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server for government business. Both former President Clinton and Attorney General Loretta Lynch denied discussing any DOJ business. Though far from a sitting president ordering investigations into his political rivals via social media, or a DOJ run by a sitting president's own private criminal defense attorneys, GOP lawmakers and right-wing media made this minor indiscretion into a controversy extending over several years. Trump himself, appearing on the Mike Gallagher Show, said, "I think it’s so terrible. I think it’s so horrible. I think it’s the biggest story, one of the big stories of this week, of this month, of this year." The Senate Judiciary Committee, led by Republican Chuck Grassley, launched a probe into Lynch's conduct. For right-wing media, the story became a durable fixture. Fox News covered the story for years. Hannity's show devoted a special edition to "Clinton Corruption: The Lynch-Clinton Scandal," in which guest after guest condemned the meeting as a serious blow to the independence of our DOJ. Today, as President Trump orders his own private attorneys to pursue his political rivals, neither Hannity nor most of the right-wing media ecosystem has shown the slightest concern for the independence of our DOJ. In fact, most of them bend over backwards to justify Trump's actions. It could not be clearer: GOP elites have shamelessly abandoned the principle of DOJ independence.¹¹⁹

3.2: False GOP Elite Narrative of Democrat Weaponization

3.2.A: Trump Prosecutions & Civil Lawsuits

In response to the many civil and criminal actions against Trump, GOP elites, both politicians and right-wing media, have incessantly claimed that he is a victim of weaponization. But beyond their ceaseless rhetoric, they have provided no solid evidence to support this claim. While there is no doubt Trump was subjected to additional scrutiny when he decided to run for office, that is true of all politicians, and it serves a real purpose: ensuring our leaders are not frauds and criminals. Furthermore, unlike Trump, there is no indication that Biden or any leadership in the Democratic Party ever ordered or influenced anyone to bring these cases. In most of these cases, either a judge or an independent jury, after a full presentation of the evidence and the best defense money can buy, found Trump liable or guilty, proving that these actions against Trump were based on real evidence. The Trump Foundation, a charity, admitted to misusing funds for Trump's personal and political benefit, as part of a settlement and court order. A 12-person jury unanimously found the Trump Organization guilty of 17 criminal counts in a tax fraud scheme. A 9-person jury unanimously found Trump civilly liable for sexual abuse and defamation in the E. Jean Carroll case. In the hush-money case, a 12-person jury unanimously convicted Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. In his New York civil fraud case, a judge, after a full trial, found Trump civilly liable. Rather than going to court, Trump settled the Trump University fraud cases for $25 million. As to the remaining cases, it was never determined that Trump was innocent — let alone that there was any prosecutorial misconduct or abuse of process. The federal documents case was thrown out, on a technicality, by a Trump-appointed judge with a history of bias, and the Georgia and federal election interference cases came to an unnatural end after Trump again became president. Finally, all these actions were brought by a wide array of actors across multiple jurisdictions, undermining any allegation that there was some kind of grand conspiracy. Two states, the federal government, and numerous private citizens brought these actions, and there is no indication that they coordinated or acted improperly in any way. In comparison, all the actions brought against Trump's enemies have been spearheaded by the federal DOJ, which happens to be run by his private attorneys, the same private attorneys who were handsomely paid to defend Trump in the many cases he lost after a full trial and defense. GOP elites' repeated charges of weaponization in these cases are totally baseless and contrary to all publicly available information.¹²¹

3.2.B: Course of the Russia Investigation & Its Conclusion

In May 2016, George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, told an Australian diplomat that Russia had damaging material on Hillary Clinton, including "thousands of emails." Two months later, WikiLeaks began publishing Democratic emails that Russian military intelligence had hacked, and the Australian government alerted the FBI that a Trump adviser appeared to have had advance knowledge. On July 31, 2016, the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation, code-named Crossfire Hurricane, into whether individuals associated with the campaign were coordinating with Russia's interference effort. It focused on four campaign figures with Russian ties: Papadopoulos, Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, and Carter Page. Trump himself was not under investigation, and the FBI kept the probe's existence secret through the election. That changed in May 2017, when President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, who had been leading the investigation. Days later, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, a Republican whom Trump himself had appointed, named former FBI Director Robert Mueller as Special Counsel to take over. Over the next 22 months, Mueller's team charged 34 individuals and three companies. Twenty-six were Russian nationals, including military intelligence officers indicted for the hacking operation and employees of a Kremlin-linked troll farm indicted for a covert social media campaign to inflame American divisions. The rest included the president's inner circle: his campaign chairman (Manafort), deputy campaign chairman (Rick Gates), first National Security Advisor (Flynn), personal lawyer (Michael Cohen), and longtime political adviser (Roger Stone). They were all convicted at trial or pleaded guilty, for an assortment of crimes ranging from lying to the FBI or Congress about their contacts with Russians, to conspiracy against the U.S., to acting as unregistered foreign lobbyists. In March 2019, Mueller delivered his final report. He had determined Russia attacked the 2016 election "in sweeping and systematic fashion." He also found the Trump campaign had a highly unusual number of contacts with Russian-affiliated individuals, but, ultimately, the evidence was not sufficient to "establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government." On whether Trump obstructed the investigation, Mueller documented 10 core episodes of attempted interference but declined to reach a charging decision because DOJ policy forbids indicting a sitting president.¹²²

3.2.B.I: False GOP Elite Claims of Weaponization During the Russia Investigation

From nearly the moment the Russia investigation became public, Trump and GOP elites worked to brand it a partisan fraud. Trump attacked it relentlessly, calling it "A total WITCH HUNT with massive conflicts of interest!" Right-wing media amplified the message nightly. Sean Hannity told millions of viewers that "Trump-Russia collusion was always a hoax" and described the investigation as a "soft coup" against the president. Partisan GOP lawmakers seized on every flaw, real or imagined, to argue the entire enterprise was illegitimate. Though a bipartisan congressional investigation and an independent Inspector General investigation both ultimately found the investigation legitimate, real — if isolated — problems within it complicated efforts to debunk the GOP elite hoax narrative. The Inspector General found significant inaccuracies and omissions in the FBI's four surveillance warrant applications targeting former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Page was not ultimately charged, and the flawed applications did not affect any of the investigation's broader findings. Separately, FBI agent Peter Strzok, who was involved in the probe early on, exchanged private texts disparaging Trump with an FBI lawyer. When she asked whether Trump would become president, he replied, "No. No... We’ll stop it," which is indefensible conduct for an FBI agent. But the moment Special Counsel Mueller learned of Strzok's comments, he removed him from the team, and the FBI ultimately fired him. Though these were real flaws, they did not make the entire investigation a hoax. It produced numerous, significant convictions and concluded that the evidence was insufficient to establish that the Trump campaign had criminally conspired with Russia — precisely the opposite of what a weaponized investigation built to destroy Trump would have done. The Inspector General, after reviewing more than a million documents, found that each investigation "was opened for an authorized purpose and... with adequate factual predication." What's more, the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee, in a bipartisan report running nearly 1,000 pages, confirmed the investigation's core findings, including that Russia interfered with the election to help Trump, and in no way determined that the overall investigation was illegitimate. Given these exhaustive congressional and Inspector General investigations into the origins and development of the Russia investigation, there is simply no basis to believe it was a hoax. On the contrary, it was — despite isolated issues — an entirely justified and remarkably successful investigation into conduct that should concern all Americans.¹²³

3.2.B.II: Durham Investigation: No Weaponization Plot

Despite the comprehensive Inspector General and congressional investigations, Trump insisted on yet another investigation into the Russia investigators. At Trump's behest, Attorney General William Barr appointed John Durham and later elevated him to the status of Special Counsel, ensuring his investigation could continue beyond Trump's presidency. From the start, Trump predicted Durham would uncover "the crime of the century," but the actual results were a near-total legal nullity. Durham's central focus was the so-called Steele dossier, which was admittedly problematic in certain limited respects. The dossier was standard opposition research: a legal, unremarkable feature of every modern campaign. Though it proved unverifiable or unreliable in many respects, it was not an official government document but the work of private citizens. The real issue, as noted above, was that the FBI improperly used it in surveillance warrant applications targeting Carter Page, but identifying that failure did not require Durham — the Inspector General had already documented it. What Durham added, after four years, were three minor prosecutions, resulting in only one conviction. The first prosecution, which had already been developed in the Inspector General report, was against FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith for altering an email in the Page surveillance process. Mr. Clinesmith, who had already left the FBI, pled guilty and was sentenced to 12 months of probation. The other two prosecutions were against Michael Sussmann, a Clinton campaign lawyer, and Igor Danchenko, who was a primary source for the dossier. Both were charged with lying to the FBI, and juries found them both not guilty. That is the entire courtroom record of the Durham investigation. Durham's final report criticized the FBI's rigor and judgment, but it charged no official responsible for opening the investigation and identified no deep-state conspiracy. In the final analysis, a prosecutor hand-picked by Trump's own Attorney General, armed with subpoena power, unlimited time, millions in taxpayer dollars, and every incentive to find the plot, searched for four years and found nothing resembling a hoax. Yet to this day, GOP elites still refer to the "Russia hoax."¹²⁴

3.2.C: Subpoenas Against GOP Lawmakers: Background

During Jack Smith's election interference investigation against former President Trump and his associates, he issued at least 10 grand jury subpoenas to Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile for the toll phone records of 20 current or former Republican members of Congress, according to Senate investigators. He also issued two subpoenas for the toll records of Kash Patel, a Trump loyalist and the current FBI Director. Toll phone records do not provide access to actual conversations but rather show when a call took place, who it was made to, and how long it lasted. Simultaneously, federal judges signed gag orders barring the carriers from telling the lawmakers and Mr. Patel that their phone records had been accessed. Smith's team also subpoenaed the National Archives, which, pursuant to the Presidential Records Act of 1978, keeps all records created or received by a president. Among the records the National Archives turned over were text messages exchanged between White House officials and 44 current or former members of Congress, covering October 2020 through January 20, 2021. Because the subpoena covered all White House text messages during the relevant period, it also captured any messages from Democrats.¹²⁵

3.2.C.I: False GOP Claims of Weaponization

Rather than look into Trump's open calls to investigate his political rivals through a DOJ controlled by his own private attorneys, GOP lawmakers have turned their time and investigative powers toward Special Counsel Jack Smith's Trump election interference investigation. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, has opened a full-scale investigation into subpoenas targeting congressional Republicans. Meanwhile, the House Judiciary Committee, run by election denier Jim Jordan, has opened its own investigation and questioned Smith twice, once in a private deposition and once in a public hearing. Both Senate and House Republicans have repeatedly claimed that Smith's actions constituted partisan weaponization, abusive surveillance, and, ironically, election interference. While it is certainly unusual for members of Congress to have their phone records subpoenaed, every investigation occurs within a specific context, and Smith's investigation was far from normal. He was investigating a former president who used the power of his office to pressure not only state officials and electors but also GOP lawmakers to alter the result of the 2020 election. Subsequently, 147 GOP lawmakers did in fact refuse to certify the election, despite the count, the recounts, audits, the decisions of lawful electors, and over 60 court decisions rejecting challenges to the outcome. It is also clear that Trump, right-wing media, and many GOP lawmakers systematically presented baseless fraud allegations to the American people, and that these baseless claims caused Trump's supporters to riot at the United States Capitol and prevent, for a time, the rightful certification of an election. Furthermore, during the riot at the Capitol, Trump was communicating with GOP lawmakers, making them obviously relevant to Smith's investigation. Finally, beyond GOP lawmakers' unsubstantiated claims, there is no indication that Smith, or anyone involved in his investigation, did anything improper in obtaining these subpoenas. They were issued pursuant to valid legal processes.¹²⁶

3.2.C.II: False GOP Allegations that Smith Lied to Congress

Since Smith's testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Chairman Jim Jordan officially referred him to the DOJ for criminal prosecution for allegedly making "willfully and intentionally false statements" under oath. During his closed-door testimony regarding the subpoenas to obtain GOP lawmakers' toll phone records, he was asked whether he had examined the contents of lawmakers' text messages, and he replied, "no," further clarifying that his team only sought "toll records" — which was true. However, once it became known that Smith had also received congressional Republicans' actual text messages through the subpoena to the National Archives, Jordan claimed that Smith had lied under oath. To convict someone of perjury, the government must prove the witness made a statement that was literally false, but Smith's statement was literally true within the context of the question. Indeed, Smith's lawyers have noted that Jordan's own referral letter concedes the point: "The referral is made not because Mr. Smith made a false statement… but because he did not proactively disclose information that was not responsive to a question asked." Senate Republicans further allege that Smith's main investigative team reviewed the lawmakers' text messages directly, bypassing the required internal "Filter Team." If true, this would be a serious breach of protocol. The Speech or Debate Clause of the U.S. Constitution protects members of Congress from having legislative communications related to their congressional duties seized or scrutinized by the executive branch, and Smith was an officer of that branch. Still, the Clause has nothing to do with whether he lied to Congress. Moreover, because the texts were obtained via presidential records rather than through direct subpoenas of congressional communications, it is not clear the Clause applies.¹²⁷

3.3: Trump Weaponizes DOJ

On September 19, 2025, Erik Siebert, the top federal prosecutor in Virginia's Eastern District, resigned under White House pressure after a five-month investigation led him to decline charges against former FBI Director James Comey. The next day, Trump publicly posted what he reportedly meant as a private message to Attorney General Pam Bondi: "What about Comey, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, Leticia??? … They’re all guilty as hell … JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!" Within days, Trump installed his own personal defense attorney, Lindsey Halligan, who had no prosecutorial experience, as U.S. attorney, and she secured an indictment of Comey herself. A magistrate judge soon found a "disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps," and the court dismissed the case because Halligan had been unlawfully installed. Trump's housing finance director, William Pulte, singled out four Trump adversaries, out of more than 300 million Americans, for alleged mortgage fraud. When six Democratic members of Congress, all military or intelligence veterans,

reminded troops they could legally refuse illegal orders, Trump called it "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!" and the Pentagon and DOJ opened investigations. Even ordinary citizens are not safe. The administration rushed a renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool under an "emergency" designation, bypassing competitive bidding and steering a $1.7 million contract to a major Trump donor. When the pool turned green with algae and its new liner began peeling off in sheets, Trump blamed vandals, though he later admitted there was "no video or proof, other than the damage, itself." At least six people were arrested, including three-time Olympian David Hearn, who says he simply reached into the water to touch a loose piece of liner. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, a former Fox News host, held a press conference announcing his indictment, then moved to dismiss the charges four weeks later, conceding the damage was caused by "flawed installation by the contractor." Trump responded that Pirro had "choked," and the White House is reportedly exploring new charges despite the lack of evidence. The results speak for themselves: of the many investigations and prosecutions of private citizens and Trump's perceived enemies, only one, against his own former national security advisor John Bolton, has produced a conviction. The rest have collapsed in court, been rejected by grand juries, or been dropped by the government's own prosecutors, but only after wasting millions in taxpayer dollars and upending the lives of innocent people. For years, GOP elites insisted the DOJ had been weaponized against Trump, without offering a shred of evidence. Now that Trump has clearly weaponized it, ordering his former criminal defense attorneys to pursue his rivals, those same elites are largely silent, if not actively excusing it.¹²⁸

3.3.A: Targeting Former FBI Director James Comey: Background on Their Relationship

Perhaps no two cases better demonstrate Trump's ongoing politicization and weaponization of our DOJ than those brought against former FBI Director James Comey. But before considering these cases, it is important to understand the history between Comey and Trump. James Comey, a longtime Republican, was appointed FBI Director by President Obama in 2013. When Trump came into office in 2017, Comey still held the position. Under Comey's leadership, the FBI was investigating Russian election interference and possible Trump campaign coordination with Russia. In January 2017, according to Comey's contemporaneous notes and testimony before Congress, Trump hosted Comey for a dinner at the White House and told him, "I need loyalty, I expect loyalty." Subsequently, when it became clear that Michael Flynn — a Trump loyalist and his first National Security Advisor — was under investigation, Trump, according to a contemporaneous Comey memo, told him in the Oval Office, "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go." Comey did not comply. A few months later, Trump fired him, and that firing — together with Comey's memos — triggered the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his investigation. In a subsequent book, A Higher Loyalty, Comey portrayed Trump as an unethical mob-boss figure, "untethered to truth." For the next eight years, he was a vocal and prominent Trump critic. Never one to back down, Trump has called Comey variously a "slimeball," "leaker," and worse. By 2025, Trump was regularly posting that Comey belonged in jail.¹²⁹

3.3.A.I: The First Case Against Comey

On September 19, 2025, Erik Siebert, a 15-year veteran of the U.S. Attorney's Office, resigned under White House pressure after declining to bring charges against Comey following a five-month investigation. The next day, Trump accidentally posted a message publicly that he had reportedly intended to send privately to Attorney General Pam Bondi. It read: "What about Comey, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, Leticia???... They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done… We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility… JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!" Two days after that, Trump installed Lindsey Halligan, his personal defense attorney in the stolen documents case with no prior prosecutorial experience, as the interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. On September 25, 2025, Halligan presented the case against Comey to a grand jury alone and obtained an indictment on two counts: making a false statement to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding. Both charges stemmed from Comey's September 30, 2020, testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, in which he denied that he had authorized an FBI staffer to serve as an anonymous source in media reports about the 2016 Trump and Clinton investigations. Though Comey had authorized an unnamed person to leak his notes and memos about his meetings with Trump, he considered this distinct from those ongoing investigations. In mid-November 2025, Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick reviewed the grand jury proceedings and determined that the government had engaged in a "disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps." He cited possible Fourth Amendment violations, grand jury exposure to privileged communications, and "fundamental and highly prejudicial" misstatements of law by Halligan to the jurors. She had gone so far as to suggest to the grand jury that the government had "more evidence, perhaps better evidence, that would be presented at trial," which is not how grand jury proceedings are supposed to work. But prior to determining whether Halligan's actions amounted to prosecutorial misconduct, Judge Cameron Currie dismissed the case entirely on the grounds that Halligan was improperly installed as the interim U.S. Attorney. The case itself, as well as the manner in which it was conducted, appeared to be textbook weaponization.¹³⁰

3.3.A.II: The Second Case Against Comey

After its first case against Comey collapsed, the Trump DOJ tried again on April 28, 2026, securing a far more serious two-count indictment against him. Count one alleged he had "knowingly and willfully made a threat to take the life of, and to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States." Count two alleged that he transmitted this threat across interstate lines. The underlying conduct concerned an Instagram post Comey made in May 2025 showing seashells on a North Carolina beach arranged to read "86 47." It is undisputed that "47" refers to the 47th President of the United States, Donald Trump. The DOJ claims that "86" means "to kill," but Comey's legal team maintains that it is restaurant slang for either an out-of-stock item or a disruptive customer who needs to be refused service or ejected from the establishment. Most dictionaries agree with Comey's interpretation, not the DOJ's. Furthermore, the "86 47" slogan is a common sentiment that countless people have posted online, and it even appears on widely sold merchandise. Notably, Comey appears to be the only person ever criminally charged for using it. Legal experts across the ideological spectrum consider the DOJ's case extremely weak, likely the weakest among the many the administration has brought against Trump's enemies.¹³¹

3.3.B: Targeting Numerous Democrats for Mortgage Fraud

William Pulte, Trump's Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, has issued four nearly identical criminal referrals against prominent Trump adversaries – Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Democratic Senator Adam Schiff, and then-Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell. The referrals concern a rather minor allegation, namely that they claimed a second home as their primary residence to qualify for lower interest rates on loans. Notably, out of more than 300 million Americans, Pulte only referred four prominent Trump enemies for prosecution. When asked whether he was also scrutinizing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who reportedly claims three primary residences, Pulte declined to say. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has initiated a still-pending probe into Pulte's handling of the referrals, including whether he misused his authority and agency resources. U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, a former private Trump criminal defense attorney, did secure an indictment against Letitia James, but it was dismissed when it was determined that Halligan had been improperly installed in her position. When prosecutors then tried to re-indict James, federal grand juries of ordinary citizens twice refused. No charges have been brought against Cook, Schiff, or Swalwell, though Trump did attempt to fire Cook as a Federal Reserve Governor, citing the referral. As noted above, the incident has raised serious concerns about executive intimidation of the Federal Reserve. The courts subsequently blocked her removal, and the Supreme Court left those rulings in place while the case proceeds in the lower courts. Given Trump's history with fraud – including the Trump Organization being found guilty of criminal fraud; the Trump Foundation admitting to misuse of charitable funds; Trump University settling a $25 million fraud suit; and Trump himself being found liable for a decade-long scheme to defraud banks, insurers, and lenders – this line of attack against his enemies is, for all honest observers, deeply ironic.¹³²

3.3.C: Targeting Democrat Senators for Lawful Speech

On November 18, 2025, six Democratic members of Congress, all of whom are military or intelligence veterans, released a 90-second video addressed directly to U.S. military and intelligence community members. They warned that the Trump "administration is pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens." They continued, "Like us, you all swore an oath to protect and defend this Constitution… No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution." The video came amid the Trump administration's extrajudicial killings on the high seas. Trump wasted no time in responding, posting, "Their words cannot be allowed to stand. SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!! LOCK THEM UP???," and then, in a follow-up post, "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!" Four days later, the Pentagon announced that it was opening an investigation into Senator Mark Kelly — the only signer of the video still subject to military jurisdiction. Subsequently, the DOJ sought to question at least five of the six members of Congress, and Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin, a former CIA analyst, learned she was personally under investigation via a call from former Fox News host and current U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro. Despite the aggressive response from the Trump administration, the Democratic members of Congress were simply reciting existing military law. Under Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), service members are required to obey lawful orders but may refuse manifestly unlawful orders that violate U.S. or international law. Most experts agree that killing people on the high seas without any due process is unlawful.¹³³

3.3.D: Targeting Olympian David Hearn to Support Trump's False Vandalism Claims

In April 2026, Trump announced the reflecting pool on the National Mall would be drained and painted "American flag blue." The administration bypassed competitive bidding processes under the guise of an "emergency" to rush the renovation for the July 4th celebration. Federal records show a $1.7 million water-purification contract went to a company owned by John J. Cafaro, Trump's Mar-a-Lago neighbor and a major Trump donor. Soon after completion of the project, there was a severe algae bloom, and the blue sealant began peeling off the bottom in sheets, with pieces visibly floating on the surface. Trump, rather than admit the job was rushed or done improperly, took to social media to repeatedly blame vandals, at one point

claiming a vandal had cut a 300-foot gash in the pool liner. That claim seemed unlikely, given that the National Mall is under constant surveillance and the administration never released any video of the alleged vandalism; indeed, Trump himself later admitted there is "no video or proof, other than the damage, itself." Well after the issues with the reflecting pool were visually apparent, at least six Americans, by Trump's own count, were arrested for allegedly vandalizing it. Among them was three-time Olympian David Hearn. According to Mr. Hearn, he stopped at the pool during a long bike ride and simply reached into the water to feel what a partially detached piece of the blue liner felt like. Before he knew what was happening, U.S. Park Police had him in handcuffs and detained him for five hours. On July 2, 2026, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro held a press conference announcing Mr. Hearn's indictment for destruction of property, but just four weeks after the press conference, Pirro's office moved to dismiss the charges. It acknowledged the peeling was not caused by vandalism, but rather by "flawed installation by the contractor." Hearn's lawyers are seeking dismissal "with prejudice" to prevent charges from being filed again in the future. In their motion to the court, they note that the Justice Department "has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to seek or reinstate criminal charges to satisfy the President, irrespective of the law or facts…" As if to prove their point, Trump immediately took issue with Pirro's decision to drop the charges and claimed it was a "pure case of VANDALISM" and that Pirro "choked." Reports indicate the White House is now exploring filing new charges against Mr. Hearn, regardless of Pirro's decision and the evidence.¹³⁴

3.3.E: Miscellaneous Targeting of Other Trump Enemies

The cases detailed above are not isolated abuses; they are instances of a systematic campaign, directed openly by the president, to turn the machinery of federal law enforcement against his critics. The list of targets now spans former officials of both parties, sitting members of Congress, state judges, mayors, career prosecutors, and the president's own former advisers. John Bolton, Trump's own former National Security Advisor turned critic, was indicted on 18 counts of mishandling classified documents. In June 2026, he pled guilty to a single count, but this is, to date, the only successful prosecution in Trump's entire retribution campaign. John Brennan, the former CIA Director, has endured a year-long criminal investigation spanning grand juries in two federal districts. When the career prosecutor leading the Brennan investigation concluded there was no justification for bringing charges, the DOJ removed her from the case. Sitting Congresswoman LaMonica McIver was indicted on federal assault charges arising from a chaotic scene at an ICE detention facility. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested at the same facility that same day, on a trespassing charge that was dropped 10 days later. Trump signed two unprecedented executive orders directing investigations of two named individuals from his own first term: Christopher Krebs, the former CISA director who confirmed the 2020 election was secure, and Miles Taylor, who dared to criticize Trump. The executive orders do not recite anything approaching a legitimate factual basis for investigating U.S. citizens. Trump also directed the DOJ to launch a wide-ranging investigation into former President Biden and officials from his administration. The outcomes of Trump's retribution campaign tell the story: of the many investigations and prosecutions of his perceived enemies, only one has produced a conviction. The rest have collapsed in court, been rejected by grand juries, or been dropped by the government's own prosecutors — while the cases that remain open hang over their targets and their families indefinitely, draining their financial resources and costing the American taxpayer millions.¹³⁵

3.4: Trump Allies Made Above the Law

3.4.A: Secretary of War Pete Hegseth: Signal Gate Scandal

In March 2025, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz created a Signal group chat, entitled "Houthi PC Small Group," to coordinate strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen. The chat included some of the highest-ranking officials in the Trump White House, including Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Inadvertently, Mr. Waltz also included Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic. Signal is a publicly available app that is not part of the Defense Department's secure communications network. Regardless, Hegseth sent a message outlining, to the minute, when two waves of F-18 fighter jets would launch and when they would hit their targets. He also disclosed plans for drone and Tomahawk missile strikes. Even more concerning, it was later revealed that he shared similar intelligence details in a second Signal chat on his personal phone with 13 other people, including his wife, his brother, and his personal lawyer. His wife, a former Fox News producer, holds no Defense Department position. The Espionage Act criminalizes gross negligence in permitting national defense information to be removed from its proper place of custody, which appears to be precisely what happened here. Though Hegseth declined to be interviewed by the Defense Department's Inspector General and turned over only a few of his Signal messages, the investigation determined that if a foreign adversary had intercepted the intelligence, it would have endangered both U.S. servicemembers and the mission, and Houthi forces might have been able to counter U.S. forces or reposition to avoid the strikes. It further determined that Hegseth clearly violated department policy. Regardless, the DOJ refused to take action. When asked directly if the DOJ was investigating Hegseth's conduct, Attorney General Bondi responded, "what we should be talking about is it was a very successful mission," before continuing, "If you want to talk about classified information, talk about what was at Hillary Clinton’s home…" Though Bondi did not mention it, the DOJ did fully investigate Hillary Clinton — and while she did use a private server to conduct government business, there was no indication she shared military strike plans.¹³⁷

3.4.A.I: GOP Elite Double-Standard: Signal Gate Vs. Hillary’s Emails

When it was discovered that Hillary Clinton had used a private email server to conduct government business, she not only faced a full DOJ investigation but also multiple House and Senate committees. It became a central part of Trump's 2016 campaign, as he repeatedly goaded large crowds of Americans to chant, "Lock her up!" Pete Hegseth himself, who was then a Fox News host, said about Clinton: "Any security professional… would be fired on the spot for this type of conduct and criminally prosecuted for being so reckless with this kind of information." He continued, "people have gone to jail for one one-hundredth of what, even one one-thousandth of what Hillary Clinton did." In contrast to their relentless attacks after the Hillary email scandal broke, right-wing media has generally downplayed the inescapable reality that Hegseth shared imminent military strike plans, not once but twice, over a publicly available app, and included a journalist and his own wife, who holds no Defense Department position. Fox News hosts even went so far as to present a baseless theory that Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic editor, had somehow tricked his way onto the chat. Sean Hannity, who had brutalized Hillary Clinton for months, dismissed the reaction as "phony outrage." Like the Trump administration, GOP lawmakers refused to take any significant action against Hegseth. Though they requested the Inspector General's report, they did nothing with it. There were no hearings on the report, and Hegseth was never required to answer for its findings.¹³⁸

3.4.B: Dropped Charges Against NYC Mayor Eric Adams

In September 2024, New York City Mayor Eric Adams was indicted by a federal grand jury on bribery, wire fraud, and foreign campaign contribution charges. Career prosecutors considered the case strong, and additional obstruction charges were being prepared. Then, after Trump took office, DOJ officials ordered the U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan to dismiss the charges. Notably, the order expressly declined to assess the strength of the evidence, resting instead on Adams's ability to assist the administration's immigration crackdown. Acting U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon, a conservative Federalist Society member who had clerked for Justice Scalia, resigned rather than comply. Lead prosecutor Hagan Scotten, an Army veteran who had clerked for Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh, resigned as well. In all, at least eight Justice Department officials resigned rather than participate. Critically, the DOJ sought dismissal "without prejudice," meaning the charges could be refiled at any time, which served as a sword hanging over the mayor's head should he refuse to do the administration's bidding. Days after the dismissal order, Adams sat side by side on the couch of Fox & Friends with Trump's border czar Tom Homan, having just agreed to allow ICE to operate at Rikers Island. Homan told the audience, "If he doesn’t come through, I’ll be back in New York City and we won’t be sitting on the couch. I’ll be in his office, up his butt, saying, ‘Where the hell is the agreement we came to?’" When the dismissal motion reached federal court, Judge Dale Ho reluctantly agreed to dismiss but only with prejudice, so it could never be refiled as leverage. He wrote, "Everything here smacks of a bargain: dismissal of the Indictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions." The message of the Adams case is unmistakable. In Trump's DOJ, the question is not whether you committed a crime; it is whether you are useful to the president.¹³⁹

3.4.C: DOJ Vacates Convictions of January 6th Seditionists

Among the most serious of the January 6th convictions were those for seditious conspiracy, which is a conspiracy to overthrow the government of the United States by force. After an eight-week trial and mountains of evidence, a unanimous jury convicted Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes. He had amassed weapons and staged armed "quick reaction force" teams across the river in Virginia, ready to ferry guns into Washington. Another jury convicted the leaders of the Proud Boys, who were among the first people to clash with police and led the mob into the Capitol. These men were not bystanders swept up in a riot; they were its architects, and they acted to keep Trump in office. The sentencing judge called Rhodes "an ongoing threat and a peril to this country and to its democracy" and sentenced him to 18 years. On his first day back in office, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 January 6th defendants and commuted the sentences of 14 Oath Keepers and Proud Boys members, freeing them all. But commutation left their convictions intact, and apparently that was intolerable. In April 2026, the DOJ, in filings signed by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, asked a federal appeals court to vacate the seditious conspiracy convictions entirely and dismiss the charges with prejudice. The courts, unable to force the executive branch to prosecute, reluctantly relented. Judge Amit Mehta, who handled the Oath Keepers case, noted that the dismissal "diminishes the gravity of that day, denigrates the work of prosecutors and law enforcement officers who secured these convictions, and excuses criminal acts that caused a centuries-long pillar of our democracy — the peaceful transfer of presidential power — to buckle." America is now a nation with a president who frees convicted criminals who took up arms against our government on his behalf.¹⁴⁰

Stewart Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers.

January 6th rioters on the floor of the United States Senate.

3.5: Investigations into Baseless Conspiracies 

The DOJ isn't just punishing Trump's enemies and protecting his friends; it is also using taxpayer dollars to yet again chase his conspiracy theories, the same ones GOP elites have kept on life support for years. The first is the claim that the 2020 election was stolen. Two days after that election, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy privately told Liz Cheney that Trump "knows it’s over" and just "needs to go through all the stages of grief"; then, hours later, he told Fox News viewers, "President Trump won this election … do not be silent about this!" Fox News aired false claims that Dominion voting machines stole the election, then paid $787.5 million to settle Dominion's defamation suit. Asked under oath about Sidney Powell's fraud claims, Sean Hannity testified, "I did not believe it for one second," but, of course, that is not what he told his audience. Despite the official vote count, recounts, audits, more than 60 court cases, and repeated, exhaustive investigations and reviews, including those run by Republicans, there is still no evidence of fraud anywhere near sufficient to change the outcome. Michigan's Republican-led Senate Oversight Committee found "no evidence of widespread or systematic fraud"; the openly pro-Trump firm Arizona Senate Republicans hired to recount Maricopa County chased rumors

for months before reluctantly concluding Biden had won by an even wider margin; and Trump's own DOJ, after looking into the claims, found no fraud on a scale that could have changed the outcome, with Attorney General Bill Barr going so far as to call the claims "bullshit." Yet five years after the election, FBI agents raided the election headquarters of Fulton County, Georgia, and DOJ prosecutors subpoenaed election workers' personal information and voter rolls from multiple states. In July 2026, a Trump-appointed federal judge quashed the Fulton County subpoena, ruling that the statute of limitations had run and that the subpoena served "no legitimate law enforcement purpose." The second grand conspiracy is the claim that Trump has been the target of a shadowy deep-state plot, beginning with the Russia "hoax." Right-wing media has breathed life into this narrative for years, even though an inspector general, a bipartisan Senate committee, and a four-year special counsel investigation all investigated it and found no such plot. Yet the DOJ convened a "grand conspiracy" grand jury in Florida to investigate the investigators all over again, and when a career prosecutor raised concerns about a rushed effort to charge former CIA Director John Brennan, she was removed from the case and replaced by Trump loyalist Joe diGenova. Attorney General Pam Bondi also created a "Weaponization Working Group" to reexamine the January 6th cases and Trump's own prosecutions. Its czar, Ed Martin—a former January 6th defense attorney and Trump ally—said the quiet part out loud: "If they can be charged, we’ll charge them. But if they can’t be charged, we will name them." The pattern is clear: Trump makes an unfounded claim, GOP elites who know it is false broadcast it anyway, the base comes to believe it, and a weaponized DOJ launches investigations to keep the lie alive. A DOJ that chases conspiracies based in grievances and fantasies, rather than evidence, is not pursuing justice; it is subverting it.¹⁴¹

3.6: Jeffrey Epstein Cover Up

For nearly two decades, public officials have failed the girls Jeffrey Epstein abused, some as young as 14. In 2008, U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta, despite knowing of dozens of underage victims and preparing a federal indictment, cut a deal with Epstein's lawyers while hiding it from the victims, a secrecy a federal judge later ruled violated federal law. Epstein pleaded guilty to two state prostitution charges, served 13 months in a county jail with work release six days a week, and, according to his victims, went on abusing young women for another decade. Perhaps most remarkably, Acosta's deal gave Epstein and any "potential co-conspirators" immunity from federal prosecution. Years later, when the public finally learned of the true extent of Epstein's crimes,

as well as his ties to some of the most powerful people in the world—including Donald Trump—they demanded accountability. And GOP elites, sensing the public's anger, exploited it for political gain. Early in her tenure, Attorney General Pam Bondi said Epstein's client list was "sitting on my desk right now to review." Before becoming FBI director, Kash Patel dared lawmakers to "put on your big boy pants and let us know who the pedophiles are." He publicly claimed Epstein's "black book" was "under direct control of the director of the FBI"—the very job he now holds. Once it came time to act, however, they changed their tune, working just as hard to keep the truth hidden. In July 2025, Trump's DOJ and FBI abruptly declared there was no client list, while Speaker Johnson kept the House out of session for nearly two months to delay a vote on releasing the files. Only when four House Republicans joined every House Democrat to force that vote did Trump and GOP leadership relent, allowing passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Their motive was no mystery: Trump appears throughout the Epstein records, including in a lewd 2003 birthday letter framed by a hand-drawn nude woman, ending "may every day be another wonderful secret," and bearing what appears to be Trump's signature. Even after signing the law, Trump's DOJ released only 3.5 million of the roughly 6 million pages, much of it heavily redacted to conceal the names of powerful people, and in June 2026, a federal judge found the DOJ was likely still violating the law by withholding information, including the identities of potential co-conspirators. Meanwhile, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump's former defense attorney, personally interviewed Epstein's convicted accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell for nine hours under limited immunity. She cleared Trump of any wrongdoing, and one week later, without notice to her victims, she was moved to a minimum-security prison camp where sex offenders are almost never housed, with meals delivered to her dormitory and other special privileges. Her victims said it plainly: "This move smacks of a cover up." After spending years exploiting the Epstein case to inflame their base, the GOP elites in Trump's inner circle, including top FBI and DOJ officials, are now perpetuating the cover-up themselves.¹⁴²

3.6.A: The 2008 Cover-Up: Alex Acosta

The first cover-up in the Epstein saga occurred in 2008. Then-U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Alex Acosta had, after a roughly 16-month investigation, clear evidence that Epstein was engaged in an extensive sex trafficking operation. The FBI had identified dozens of underage victims, and Acosta's own prosecutors had prepared a federal indictment that could have put Epstein in jail for life. But Acosta met privately with one of Epstein's lawyers over breakfast at a hotel and cut a deal. Under the resulting non-prosecution agreement, the federal case simply disappeared. Epstein pled guilty to two state prostitution charges, served 13 months in a county jail — with work release allowing him out six days a week — and received immunity from federal prosecution. Remarkably, the agreement also granted immunity to four named co-conspirators and to any unnamed "potential co-conspirators," meaning that anyone who helped Epstein abuse children was shielded before ever being identified. Then Acosta hid it. His office agreed to keep the deal sealed until after a judge approved it, ensuring the victims could not learn of it or object. As one prosecutor in his own office admitted, from the start of the investigation until the deal was signed, "the Office never conferred with the victims." A federal judge later ruled this secrecy violated the Crime Victims' Rights Act, and the Inspector General concluded the victims were not treated with the openness and dignity they so clearly deserved. Freed by Acosta's deal, Epstein resumed his life of wealth and travel, and according to his victims, continued preying on young women for another decade. Acosta, meanwhile, faced no consequences. In 2017, Trump, no doubt fully aware of his role in covering up Epstein's criminal conduct, made him Secretary of Labor, placing him in charge of, among other things, the nation's anti-human-trafficking labor enforcement. Only when Epstein's 2019 arrest reignited public fury did Acosta resign. Yet even that exile proved temporary. In 2025, Acosta was appointed to the board of directors of Newsmax, the right-wing network whose primetime hosts now assure their viewers that Epstein didn't get a "sweetheart deal" and that Acosta is a "great individual." Apparently, in the world of GOP elites, covering up for a child sex trafficker creates a fast track to power and success.¹⁴³

3.6.B: GOP Elite Propagandistic Exploitation of Epstein Case

For years, GOP elites treated the Epstein case not as a tragedy demanding justice for its victims, but as a political weapon. It became a story to inflame their base, smear their enemies, and corrode Americans' trust in their own institutions. Kash Patel, before Trump made him FBI Director, was among the most aggressive. He taunted lawmakers, saying, "put on your big boy pants and let us know who the pedophiles are," and told listeners that Epstein's "black book" was "under direct control of the director of the FBI" — the very job he now holds — though he has released virtually nothing new and certainly no "black book." When Attorney General Pam Bondi was asked on Fox News in February 2025 whether the DOJ would release Epstein's client list, she answered, "It’s sitting on my desk right now to review. That’s been a directive by President Trump." Right-wing media, meanwhile, spent years converting the case's real facts into useful fictions. In 2016, Fox News accurately reported that flight logs showed Bill Clinton flew on Epstein's private jet 26 times. Consorting with a man later exposed as a serial sex predator is problematic enough, but they distorted the story to push it further, failing to note that those 26 flights were, in reality, 26 flight legs across just six international trips, and that, according to Clinton's office, his staff and Secret Service accompanied him on the trips. Slowly but surely, the story mutated into completely unfounded claims that Clinton visited Epstein's private island, where the worst abuse occurred. Trump himself eventually declared that Clinton went to the island "28 times." This simply is not true. None of the flight logs list Clinton on any plane bound for the Virgin Islands. Those same logs do show, however, that Donald Trump took at least seven flights on Epstein's planes in the 1990s, a fact the same media ecosystem somehow never converted into a scandal. The Epstein case presented real crimes, real victims, and real questions deserving real answers, but GOP elites chose to milk it for political ammunition, inventing a hidden "list," casting the FBI and DOJ as guardians of a pedophile protection racket, and manufacturing suspicions of their enemies while refusing to discuss or report real stories that implicated their allies, including Alex Acosta and Donald Trump.¹⁴⁴

3.6.C: Epstein Cover-Up During the Second Trump Administration

After years of Trump's inner circle promising to expose the Epstein files, his DOJ and FBI abruptly declared the matter closed. The same officials who told Americans the government was hiding a pedophile protection racket now insisted there was nothing to see. Outraged, Democrats pushed for a vote on the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which would require the DOJ to publish all unclassified materials. GOP leadership fought it at every step, but four House Republicans defected, joining every House Democrat to bring it to a vote. Only once it was clear that passage was unavoidable did Trump and Johnson fold and tell Republicans to vote yes. Trump signed the law in November 2025. His DOJ then simply refused to follow it. The law required the release of all documents by December 19, 2025, and barred any redaction made for "embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity." The DOJ blew the deadline, releasing only roughly half its files, many so heavily redacted they conveyed nothing. They blacked out the names of powerful figures, including those appearing in 2019 FBI emails referencing 10 Epstein "co-conspirators." They also somehow failed the one group the law required the DOJ to protect: the victims, whose names, email addresses, and even nude photographs appeared in released documents. Lawmakers who wanted to look at the unredacted files were required to give 24 hours' notice and were given access to only four government computers. Given those restrictions and the number of documents, it would take four people, working 24 hours a day, more than seven years to view the files in their entirety. What's more, the lawmakers who chose to view the unredacted files were being watched. At a House hearing, Bondi was photographed holding a document titled "Jayapal Pramila Search History," which was a log of every file Congresswoman Jayapal had pulled up in the reading room the day before. To this day, thanks to GOP obstruction, the "potential co-conspirators" Acosta immunized in 2008 have never been named.¹⁴⁵

3.6.C.I: Preferential Treatment for Ghislaine Maxwell, a Convicted Sex Trafficker

In addition to refusing to comply with a legal mandate to release the Epstein files and hiding the identities of potential co-conspirators in the most notorious sex trafficking case in U.S. history, Trump's DOJ made the telling decision to show leniency to Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's proven accomplice. In July 2025, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump's own former personal criminal defense attorney, personally traveled to Florida to interview Maxwell for nine hours over two days, granting her limited immunity for the conversation. Sitting deputy attorneys general do not interview convicted sex traffickers seeking clemency; that is not how the Department works. In the interview, Maxwell, not surprisingly, cleared the President of any wrongdoing. One week later, overnight and without any notification to her victims, the Bureau of Prisons transferred Maxwell from her low-security prison to a minimum-security prison camp with dormitory housing and little or no perimeter fencing. Federal inmates convicted of sex offenses are almost never placed in such facilities. Reports soon followed that she was receiving special privileges at the facility, with one prison consultant describing her treatment as that of a "hotel guest" at a "Club Fed." Victims of Epstein and Maxwell released a joint statement, warning that the transfer sent "a clear message: Pedophiles deserve preferential treatment and their victims do not matter." They concluded, "This move smacks of a cover up. The victims deserve better."¹⁴⁶

3.7: Miscellaneous Misconduct of a Corrupted DOJ

In June 2025, Erez Reuveni, a career DOJ attorney of nearly 15 years, filed a whistleblower complaint backed by 150 pages of emails and texts, alleging that Emil Bove, a senior DOJ official and Trump's former personal attorney, told subordinates that deportation flights a federal judge had halted "needed to take off no matter what," and that Reuveni was directed to misrepresent facts in court.

When Reuveni refused and told the court the truth, the DOJ fired him. Trump then nominated Bove to a lifetime seat on a federal appeals court, and the GOP Senate confirmed him. In Chicago, federal officials swore that agents used tear gas and force only in response to violent threats, until a federal judge reviewed 47 body-camera videos that contradicted their reports and found that the operation's commander, Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino, had been "outright lying" under oath. In the first Comey prosecution, a magistrate judge found that Trump's handpicked U.S. attorney had made statements to the grand jury that "appear to be fundamental misstatements of the law," and prosecutors then gave the court two contradictory accounts of whether the grand jury had even seen the final indictment. In Georgia, federal prosecutors used a grand jury to subpoena election workers' personal information long after the statute of limitations had expired, prompting a Trump-appointed judge to rule that the DOJ does not have "the right to use the Grand Jury to do whatever the DOJ wants." And when judges have ruled against the administration, it has repeatedly defied them. After a judge ordered that immigrants could not be deported to countries other than their own, often places they had never even been, without a meaningful chance to object, the administration put eight men, seven of whom had never set foot in South Sudan, on a plane to that war-torn country with roughly 17 hours' notice, and government lawyers refused to tell the judge where the plane was. Our courts have no army and no treasury; they depend on being able to presume that when a lawyer for the United States speaks, the words are true, and that the government will obey the courts’ orders. Under Trump, that presumption is collapsing. A DOJ that lies to courts, manipulates grand juries, and defies judicial orders is a rogue agency, and it endangers the integrity of our entire justice system.¹⁴⁷

3.7.A: Lying to Courts

3.7.B: Abuse of the Grand Jury Processes

The Trump DOJ has used grand juries as pretexts and misled jurors once they were convened. As previously noted, federal prosecutors in Georgia directed a federal grand jury to subpoena the personal information of Fulton County's election workers as part of an investigation into fraud claims, even though the statute of limitations on any conceivable 2020 election crime had already expired, meaning the grand jury could never lawfully indict anyone. A Trump-appointed federal judge quashed the subpoena, explaining that working with grand juries "does not give the DOJ the right to use the Grand Jury to do whatever the DOJ wants." In the first Comey prosecution, U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, installed days earlier after her predecessor refused to bring the case, presented the indictment to the grand jury entirely alone. A federal magistrate judge who reviewed the transcript identified two statements by Halligan to the grand jurors that, on their face, "appear to be fundamental misstatements of the law that could compromise the integrity of the grand jury process." Then, in a subsequent hearing, Halligan and the lead prosecutor admitted in open court that after the grand jury rejected one of the three proposed counts, the revised final indictment — the version Comey was actually prosecuted under — was never shown to the full grand jury at all. The next day, the DOJ filed a document titled "Government’s Notice Correcting the Record," asserting the opposite. Whichever version is true, the Department told a federal court two contradictory things about the most basic fact in any criminal case: whether the grand jury actually returned the indictment. Grand juries are one of the oldest protections in American law, written into the Fifth Amendment of our Constitution. They place a body of ordinary citizens between the government and the accused, so that no American can be dragged into a felony prosecution unless their fellow citizens find the evidence warrants it. When the government uses grand juries as cover for data collection or misstates the law to jurors, it dismantles the wall our Founders built between the people and the immense power of our government.¹⁴⁹

3.7.C: Ignoring Court Orders

Beyond deceiving the courts and abusing grand juries, the Trump administration has repeatedly done something once unthinkable: it has simply ignored their orders. The pattern began just days into Trump's second administration. In January 2025, a federal judge blocked the administration's sweeping freeze of congressionally approved federal funds and ordered the money restored. Eleven

days later, the judge found that the administration had violated his "clear and unambiguous" order. That was the first judicial finding that the new administration had defied a court order, but not the last. In May 2025, another federal judge ordered that immigrants could not be deported to countries other than their own without a meaningful opportunity to object, which is a simple protection against sending people to places where they might be tortured or killed. The administration then put eight men, only one of them South Sudanese, on a plane bound for South Sudan, a nation in civil war, giving them roughly 17 hours' notice. When the judge convened an emergency hearing and asked government lawyers where the plane was, they refused to say, calling its location classified. The judge ruled that the administration's actions were "unquestionably" in "violation of this court’s order" and warned that the conduct "may be contempt." These examples, too, could be multiplied. Numerous federal judges have now found that the administration circumvented or outright defied their orders. It is difficult to overstate what this means. Our courts have no enforcement mechanism. If an executive simply refuses to follow court orders, there is no American justice, and no American is safe from the tyranny of the State.¹⁵⁰

3.8: Trump's DOJ Settles Trump's IRS Lawsuit

In January 2026, the president of the United States sued his own government for $10 billion, and his own former criminal defense lawyer, now running the Justice Department, settled the case. The lawsuit stemmed from a real crime: an IRS contractor had leaked the tax records of approximately 406,000 taxpayers, Trump among them,

and was sentenced to five years in prison. Other wealthy victims sued and litigated against a government that defended itself; billionaire Ken Griffin fought for a year and a half and settled for zero dollars and a formal apology. Trump waited until he controlled the defendant. On May 18, 2026, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced a settlement creating a $1.776 billion taxpayer-funded "Anti-Weaponization Fund" to compensate those who "suffered weaponization and lawfare"—in practice, Trump's allies. The next day, Blanche added a provision permanently barring the IRS from pursuing tax claims against Trump, his two eldest sons, and his companies. The settlement was never submitted to a court for review. Our justice system is adversarial: settlements are legitimate only when struck between genuine opponents, each protecting its own interests. When a president sues the government while hand-picking and commanding its lawyers, there is no adversary, only one man on both sides, negotiating with himself over how much of the public's money to award himself. The backlash was immediate. Thirty-five former federal judges called the arrangement "the product of collusion" and a "fraud on the court," and Blanche retreated from the $1.776 billion fund. On July 13, 2026, a federal judge voided the entire settlement, ruling that Trump and the DOJ had "pursued this lawsuit in bad faith for the improper purpose of dishonestly advancing a political narrative," sanctioning the government, and referring Trump's own lawyers for discipline. Yet Trump's DOJ still insists that his tax immunity remains valid. No other American president has ever sued his own government and been found by a federal judge to have done so in collusive bad faith.¹⁵¹

3.8.A: Trump Sues the IRS: Background

Trump's lawsuit is rooted in a genuine crime, one committed not by the IRS, but against it. Charles Littlejohn was an employee of the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton who worked as a contractor for the IRS. Between 2018 and 2020, Littlejohn stole confidential tax data and leaked it to the press. He sent Trump's returns to the New York Times, and sent the tax records of roughly 7,600 wealthy Americans — including Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk — and some 600 corporate entities to ProPublica. All told, the breach affected approximately 406,000 taxpayers. Trump, in other words, was one victim among hundreds of thousands. Subsequently, Littlejohn was prosecuted. He pled guilty in 2023 and was sentenced to five years in prison, the statutory maximum. Other wealthy victims of the leak did what wronged parties do in an adversarial system: they filed ordinary lawsuits against the IRS and Booz Allen and litigated them against a government that defended itself. But Trump waited until he was the sitting president in command of the defendant. In January 2026, more than five years after the leak, Trump, his two eldest sons, and the Trump Organization sued the IRS and the Treasury Department for $10 billion, claiming the agencies' failure to take "mandatory precautions" caused them reputational and financial harm.¹⁵²

3.8.B: Unprecedented Settlement & Court Determination that Trump's DOJ Perpetrated a Fraud on the Judicial Process

It is difficult to see how Trump was damaged at all. His complaint claimed reputational harm from the disclosure of his tax returns, but every American president since Richard Nixon had released his tax returns to the public voluntarily. Trump alone refused, breaking a half-century tradition of transparency. He was, in effect, demanding $10 billion for the involuntary disclosure of the very documents every other modern president considered the public's right to see. We also know what such claims are actually worth, because the IRS almost never pays them. Billionaire Ken Griffin, who was also affected by the same leak, sued the IRS in the same federal district, litigated for a year and a half against a government that defended itself, and settled in 2024 for zero dollars, receiving a formal apology and a commitment to better data security. Regardless, on May 18, 2026, the Trump DOJ announced a settlement of the Trump lawsuit. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump's own former criminal defense lawyer, established a $1.776 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund" to compensate people who "suffered weaponization and lawfare," a taxpayer-funded pool for Trump's allies that Trump would control. That same day, Trump dismissed his lawsuit, two days before a deadline the judge had set for the parties to explain whether the court even had jurisdiction to hear the case. The settlement itself was never submitted to any court for review. The next day, the DOJ released an addendum with a provision permanently barring the IRS from pursuing tax claims against Trump, his two eldest sons, his company, and his family's affiliated companies. The backlash was immediate. Members of Congress erupted; a federal judge temporarily blocked the DOJ from working on the fund; and 35 former federal judges asked the court to reopen the case, calling the settlement "the product of collusion" and a "fraud on the court." Under pressure, Blanche announced the DOJ was "not moving forward" with the $1.776 billion fund, and on July 13, 2026, a federal judge agreed with those 35 judges and voided the entire settlement. She ruled that Trump and the DOJ had "pursued this lawsuit in bad faith for the improper purpose of dishonestly advancing a political narrative," found that Trump had effectively controlled both sides of a case with no genuine adversary, and nullified the settlement's tax-immunity provisions outright. She also sanctioned the government and referred Trump's own lawyers for disciplinary proceedings. Yet even after a federal court called the entire arrangement a fraud on the judicial process, Trump's DOJ has continued to insist that Trump's audit immunity remains valid. No other American president has ever sued his government and been found by a federal judge to have done so in collusive bad faith.¹⁵³

3.9: DOJ Abandons Crypto Enforcement

On April 7, 2025, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump's former criminal defense lawyer, issued a memo disbanding the DOJ's National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team "effective immediately." The unit had been built to prosecute the criminal misuse of digital assets. Its cases included the conviction of Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, whose exchange admitted to allowing criminals to launder money through its platform. The memo went further, ordering the DOJ's Market Integrity and Major Frauds Unit to "cease cryptocurrency enforcement" altogether, instructing prosecutors to stop targeting crypto exchanges for the acts of their users and to close ongoing investigations inconsistent with the new policy.

As justification, the memo cited Trump's executive order on digital assets and quoted the president's own declaration that "we are going to end the regulatory weaponization against digital assets." It was a remarkable change of heart. As late as 2019, Trump said, "I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air." His conversion arrived with his 2024 campaign, which took in significant sums from crypto barons. He went from denouncing crypto to promising to make America "the crypto capital of the planet." Making matters worse, by the time his DOJ stood down, Trump's personal fortune was heavily dependent on his own crypto firm and meme coin, both of which are currently doing massive business with foreign nationals. Binance helped launch the Trump family's stablecoin, and a $2 billion investment in Binance by an Abu Dhabi state fund was then conducted in that coin, generating an estimated $80 million a year for the Trump family's venture. In October 2025, Trump pardoned Zhao for failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program, and he was not alone. Justin Sun, another crypto billionaire, invested $45 million in the Trump family crypto business, and after, Trump's SEC dropped an ongoing fraud case against him. In 2025 alone, Trump personally reported $1.4 billion in crypto-related income, thanks in part to Zhao and Sun. A president dismantling crypto enforcement and pardoning and dropping charges against his own business associates while pocketing billions from crypto is, without doubt, by far the biggest presidential conflict of interest in American history.¹⁵⁴

3.10: DOJ Abandons Public Corruption Enforcement

When Trump returned to office in January 2025, the DOJ's Public Integrity Section, created after Watergate to prosecute corrupt officials of both parties, had roughly 40 full-time staff handling as many as 200 open matters. Within days, the administration ousted its chief, a career prosecutor Trump himself had appointed during his first term. Then came the order to drop the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, which triggered a wave of resignations. The section was stripped of its authority to handle investigations directly, and by late 2025 it was down to just two full-time attorneys. The FBI, meanwhile, shut down its elite public corruption squad in Washington, including the team responsible for investigating congressional misconduct.

This retreat from fighting public corruption has extended beyond our borders. On her first day in office, Attorney General Pam Bondi disbanded Task Force KleptoCapture, which had brought actions to forfeit more than $700 million from sanctioned Russian oligarchs, along with the DOJ's entire kleptocracy program, and scaled back enforcement of the law requiring foreign lobbyists to register with the government. Days later, Trump signed an executive order "pausing" enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the law that makes it a crime for American companies to bribe foreign officials. The Supreme Court had already cleared the path. Over 15 years, it steadily narrowed federal corruption law, with conservative justices writing most of those decisions, and in 2024, the conservative majority went further on its own, ruling 6-3 that an Indiana mayor who steered $1.1 million in city contracts to a trucking company, which then paid him $13,000, had accepted a legal "gratuity," not a bribe, because the payment came after the contracts were awarded. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson called the majority's interpretation of the law "absurd." Taken together, experts describe these changes as creating the most permissive environment for corruption by public officials and business executives in a generation. As a group of lawmakers put it in a congressional letter to Bondi and FBI Director Patel, the Trump administration has given a "green light to would-be lawbreakers."¹⁵⁵

3.10.A: Supreme Court Narrows Public Corruption Law

The DOJ's retreat from corruption enforcement comes on top of a 15-year narrowing, led by the Supreme Court's conservative majority, of what counts as corruption in the first place. In 2010, in the case of Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling, the Court cut the "honest services" fraud law down to only bribes and kickbacks. In 2016, it threw out the conviction of Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, who had accepted more than $175,000 in gifts and loans, including a Rolex, from a businessman seeking state help. The Court held that arranging meetings and hosting events for a benefactor are not "official acts" under the bribery statute. That ruling has been cited more than 100 times and forced reversals in corruption cases nationwide. In 2020, the Court held that New Jersey officials who shut down bridge lanes as political retribution committed no federal fraud, because their scheme sought power rather than money. In 2023, it erased the fraud convictions of a top aide to New York's governor and of a contractor, both convicted in a rigged billion-dollar bidding scheme. Several of these rulings were unanimous, but in 2024, the conservative majority went further on its own with the bluntest ruling of all. An Indiana mayor steered $1.1 million in city contracts to a trucking company, which then paid him $13,000. The Court's conservative majority ruled 6-3 that because the payment came after the official act, it was not a bribe but a mere "gratuity," beyond the reach of the federal statute. In other words, a reward paid to a public official for services rendered is now legal under that federal bribery statute so long as no one agreed to it in advance. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in dissent, called the majority's interpretation "absurd" and one "only today’s Court could love." She continued, "Greed makes government — at every level — less responsive, less efficient, and less trustworthy."¹⁵⁶

3.11: DOJ Abandons Civil Rights Enforcement

3.12: Conservative Justices Enable Politicization of the DOJ

3.13: GOP Lawmakers Enable Trump’s Politicization of the DOJ

4.1: Appointment of Wealthy Donors, Business Insiders, & Illegal Foreign Agents

Before becoming attorney general, Pam Bondi was a registered agent of the government of Qatar, lobbying on its behalf through a firm paid $115,000 a month. As attorney general, she disbanded the DOJ's foreign-influence task force in one of her first official acts, and she later personally approved the legality of Qatar's $400 million jet gift to Trump. Bondi is not an outlier. Trump has, to a degree without precedent, staffed the highest levels of our government with former agents of foreign governments, business insiders holding vast conflicts of interest, and his largest donors.

Richard Grenell, whom Trump made acting director of national intelligence and later a presidential envoy, took more than $100,000 from a foundation funded by Hungary's government, work he failed to report under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, runs a $6 billion investment fund built almost entirely on Gulf state money, including $2 billion from Saudi Arabia, and has played a lead role in negotiating the Gaza ceasefire while holding no official position, which exempts him from federal ethics rules. Trump's commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, disclosed at least $806 million in financial interests, and his sons now run his old Wall Street firm. AI and crypto czar David Sacks, who held stakes in 449 AI-linked ventures, received an ethics waiver instead of an order to divest, one month after Trump fired the head of the Office of Government Ethics. Trump's Cabinet, the wealthiest in U.S. history, has directed at least $30 million into Trump-aligned super PACs and White House-related projects, and Linda McMahon, who gave at least $20 million, became secretary of education despite admitting, "I’m not an educator." This is exactly what our reform laws were designed to prevent. The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883 ended the corrupt "spoils system," and later laws made it a crime for federal officials to act as agents of foreign powers or to work on matters in which they hold a financial stake. The rationale behind these laws is common sense: an official with a financial interest in the matters he oversees cannot be trusted to decide them impartially, and an official beholden to a foreign government cannot be trusted to put America first. Yet GOP lawmakers have blocked Democratic attempts even to hold hearings on Kushner's conflicts and have confirmed nominee after nominee despite clear conflicts of interest. Trump is reversing more than a century of reform, making the swamp deeper and muddier than it has been in a long time.¹⁶¹

4.1.A: Appointment of Business Insiders with Conflicts of Interest

Trump has appointed numerous business insiders to regulate the very industries in which they hold their fortunes. Howard Lutnick, named Secretary of Commerce, spent decades as chairman and CEO of the Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald. Commerce oversees trade, tariffs, and export policy that directly move markets in which Cantor operates. Lutnick disclosed personal financial interests worth at least $806 million. Though he divested his interest in the company, he did so to a trust that benefits his children, and his sons now run Cantor Fitzgerald. Complicating matters further, as his children were buying him out, Tether — a crypto giant whose business is directly affected by policy Lutnick now makes — extended a loan to the family trust, prompting two U.S. senators to open an investigation into whether Tether was buying influence. As "AI and crypto czar," Trump appointed David Sacks, who sold more than $200 million in crypto-related assets before taking the role. He held stakes in 449 ventures with ties to artificial intelligence. Rather than require Sacks to fully divest, the White House issued him an ethics waiver in March 2025 — one month after Trump had fired the head of the Office of Government Ethics — formally excusing him from conflict-of-interest rules. The waiver let a man who retained stakes across the crypto and AI industries help write the government's policy for both. These are not isolated lapses, but the norm. Where prior administrations required officials to sell conflicted assets or recuse themselves, the Trump administration has repeatedly done the opposite. Business insiders now regulate the U.S. industries responsible for their wealth.¹⁶²

4.1.A.I: Kushner & the Saudi Wealth Fund

Among the most brazen conflicts of interest in the Trump administration is that of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. In July 2021, only months after leaving his post as a senior White House advisor in charge of Middle East policy, Kushner founded the investment firm Affinity Partners, which received an initial $2 billion from Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, raising serious questions as to whether the investment was a payoff for favorable U.S. policy.

The fund's own screening panel objected to the investment, citing Kushner's inexperience, but Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman personally overruled it. When it was earlier revealed that the Crown Prince had Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi murdered, Kushner publicly defended the Crown Prince and urged the administration to stand by him. Following the Saudi anchor investment, Kushner later secured an additional $1.5 billion combined from sovereign wealth funds in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, and Affinity's assets have since grown to more than $6 billion, almost entirely from Gulf state money. After Trump was reelected to a second term, Kushner again returned to the center of U.S. foreign policy, playing a lead role in negotiating the Gaza ceasefire — all while holding no official government position, which exempts him from federal ethics and disclosure rules. It is a textbook conflict of interest on an immense scale, but GOP elites have largely ignored it. GOP lawmakers have actively blocked Democratic attempts to hold hearings, and right-wing media outlets have almost exclusively minimized, ignored, or framed reports on the conflicts as partisan attacks.¹⁶³

4.1.B: Foreign Agents Made Top U.S. Officials

Long-standing federal law requires foreign agents to publicly register and makes it a criminal offense for a U.S. official to simultaneously serve a foreign government. Regardless, Trump has repeatedly elevated paid agents of foreign powers to the most sensitive positions in our government. Kash Patel, before becoming FBI Director, was paid to consult for the government of Qatar, and he did not register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). His other clients included a Kremlin-connected Russian filmmaker and the Chinese retailer Shein. Richard Grenell's consulting firm took more than $100,000 from a foundation funded and supervised by Hungary's authoritarian-leaning government, work he also failed to report under FARA. Trump made him acting Director of National Intelligence and, in his second term, Presidential Envoy for Special Missions. Pam Bondi, before becoming Attorney General, was a registered foreign agent for the government of Qatar, lobbying on its behalf through Ballard Partners, which received $115,000 per month. As Attorney General, Bondi was responsible for the very department that enforces the foreign agent laws, and one of her first official acts was issuing a memo that disbanded the DOJ's foreign influence task force and scaled back FARA enforcement. She later personally approved the legality of Qatar's $400 million jet gift to Trump. U.S. officials should serve only one master: the American people. Allowing foreign agents to work in our government creates a severe risk of compromised national security and divided loyalty, especially when our laws meant to prevent foreign influence are no longer being enforced.¹⁶⁴

4.1.C: Appointment of Wealthy Donors

Donald Trump's second term Cabinet, the wealthiest in U.S. history, has given far more to his political funds than any previous cabinet gave in our 250-year history. Twenty of his Cabinet members have directed at least $30 million into Trump-aligned super PACs and White House-related projects. The two largest donors hold two of the most consequential domestic posts. Linda McMahon, worth an estimated $3.3 billion, gave at least $20 million to Trump-aligned super PACs; Trump made her Secretary of Education, though she built her fortune as CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment and has almost no experience in education other than serving roughly one year on Connecticut's State Board of Education before resigning. By her own admission, "I'm not an educator." In the words of one Connecticut legislator, "I cannot think of another instance in my lifetime where someone was nominated to be U.S. secretary of education with so little background in any part of the field." The second-largest donor, Howard Lutnick, whose conflicts of interest were detailed above, gave over $10 million and received the Commerce Department. As discussed in Section 1, Elon Musk, though never a Cabinet member, spent over $250 million supporting Trump's 2024 campaign. Through executive fiat that bypassed the Senate's advice and consent power, Trump created a new position with sweeping authority over the federal workforce out of thin air. Our federal departments are not for sale to the highest bidder. They administer Social Security, protect our food and water, manage our nuclear stockpile, and educate our children. Every American depends on them, and they should be led by the most qualified people in our Nation, not those who curry favor with the president through cold hard cash.¹⁶⁵

4.2: Policy Favoritism for Wealthy Donors

In April 2024, Trump hosted a roomful of oil industry executives at Mar-a-Lago and asked them for $1 billion for his campaign. In exchange, he promised to reverse dozens of policies, point-blank telling them that, given what they would gain, $1 billion would be a "deal." The industry responded with tens of millions in donations, including roughly $40 million raised in a single day. Three months later, at a Bitcoin conference in Nashville, he promised the crypto industry a strategic bitcoin stockpile and the firing of its chief regulator; a fundraiser after the speech raised $25 million, and crypto became the largest corporate donor of the 2024 election. Once in office, Trump delivered on both. No president in modern American history has so openly offered specific government policies for campaign cash. The payoffs have continued since.

The private prison companies GEO Group and CoreCivic donated roughly $2.8 million to Trump's campaign and related entities, and by June 2025, they had been awarded nine new or expanded federal detention contracts without full and open competition. Elon Musk spent more than $250 million to elect Trump, and while he used DOGE to wield power over the very agencies that regulate his companies, SpaceX won more than $6 billion in federal contracts. Amazon spent roughly $75 million on a documentary about Melania Trump, roughly $28 million of which went directly to her. It was an unheard-of amount, three times what the BBC spent filming Planet Earth over five years across 200 locations. Soon thereafter, Blue Origin, the rocket company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, won $2.3 billion in Space Force contracts. For more than a century, lawmakers have worked to make this kind of corruption a relic of the past, beginning with the Tillman Act of 1907, which banned corporate contributions to federal campaigns, and continuing with many other commonsense reforms since. But with today's super PACs and a DOJ staffed with Trump's own attorneys, the second Trump administration is making a mockery of these reforms. Meanwhile, GOP lawmakers are letting it happen. When Republicans took control of Congress, they killed Democratic investigations into Trump's oil industry pitch, and they refused to investigate Musk's conflicts. It appears the trading of government policy for political money, a practice as old as our Republic but thought under control, is back with a vengeance.¹⁶⁶

4.2.A: Exchange of Political Donations for U.S. Policy

In April 2024, Trump hosted a roomful of oil industry executives at Mar-a-Lago. He asked them for $1 billion for his campaign, and in exchange, he promised to reverse dozens of Biden-era environmental rules, immediately end the freeze on new liquefied natural gas export permits, auction more oil drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico, open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, and grant immediate approvals for pipelines and power plants. He told the executives that, given what they would gain, $1 billion would be a "deal." The oil industry responded with tens of millions in donations, including roughly $40 million raised at Texas fundraisers in a single day. The solicitation was so explicit that both House and Senate Democrats opened investigations into whether it amounted to an illegal quid pro quo, but the oil companies stonewalled the investigators, and when Republicans took control of Congress, they killed the investigations. Trump made the same open trade with the crypto industry. At a Bitcoin conference in Nashville in July 2024, he promised to make America "the crypto capital of the planet," create a strategic bitcoin stockpile, and fire SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, the industry's chief regulator. A crypto fundraiser after the speech raised $25 million, and the industry became the largest corporate donor of the entire 2024 election. Once in office, Trump delivered. His first-day executive orders began dismantling the environmental rules he had promised to kill, and his crypto commitments, as detailed in Section 4.3, were honored in full. No president in modern American history has openly offered specific government policies for campaign cash. This is not a scandal being uncovered by investigators, but an entirely new course of American politics: the brazen, public sale of policy for donations from powerful, private industries.¹⁶⁷

4.2.B: Government Contracts for Donors

The federal government is the largest purchaser of goods and services on Earth, and federal law has long required that its contracts be awarded through fair and open competition, not political favoritism. When campaign donations are used to secure preferential treatment or awards for government work, it is called pay-to-play, and under the second Trump administration, it is becoming the norm. His sweeping emergency declarations, discussed in Section 1.1, open the door to waste, fraud, and favoritism in government contracting by bypassing competitive bidding. The private prison companies GEO Group and CoreCivic, together with their executives and subsidiaries, donated roughly $2.8 million to Trump's campaign, inaugural committee, and related fundraising entities. By the end of June 2025, the two companies had already been awarded nine new or expanded federal detention contracts without full and open competition under the authority of Trump's border emergency. Trump's budget bill then allocated $45 billion for ICE to pay private contractors to detain immigrants. Since Trump's election, CoreCivic's stock is up 56% and GEO Group's is up 73%. Elon Musk, after spending more than $250 million to elect Trump, garnered massive federal contracts. SpaceX won a $4.16 billion contract to build satellites for Trump's "Golden Dome" missile defense initiative, as well as a $2.29 billion Space Force communications contract. As all this was occurring, Musk was simultaneously using DOGE to wield power over the very agencies awarding the contracts, agencies that also regulate his companies. Ethics watchdogs warned of "massive potential for a conflict," and Democrats demanded investigations, but Republicans again refused to investigate. Government contracts are funded through our tax dollars, and when they go to companies because of political donations, rather than merit, we — the American people — are being defrauded.¹⁶⁸

4.2.C: Unprecedented Payments for Melania Documentary

Shortly after Trump's second election victory, Amazon made the unprecedented decision to spend roughly $75 million on a documentary following our soon-to-be First Lady, Melania Trump, in the final weeks before the inauguration. Of that sum, $40 million was the licensing fee for the film itself, and more than 70% of that licensing fee, roughly $28 million, went directly to Melania. Industry observers were stunned. Documentaries tracking a single person usually cost less than $5 million. Even legendary, prestigious documentary projects cost far less than Melania's documentary did. The BBC's groundbreaking natural history series Planet Earth, which was shot over five years across 200 locations worldwide, cost only $25 million. A Variety headline asked, "Why Would Amazon Spend $75 Million on a Movie This Boring?" The answer is not hard to discover. Amazon's founder, Jeff Bezos, learned firsthand what Trump's hostility costs. In 2019, Amazon lost a $10 billion Pentagon cloud-computing contract, and the company alleged in federal court that Trump's "personal vendetta" against Bezos was the reason. This time, it seems, Mr. Bezos decided to take no chances, and simply paid to play. In addition to Melania's $40 million documentary deal, Amazon donated $1 million to Trump's inaugural fund, and Bezos sat in the front row of Trump's inauguration. It was time and money well spent. His rocket company, Blue Origin, was subsequently awarded $2.3 billion in Space Force contracts. Whereas campaign donations are at least regulated, capped, and publicly disclosed, this was a private corporation delivering tens of millions of dollars in personal income directly to the president's family, for a film no market logic could justify, while seeking the favor of his government. As of today, the film has grossed less than $17 million, leaving Amazon $58 million in the red but with new, very valuable friends in the White House, Donald and Melania Trump.¹⁶⁹

4.3: Trump's International Crypto Business

4.3.A: UAE Investment in Trump Crypto & Immediate Changes to U.S. Policy

On January 16, 2025, four days before the inauguration, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan — the UAE's national security adviser, known in intelligence circles as the "spy sheikh" — secretly purchased a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial for $500 million. Then, in May 2025, MGX, an Abu Dhabi state-backed fund chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon, used $2 billion in WLF's brand-new stablecoin, USD1, to invest in the Binance crypto exchange. This was an enormous injection of fees and interest-generating deposits into the Trump family business, coming directly from a high-ranking UAE official and an Abu Dhabi state-backed fund. The policy payoff came within two weeks. The previous Biden administration had restricted advanced AI chip exports to the UAE. U.S. intelligence agencies had specifically warned that MGX, an Emirati AI firm chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon, was a potential conduit for smuggling advanced AI technology to China. The Trump administration swept those restrictions aside, authorizing the sale of previously restricted AI chips and blessing a deal allowing the UAE to import 500,000 advanced chips per year. In July 2026, the Commerce Department went further, easing export controls in a rule that singled out MGX — the same fund that had routed $2 billion through the president's stablecoin — for favorable treatment, a provision Senator Elizabeth Warren called simply "corrupt." The administration defends the reversal as cutting bureaucracy and promoting American innovation, but the sequence of events speaks for itself. The man who chairs the very company our own intelligence community flagged as a potential channel to China bought half of the president's crypto company and steered $2 billion through the president's stablecoin. Within two weeks of that transaction, our government cleared the UAE to receive the very technology it had deemed too dangerous to sell.¹⁷¹

4.3.B: Justin Sun's Investment in Trump Crypto Followed by Dismissal of Fraud Charges

In March 2023, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Chinese-born crypto billionaire Justin Sun with fraud and market manipulation. More specifically, the SEC alleged Sun had directed more than 600,000 wash trades per day between accounts he controlled to fake trading volume,

sold unregistered securities, and secretly paid celebrities to promote his tokens. But once Trump won the 2024 election, Sun went shopping. That November, he invested $30 million in World Liberty Financial, becoming its anchor investor and single largest backer. In January 2025, he added $15 million more, bringing his total to $45 million. The payoff came within weeks. In February 2025, the SEC asked a federal court to pause its fraud case against Sun to "explore a potential resolution." Then, in March 2026, it dismissed every claim against Sun personally with prejudice and required no admission of wrongdoing. A corporate affiliate paid a $10 million penalty, but, according to the SEC, he had generated $31 million through illegal sales alone. In addition to his WLF investments, Sun also became one of the largest holders of Trump's memecoin, winning a seat at a private dinner with the president reserved for the coin's top buyers. The administration's defense is that the SEC changed its crypto enforcement posture across the board, not just for Sun, and SEC officials deny that politics played any role. But the sequence once again speaks for itself. A man facing federal fraud charges routed $45 million to the sitting president's family business, and the president's regulators then made his charges disappear.¹⁷²

4.3.C: Self-Dealing: Trump's Changes to U.S. Crypto Policy

Having built a business that profits handsomely from crypto, Trump then used the powers of the presidency to extend sweeping favoritism to the entire asset class. On March 6, 2025, he signed an executive order creating a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile, committing the government to hold roughly 200,000 bitcoins, then worth about $17 billion. A University of Chicago survey of leading economists found that not one believed the reserve would benefit the American economy. Next came the dismantling of regulation. In July 2025, Trump personally pushed the GENIUS Act through Congress and signed it, giving stablecoins the government's official blessing — and, by extension, the Trump family's own USD1. As all this was going on, Trump's agencies gutted crypto enforcement. Trump's SEC dropped, dismissed, or closed cases and investigations against at least 13 major crypto companies — including Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, Ripple, Gemini, and Robinhood — several of them involving firms whose executives had donated to Trump or invested in his ventures. At the Justice Department, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump's own former criminal defense lawyer, disbanded the DOJ's National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team overnight and directed prosecutors to stop pursuing crypto exchanges, mixers, and wallet providers. Every move translated into private financial gain for Trump, whose own financial disclosure now showed that most of his income came from crypto. The president of the United States restructured American financial policy around an asset class his wealth depends upon, enriching himself by more than $1 billion in the process.¹⁷³

4.3.C.I: Trump Administration Gives Trump's Company a Bank Charter

One of the major changes in the financial regulatory environment the second Trump administration ushered into existence was opening the bureaucratic floodgates for crypto companies to receive official bank charters — among the most coveted prizes in American finance — transforming them overnight into permanent power players in our financial infrastructure. Prior to 2025, the Office of the Comptroller of the

Currency (OCC) had issued only one bank charter to an American crypto company, but after Trump appointed Jonathan Gould, a former chief legal officer of the crypto company Bitfury, nine firms have already received initial approval. Among the recipients of this regulatory windfall was WLF, the Trump family's crypto investment firm. In August 2026, the OCC granted WLF preliminary approval to become a federally chartered trust bank, enabling it to issue and control its own stablecoin, USD1, a venture already generating an estimated $80 million a year in interest. Typically, the OCC does not give charters to companies run by court-adjudicated fraudsters, and no company owned by a sitting president's family has ever received a federal bank charter, let alone a crypto firm. In the words of Senator Elizabeth Warren, "This is the most brazen act of self-dealing our financial system has ever seen." Watchdogs echoed her, warning that regulators "cannot credibly or impartially supervise" a bank owned by the president's family. Under the unitary executive theory, discussed in Section 3.12, Trump now ultimately regulates his own bank.¹⁷⁴

4.3.D: Memecoin Buyers Purchase Access to the Presidency

In April 2025, the Trump memecoin's official website announced that the 220 largest buyers would win a private dinner with the president of the United States, and the top 25 would receive a private VIP reception with Trump and a White House tour. The token's price surged 60% on the announcement. Over the following weeks, contestants spent approximately $148 million, with more than $111 million coming from the top 25 alone. Never in American history has access to the presidency been auctioned to anonymous purchasers for private gain. According to Bloomberg data, only six of the top 25 buyers were based in the United States; the rest were foreign, led by Justin Sun, the Chinese-born billionaire whose fraud case the SEC was then in the process of dropping. A campaign fundraising dinner is regulated, capped, disclosed, and closed to foreign money. This was none of those things, and unlike campaign funds, the money flowed into the president and his family's private fortunes. Even Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis, one of crypto's strongest allies in Congress, admitted the spectacle "gives me pause." Norm Eisen, the former White House ethics counsel, called it one of "the most profound ethics and constitutional emoluments violations in the history of our presidency." But Senator Chris Murphy put it most accurately, calling it "a level of corruption that is just absolutely stunning."¹⁷⁵

4.3.E: GOP Elites Abandon Common Sense Checks on Corruption

In the face of a newly elected President creating a near perfect vehicle for corruption and foreign influence — and in fact receiving hundreds of millions of dollars from foreign nationals, including top officials of foreign sovereigns — as well as using the powers of his presidency to mandate preferential policy for his investors and regulatory advantages for his business, GOP elites have either gone silent or actively excused the President's conduct. WLF and Trump's memecoin have received virtually no oversight from GOP lawmakers. They have not only failed to issue subpoenas, hold hearings, and open formal inquiries, but they have blocked Democratic measures to stop the corruption. Right-wing media often echoes Trump's personal defense that his finances are handled by independent managers, while failing to note that, unlike previous Presidents, there is no legal barrier preventing Trump from directing every decision those managers make. When WLF received preliminary approval for its bank charter, right-wing outlets covered it as a straightforward business victory, rather than a President using his power to make himself the owner of a bank he ultimately regulates. When it was learned that a high-ranking UAE official invested $500 million in WLF, and that U.S. policy toward the UAE was seriously altered soon thereafter, Sean Hannity did not report the story at all. A Media Matters review from August 2025 found that Fox News had aired only three total segments mentioning WLF, despite the numerous, unprecedented scandals surrounding it. Two of those mentions were in the context of friendly interviews with Eric and Donald Trump Jr. When GOP elites go silent in the face of a President receiving millions from foreign nationals and altering U.S. policy in manners that create significant private benefit for himself and his investors, they are not merely abandoning common sense checks on corruption, they are enabling corruption.¹⁷⁶

4.4: Other Major Foreign Investments in Trump's Business Followed by Immediate Changes to U.S. Policy

In April 2025, President Trump threatened Vietnam with a crushing 46% tariff. Vietnam responded by bypassing its own laws to fast-track a $1.5 billion Trump family golf resort, compressing an approval process that normally takes more than two years into three months, and a provincial government letter explained why: the project was "receiving special attention from the Trump administration and President Donald Trump personally." On July 2, 2025, Trump announced a trade deal cutting Vietnam's tariff from 46% to 20%. Saudi Arabia, the Trump Organization's premier foreign partner, followed the same pattern on a far larger scale. After Trump won the 2024 election, his company's partnership with Dar Global, a developer with close ties to the Saudi government, grew to roughly $10 billion in planned Trump-branded projects.

Trump then made Riyadh the first foreign trip of his second term, where he signed a $142 billion arms deal reversing the prior administration's pause on offensive weapons sales and announced the end of U.S. sanctions on Syria dating back to 1979, a reversal Saudi Arabia had long championed. When Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman later visited the White House, Trump insisted he "knew nothing" about the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, contradicting the CIA's own conclusion that he approved the operation that killed him. Vietnam and Saudi Arabia are not isolated cases. During Trump's second term, 23 new Trump-branded developments are planned, under construction, or opening in at least 10 foreign countries, including Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, India, Indonesia, Serbia, and Romania, and many of his business partners are foreign governments themselves or firms closely linked to them. One development sits on land owned by the government of Oman with a state tourism agency as a partner; another received a special economic zone designation from the government of Indonesia. In Trump's first year back in office, the Trump Organization's income from licensing his name to foreign developers surged to $59.5 million, after years of minimal international revenue, and his family took in roughly $300 million from Middle East deals in 2025 alone, including $263 million from the sale of half of Trump's stake in his crypto company, World Liberty Financial, to an entity backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE's national security adviser. While Trump determines U.S. foreign policy, millions are flowing from foreign investors, many backed by foreign governments, into his and his family's bank accounts.¹⁷⁷

4.4.A: Vietnam Deal & Immediate Changes to U.S. Policy

In September 2024, while Trump was campaigning for the presidency, the Trump Organization signed a deal with a Vietnamese developer to build Trump International Hung Yen, a $1.5 billion luxury resort complex. Then, in April 2025, President Trump threatened Vietnam with a crushing 46% tariff. Vietnam responded by bypassing its own laws to fast-track the Trump family's project, compressing an approval process that normally takes more than two years into three months. A Vietnamese provincial government letter explained that the fast-track was because the project was "receiving special attention from the Trump administration and President Donald Trump personally." At the groundbreaking on May 21, 2025, Vietnam's prime minister personally stood beside Eric Trump and pledged the project would "receive maximum support" to strengthen relations with the United States. Six weeks later, the payoff arrived. On July 2, 2025, Trump announced a trade deal slashing Vietnam's threatened tariff from 46% to 20%. The White House denied any connection, insisting the president's businesses sit in a blind trust run by his children, which is simply not true; as previously noted, there is no legal barrier that prevents the president from actively managing his business, and even if there were, the deal was international news of which the president was, no doubt, aware. In the final analysis, a foreign government broke its own rules to enrich the president's family while openly acknowledging it was doing so because of the president's personal interest in the project. Weeks later, that same foreign government received a dramatically better deal from the United States. Every government on Earth was watching, and the lesson was unmistakable.¹⁷⁸

4.4.B: Saudi Arabia Deal & Immediate Changes to U.S. Policy

The Trump Organization's premier foreign partner is Saudi Arabia. In July 2024, while Trump campaigned for the presidency, his company signed a deal for a luxury Trump Tower in Jeddah with Dar Global, the international arm of a major Saudi developer with close ties to the Saudi government. After he won, the partnership exploded with roughly $10 billion in combined Trump-branded projects planned throughout the Kingdom, including a Trump Tower in Riyadh, Trump Plaza Jeddah, and a Trump International Golf Club outside Riyadh. Changes to U.S. policy came soon after the deals. President Trump chose Riyadh for the first foreign trip of his second term. He signed a $142 billion arms deal, reversing the prior administration's pause on offensive weapons sales imposed over Saudi Arabia's conduct in Yemen. He accepted a Saudi pledge of $600 billion in U.S. investments. Finally, he stunned the world by announcing the end of American sanctions on Syria, dating back to 1979. It was a dramatic reversal in U.S. policy that Saudi Arabia had long championed. Later, when Mohammed bin Salman visited the White House in November 2025, Trump publicly defended him against the CIA's own conclusion that he approved the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. He insisted the crown prince "knew nothing" about it. The pattern is the same as with Vietnam, but at a vastly larger scale: a foreign monarchy enriched the president's family with billions in deals, and the president repaid it with weapons, sanctions relief, and absolution for murder, despite the findings of our own intelligence agencies.¹⁷⁹

4.5: Exorbitant Gifts & Private Patronage from Foreign Nationals & Sovereigns

In May 2025, the government of Qatar gave Trump a luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet valued at roughly $400 million, by far the most extravagant gift ever bestowed on an American president by a foreign power. The president has since richly rewarded Qatar. In September 2025, he signed an executive order pledging that America will treat any attack on Qatar as "a threat to the peace and security of the United States," the first security guarantee of its kind ever extended by executive order rather than by treaty. Under an arrangement blessed by Attorney General Pam Bondi, herself a former paid lobbyist for Qatar, the jet was nominally donated to the Air Force but will go to Trump's presidential library foundation the moment he leaves office, while taxpayers foot the bill for the necessary security upgrades, which experts estimate could reach $1 billion.

Our Constitution was written to prevent exactly this. Its Foreign Emoluments Clause bars any officeholder from accepting "any present … of any kind whatever" from a foreign state without the consent of Congress, and the Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act allows officials to keep only gifts of minimal value from foreign governments. And the Qatari jet is just the start. During just two years of his first term, 20 foreign governments spent at least $7.8 million at Trump's properties, including more than $5.5 million from China. In his second term, as foreign governments have learned Trump's proclivities, the gifts have grown even more extravagant. Swiss executives came to the White House bearing a gold Rolex desk clock and an engraved gold bar; the following week, Switzerland's tariff was slashed from 39% to 15%. U.S. companies have learned as well. Apple CEO Tim Cook presented Trump with a custom glass plaque on a 24-karat gold base, and Trump immediately granted Apple a sweeping exemption from new import tariffs. Even FIFA, seeking his favor ahead of the 2026 World Cup, simply invented a "FIFA Peace Prize," giving the inaugural one to Trump. Meanwhile, Trump has ignored the law requiring these gifts to be disclosed. During his first term, he and his family failed to report at least 117 foreign gifts, some of which, including a $24,000 Saudi dagger, simply went missing. Yet when Democrats moved to condemn the jet, refuse taxpayer funding for it, and bar Trump from keeping it, GOP lawmakers blocked every effort. In the world's eyes, if not in fact, we have a president whose loyalty appears to be for sale. And we have a Republican Party that has betrayed the Constitution to protect him.¹⁸⁰

4.5.A: Qatar Gifts Trump a $400 Million Jet & GOP Lawmakers Do Nothing

In May 2025, the government of Qatar gave Trump by far the most extravagant gift ever bestowed on an American president by a foreign power. It was a luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet—a literal flying palace designed to be one of the most luxurious private aircraft in the world—valued at roughly $400 million. To put that in perspective, that is equal to the yearly expenditures of 5,000 average American families. The president has since richly rewarded Qatar. In September 2025, he signed an executive order guaranteeing Qatar's security, pledging that America will treat any attack on Qatar as "a threat to the peace and security of the United States." It is an extraordinary measure, the first explicit security guarantee of its kind extended by executive order rather than by treaty, and the first to any nation since the 1960 U.S.-Japan Security Treaty.

Weeks later, the administration announced that Qatar's air force would be allowed to build its own facility at a U.S. Air Force base in Idaho. The Trump administration has also exploited a loophole to ensure he does not part with the plane after his presidency. Under a legal arrangement blessed by Attorney General Pam Bondi, herself a former paid lobbyist for Qatar, the jet was nominally donated to the Air Force but will be transferred to Trump's presidential library foundation the moment he leaves office, placing it in his hands for life. The "free" gift has also come at a staggering cost to the American taxpayer. The Air Force told Congress that converting the plane into Air Force One would cost about $400 million. Experts put the true figure near $1 billion, and the Air Force quietly shifted $934 million out of America's nuclear missile modernization program while classifying the actual price tag. Nothing like this has ever happened in American history. Yet when Democratic lawmakers moved to condemn the gift, to refuse taxpayer funding for it, and to bar Trump from taking the jet with him when he leaves office, every GOP lawmaker repeatedly blocked every single effort. Trump's willingness to accept such an extravagant gift from a foreign sovereign, and GOP lawmakers' refusal to uphold our Constitution and laws, are making us a very different kind of country: a country that accepts open corruption.¹⁸¹

4.5.B: Trump's Failure to Report Gifts

4.6: Lobbyists Give Exorbitant Gifts to Conservative Justices

4.6.A: Over $4 Million in Gifts for Justice Thomas

We know about Justice Clarence Thomas's exorbitant gifts not because he reported them, as the law required, but because investigative journalists at ProPublica spent years piecing them together from flight records, yacht logs, and interviews. What they found was staggering. For over two decades, billionaire GOP megadonor Harlan Crow, who long funded conservative dark money groups and sat on the boards of conservative think tanks, showered Thomas in gifts. He took him on annual vacations aboard his 162-foot superyacht in destinations like Greece, Indonesia, and New Zealand; he treated him to flights on his private jet; and he comped Thomas's many stays at his exclusive Adirondack resort. A single Indonesia trip in 2019 would have cost Thomas more than $500,000 had he paid for it himself. Crow also purchased Thomas's mother's house in Savannah, letting her live there rent-free for 12 years, and paid roughly $6,000 a month in private school tuition for Thomas's grandnephew, whom he was raising. Thomas disclosed none of it. Nor did he disclose that another wealthy friend, Anthony Welters, loaned him $267,230 for a luxury motor coach and then simply forgave the debt. A Senate investigation found Thomas never repaid the principal and never reported the forgiven loan, raising serious questions about whether he violated federal tax law. In all, ProPublica documented 38 destination vacations, 26 private jet flights, a dozen VIP sporting event passes, and numerous luxury resort stays from a small circle of billionaires. The watchdog group Fix the Court tallied more than $4 million in gifts to Thomas over 20 years, more than the other eight justices combined and amounting to roughly 13 years of his judicial salary. Jeremy Fogel, a former federal judge who served for years on the judicial committee that reviews judges' financial disclosures, said the obvious: "In my career I don't remember ever seeing this degree of largesse given to anybody." A justice bathed in secret millions from political donors forfeits the very respect that is the source of our Supreme Court's legitimacy.¹⁸⁴

4.6.A.I: Ginni Thomas & Conflicts of Interest

The conflicts surrounding Justice Thomas extend to his wife, Ginni Thomas, a professional partisan activist. She founded Liberty Central, a political group launched with a secret $500,000 donation from Harlan Crow, and later ran a consulting firm serving conservative causes and interest groups. Her work has repeatedly intersected with partisan actors who have sought to influence our Supreme Court, including Leonard Leo, the co-chairman of the Federalist Society, a powerful organization that advocates for specific interpretations of our U.S. Constitution. In one now infamous episode, Mr. Leo directed Kellyanne Conway's polling firm to reroute a payment to Ginni Thomas through a nonprofit called the Judicial Education Project. His written instruction said there should be "no mention of Ginni, of course," indicating he was fully aware of the impropriety of a Supreme Court justice's wife being paid by an organization that seeks to reshape our entire federal judiciary. Months later, the Judicial Education Project filed a brief before the Supreme Court in a landmark voting rights case, and Justice Thomas fully participated. Ginni's activism reached its peak after the 2020 election. She exchanged 29 text messages with Trump's Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, urging him to overturn the election. She wrote, "save us from the left taking America down." She emailed 29 Arizona lawmakers and others in Wisconsin, pressing them—despite having no reliable evidence of fraud—to set aside the voters' choice and appoint Trump electors. Then, when the Supreme Court considered whether Trump's White House records, including Meadows' communications, could be turned over to the January 6th Committee, Justice Thomas refused to recuse himself and cast the lone dissenting vote to keep those records hidden. If a case where a justice's wife's own messages are at issue is not a conflict of interest, what is? He has also refused to recuse himself from every January 6th and election case since. Judges are required to step aside whenever their impartiality might reasonably be questioned. This kind of open, radical partisanship from the spouse of a sitting justice, and the justice's refusal to step aside from cases involving his own family, raise serious questions about the independence and ethics of our Supreme Court.¹⁸⁵

4.6.B: Justice Alito’s Gifts

Justice Thomas is not alone. In 2008, hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer flew Justice Samuel Alito to Alaska on his private jet for a luxury fishing vacation, staying at a lodge that charged more than $1,000 a night. Had Alito chartered the jet himself, the flight alone would have cost more than $100,000 one way. Over the years, Singer has poured more than $80 million into Republican political groups. He also chairs the

Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, and has long funded the conservative legal movement. Alito never reported the trip on his financial disclosures, which ethics experts called an apparent violation of federal law. Making matters worse, Singer's business appeared in at least 10 cases after the trip, including a 2014 showdown with the nation of Argentina over defaulted debt. Alito did not recuse himself. He joined the 7-1 ruling in Singer's favor, and Singer's fund ultimately collected $2.4 billion. This is not the only incident that raises questions about Justice Alito's ethics. In mid-January 2021, days after the January 6th attack, an upside-down American flag, a symbol carried by the rioters who breached the Capitol, flew outside Alito's Virginia home. At his New Jersey beach house, he later flew the "Appeal to Heaven" flag, another banner carried by the January 6th rioters. Alito claimed his wife flew the first flag and pled ignorance as to the second flag's meaning. Whatever the truth, judicial ethics rules are based on the appearance of impartiality, not merely actual impartiality, and he subsequently refused to recuse himself from the January 6th cases pending before the Court that very term, including Trump's immunity case. While none of this rises to the level of Justice Thomas's conduct, a justice who accepts secret luxury travel from a political megadonor, and allows divisively partisan flags to fly at his homes, is a justice who has failed to protect the reputation and independence of our highest court.¹⁸⁶

4.6.C: Justice Sotomayor's Book Sales & GOP Elite Double-Standard

Ethics concerns at the Supreme Court are not limited to conservative justices. In July 2023, the Associated Press reported that Justice Sonia Sotomayor's taxpayer-funded court staff had prodded colleges and libraries hosting her speaking events to buy copies of her books. When one college bought 250 copies of her children's book for a 1,000-person event, her aide wrote that this was "definitely not enough." Michigan State spent $110,000 on 11,000 copies of her memoir. Though not unusual for a justice, she has earned at least $3.7 million from her books since joining the Court. She also failed to recuse herself from cases involving her publisher. This was real and genuinely problematic conduct that mainstream outlets across the spectrum covered. But right-wing media, though quiet or defensive in the face of Alito and Thomas's scandals, presented themselves as the lone truth-tellers, claiming the mainstream media was ignoring the story, a story broken by the mainstream Associated Press. Fox News went on and on about Sotomayor's "skyrocketing" wealth, even quoting a claim that "the media ignores [Sotomayor] while attacking Justices Thomas and Alito," as though the Thomas and Alito scandals were media inventions. Though ultimately no excuse for Sotomayor's conduct, there are major differences between what she did and what Justice Thomas and Justice Alito did. Though right-wing viewers were never informed of relevant context, every recent justice sells books. Justice Barrett took a $2 million advance for her first book after joining the Court, and Justice Gorsuch also declined to recuse himself from a case involving his publisher. Most significantly, Sotomayor's income was earned from book sales and publicly disclosed on her annual filings, not secretly funneled to her by partisan activists, some of whom work tirelessly to influence Supreme Court decisions and others of whom have business before the Court. Unlike both Alito and Thomas, neither she nor her immediate family were engaged in brazen partisan activities. The scale and kind of conduct at issue are far less concerning to any reasonable observer. Regardless, GOP elites, lawmakers and media alike, refused to conduct this simple comparison. While they are never shy about applying principles to their enemies, those same principles disappear when it comes to their allies.¹⁸⁷

4.6.D: GOP Congress Blocks Ethics Rules for Supreme Court

Even if we believe the right-wing elite narrative that Sotomayor's conduct is remotely similar to Justice Thomas's and Alito's, our Congress can take steps to ensure that our Supreme Court justices act independently and ethically. And as a matter of fact, Democratic lawmakers have introduced legislation that would do that. The Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act would require the justices to adopt a binding code of conduct, create a process for investigating ethics complaints, tighten disclosure rules for gifts and travel, strengthen recusal standards, and force groups filing briefs before the Court to disclose who funds them. Notably, the bill applies to every justice equally, liberal and conservative alike. It would have covered Sotomayor's conduct just as it covers Thomas's and Alito's. Regardless, GOP lawmakers have killed it at every turn. When the Senate Judiciary Committee took up the bill in July 2023, Senator Lindsey Graham announced, "This bill is going nowhere. All of us are going to vote no," and every Republican did exactly that. The bill advanced out of committee but only to die on the Senate floor. When Democrats tried to pass it by unanimous consent in June 2024, GOP lawmakers again blocked it. In late 2023, the Supreme Court, under public pressure, did adopt its own code of conduct, but it contains no enforcement mechanism whatsoever. As Senator Durbin put it, the nine justices remain the only federal officials in America not bound by an enforceable code of conduct. Democrats reintroduced the ethics bill in May 2025, but not a single Republican has signed on. The conclusion is difficult to escape. GOP lawmakers apparently do not want our Supreme Court to be what our Framers intended: ethical, independent, and above partisan politics.¹⁸⁸

4.7: Economically Corrupt Pardons

4.7.A: Pardons for Trump’s Donors

The most direct evidence that clemency is for sale is the string of pardons Trump has granted to his own donors. One of the more shocking cases involves Trevor Milton, the founder of the fraudulent electric truck company Nikola. In one infamous episode, Nikola released a faked promotional video of its truck "driving" down a road, but what viewers could not see was that it had been towed to the top of a hill and was simply rolling downhill. Milton was convicted of securities and wire fraud for lying to investors about his technology. He was then sentenced to four years in prison and ordered to pay roughly $676 million in restitution to the shareholders he defrauded. But while out on bail pending his appeal, Milton and his wife donated more than $1.8 million to Trump's campaign effort less than a month before the 2024 election. Trump then pardoned him in March 2025 before Milton had served a day of his sentence. Even more disturbing, the restitution order went away, meaning Milton's victims will never see a penny of the money he stole from them. Then there is Paul Walczak, a Florida nursing home executive who withheld more than $10 million in taxes from the paychecks of his own employees, including hardworking nurses. Evidence presented in court demonstrated that he used more than $1 million of the money to purchase a yacht and fund luxury shopping sprees at Cartier and Bergdorf Goodman. He was sentenced to 18 months and ordered to repay $4.4 million. But just weeks after his mother attended a $1 million-per-person fundraising dinner at Mar-a-Lago, Trump pardoned him before he served a single day and, once again, before a dollar was paid back to his victims. These are not isolated cases. By June 2025, the House Judiciary Committee calculated that Trump's pardons had already wiped out more than $1.3 billion in restitution, forfeitures, and fines, much of it money owed directly to American victims.¹⁹⁰

4.7.B: Pardons for Business Associates

Trump has also pardoned the business associates of his family's own companies. The starkest example is Changpeng Zhao, the billionaire founder of Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange. In 2023, Zhao pleaded guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act after Binance failed to police money laundering on its platform. In other words, he allowed criminals, sanctioned entities, and terrorist groups to move money through the exchange. Binance paid a $4 billion settlement, one of the largest corporate penalties in American history, and Zhao personally paid a $50 million fine and served four months in prison. But that was before Zhao's company became indispensable to the Trump family. Binance donated the software code that helped launch World Liberty Financial's stablecoin, USD1. According to one source, the technology would not exist without Zhao's help. In May 2025, as previously mentioned, a $2 billion investment in Binance by an Abu Dhabi state fund was deliberately conducted in USD1, instantly transforming the Trump family's coin into one of the largest stablecoins in the world and generating an estimated $80 million a year in interest income. Zhao, meanwhile, was publicly seeking a pardon, and on October 21, 2025, Trump granted it. Elizabeth Oyer, the Justice Department's former pardon attorney, put it plainly: "The influence that money played in securing this pardon is unprecedented… This is absolutely not justice. This is corruption." And as discussed in Section 4.3.B, Zhao is not alone. Justin Sun, the single largest investor in the Trump family's crypto venture, saw his federal fraud case dismissed months after his investment. We not only allow a president to own and control businesses making billions while in office, but those businesses and their associates are, apparently, above the law.¹⁹¹

4.7.C: Pardons for Corrupt Politicians

Trump has also wielded the pardon power to erase the crimes of Republican politicians. One of the more egregious pardons in Trump's first term was for Congressman Chris Collins, who was convicted of insider trading but also happened to be the first member of Congress ever to endorse Trump. Perhaps the most bizarre of Trump's pardons was for New York Congressman George Santos. He was expelled from the House after prosecutors uncovered what they called a "mountain of lies, theft, and fraud." Then, in federal court, he pleaded guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, part of a scheme that included fake FEC filings and theft from his own campaign donors. Santos was sentenced to more than seven years, but after serving less than three months, Trump commuted his sentence. In a Truth Social post, Trump explained his reasoning, leaving no doubt about his priorities. He admitted Santos "was somewhat of a ‘rogue,’" but continued, "at least Santos had the Courage, Conviction, and Intelligence to ALWAYS VOTE REPUBLICAN!" Next, there was Michele Fiore, a Nevada Republican politician who raised more than $70,000 to build a statue honoring a Las Vegas police officer slain in the line of duty, but then spent the money on cosmetic surgery, rent, and her daughter's wedding. Convicted on six counts of wire fraud, she was pardoned by Trump before she was even sentenced. The list could go on. By one watchdog's count, Trump has now granted clemency to more than 20 corrupt politicians. The lesson his party has learned is unmistakable: loyalty is now the ultimate virtue, capable of blotting out the worst vices, including criminality itself.¹⁹²

4.7.D: Pardoned Frauds Strike Again, Defrauding Americans a 2nd Time

Not only is Trump pardoning his donors, business associates, and corrupt politicians so long as they are loyal—wiping out billions in money owed to American victims in the process—but the people he is pardoning are also committing new crimes, victimizing new Americans. Consider Eliyahu Weinstein, who was serving 24 years for a massive real estate Ponzi scheme when Trump commuted his sentence in January 2021. Weinstein promptly launched a new fraud, swindling investors out of roughly $35 million in a fake medical supplies and baby formula venture. In November 2025, he was sentenced to 37 years in federal prison and ordered to pay $44.3 million in restitution, leaving behind a second set of victims who would never have been harmed had he stayed behind bars where he belonged. Or consider Jonathan Braun, a predatory lender whose 10-year sentence Trump commuted on his final day in office in 2021. Braun has since been found guilty of a string of new offenses, including menacing, forcible touching, and sexual abuse, and was sent back to prison in November 2025. Among the more than 1,500 pardoned January 6th offenders, more than a dozen have already been charged with new crimes, ranging from child exploitation to fatal drunk driving. Even George Santos could not stay out of trouble. Within months of his commutation, federal regulators were investigating him again, this time for manipulating a betting market about his own attendance at the 2026 State of the Union address, publicly lying about his plans while secretly trading on the outcome. He settled for $35,000 and a three-year trading ban. When criminals learn that loyalty buys freedom and crime carries no consequences, it is open season on the American people.¹⁹³

4.8: Rampant Insider Trading During 2nd Trump Administration

On March 23, 2026, in the 15 minutes before Trump posted that he was pausing planned strikes on Iran's energy infrastructure, roughly $500 to $580 million in oil futures, nine times the normal volume, changed hands, along with a highly unusual $1.5 billion in S&P 500 futures. After the announcement, oil prices immediately fell, a windfall for anyone who had bet on that drop. Other anomalous trades have appeared on Polymarket, a prediction betting platform, where anonymous accounts have cashed in on prescient bets about government actions that seem impossible to predict, including the U.S. strike on Iran and the capture of Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro. While no one has been charged, the tips clearly seem to be coming from inside Trump's government. Meanwhile, Trump himself has engaged in conduct once unthinkable. In April 2025, hours before abruptly pausing his own global tariffs, Trump posted, "THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!" When the pause was announced, the S&P 500 jumped 9.5%.

Trump's accounts, which nothing prevents him from directing, made more than 21,000 transactions in 2025 alone, several of them highly suspicious. Just one week before his Commerce Department relaxed export rules and approved chip sales to China, Trump's accounts purchased up to $1 million in Nvidia stock. He has also used his social media to promote stocks his accounts have bought, becoming the first president ever to tout a stock by its ticker symbol. And in August 2026, Trump's own media company began selling institutional investors early access to his market-moving posts for up to $100,000 a month. Though insider trading—the buying or selling of stock based on material, nonpublic information—has long been a problem in Washington, it has grown dramatically worse since Trump's reelection. The STOCK Act of 2012 affirmed that insider trading laws apply to lawmakers, but the law is toothless: violating its disclosure rules carries only a $200 fine, no member has ever been prosecuted under it, and any prosecution now depends on a Justice Department run by Trump's former criminal defense lawyer. The latest effort to strengthen the rules was the Stop Insider Trading Act of 2026, and GOP elites are quick to point out that nearly every Democrat voted against it. But what they do not mention is that it exempted the president, who is now the center of concern. Even more problematic, GOP lawmakers tied it to voter ID requirements, a textbook poison pill that doomed the legislation. With Trump in the presidency and Republicans in charge of Congress, the system is, like never before, being rigged. Those who already have an advantage gain still more, while the average American is dealt a losing hand.¹⁹⁴

4.8.A: Clear Indications Trump & His Allies are Engaging in Insider Trading

Rather than using a traditional blind trust managed entirely by an independent fiduciary, like other presidents in recent history, Trump's assets are held in a trust managed by his children, with whom he communicates regularly. What's more, Trump's federal financial disclosures revealed he engaged in more than 21,000 transactions in 2025 alone. That is more than 57 transactions a day, which is completely unprecedented, dwarfing the trades of any other modern president. But it is not just the magnitude of his trades, nor his ability to direct them—there are also numerous, highly suspicious trades that clearly benefited from subsequent changes to U.S. policy and/or announcements. Trump's accounts purchased large amounts of Palantir stock just weeks before substantial government contracts were awarded to the firm. Trump's accounts also purchased up to $1 million in Nvidia stock in early January 2026, just one week before his Commerce Department relaxed export rules and approved chip sales to China, the single largest semiconductor market in the world. On July 23, 2025, the same day the White House unveiled its AI Action Plan, Trump's accounts invested millions in major tech companies. Examples of potential Trump insider trading could be multiplied, but the pattern also extends to his allies. On April 8 and 9, 2025, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was then still a close Trump ally, bought up to $315,000 in stocks. Her timing was immaculate, just before Trump announced his tariff pause and stocks soared, netting her at least $50,000 in quick profits. In July 2026, the CEO of Energy Fuels, a uranium mining company, made the largest insider stock purchase in his company's history, increasing his stake by 41%. The company's chairman bought shares the next day. Five days later, Trump announced he was shrinking Bears Ears National Monument by more than 90%, opening nearly three million acres to mining, including uranium-rich districts Energy Fuels had targeted for years. The company, which employs a former Trump Interior official as its lobbyist, is now under congressional investigation, with lawmakers concluding that the timing indicates "nonpublic information was potentially available" to both executives. While members of Congress have long been suspected of insider trading, no other president has been implicated in facilitating and participating in insider trading at all, let alone at this stunning magnitude.¹⁹⁵

4.8.B: Insider Future and Polymarket Trading During 2nd Trump Administration

In addition to purchases of specific companies just prior to major announcements, there have also been well-timed oil futures trades and prediction market wagers ahead of major policy shifts. In February 2026, six Polymarket accounts, set up through anonymous crypto wallets, collectively made roughly $1.2 million by betting, hours before it happened, that the United States would strike Iran. Weeks earlier, another anonymous Polymarket user had made more than $400,000 betting that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro would be captured, a wager placed shortly before U.S. forces did exactly that. The pattern escalated dramatically as the Iran war unfolded. On March 23, 2026, roughly $500 to $580 million in oil futures, which is nine times the normal trading volume, along with a highly unusual $1.5 billion in S&P 500 futures, changed hands in the 15 minutes before Trump posted on Truth Social that the U.S. and Iran had held "productive conversations" and that he was pausing planned strikes on Iran's energy infrastructure. Oil prices immediately fell. Then, on April 7, 2026, traders placed an approximately $950 million bet that oil prices would fall, mere hours before Trump announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran; oil prices then fell roughly 15%. Separately, one Polymarket trader was found to have won more than 93% of dozens of five-figure wagers on Iran-related military developments, an implausible success rate for predicting unannounced government action. Representative Ritchie Torres called the trading "potentially the largest instance of insider trading in history" and demanded that the SEC and CFTC investigate. Even Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman, not known for hyperbole, wrote that exploiting confidential national security information for personal profit goes by "another word: treason." While no individual has been identified or charged, these tips clearly seem to be coming from high-ranking officials in Trump's executive branch.¹⁹⁶

4.8.C: Monetizing Truth Social Posts & Posting to Manipulate Markets

In August 2026, Trump Media launched "Truth API," a subscription service offering institutional investors early access to Trump's Truth Social posts for up to $100,000 a month. The sales pitch explicitly recognizes that Trump's posts move markets. For high-frequency trading firms, receiving those posts even milliseconds early is worth millions. As the largest shareholder of Trump Media, Trump is directly profiting off the inside benefit his statements inherently convey to financial elites at the expense of ordinary Americans on the other side of those trades. One current Wall Street executive summed up the situation: "In another administration, this would be considered criminal." Senators Warren and Schiff demanded an SEC investigation, calling the service "an outrageous abuse of the President’s office," and litigation over the scheme has already begun. Beyond selling his posts, Trump has also been using them to pump his own portfolio. In April 2026, weeks after his accounts bought Palantir stock, Trump became the first president ever to tout a stock by its ticker symbol, posting that "Palantir Technologies (PLTR) has great war fighting capabilities," reversing the stock's 16% freefall within minutes. A congressional investigation has documented the same buy-then-promote pattern repeatedly. He bought Dell stock, then told a Georgia audience to "Go out and buy a Dell Computer." He bought Intel, then posted "Intel Stock continues to rise. I’m very proud of that Company"; then shares jumped 3%. He bought Micron for weeks, then went on Fox News to declare it "one of the hottest companies." While presidents once avoided even the appearance of improperly influencing markets, Trump is promoting his own portfolio and turning elite manipulation of markets at the expense of average investors into business as usual.¹⁹⁷

4.8.D: Congressional Attempts to End Insider Trading

As previously noted, both Democratic and Republican lawmakers have long been suspected of reaping ill-gotten financial gains from inside information, but under the second Trump administration, the breadth and depth of the problem have increased dramatically. Over the years, there have been valiant attempts to craft legislation that would end the manipulation of inside information and return faith to our government. Some bills were designed to strengthen transparency and enforcement. Others would have banned government officials and their families from trading stocks or using prediction markets at all. Historically speaking, Democratic lawmakers have been far more supportive of these reforms, but leadership in both parties, at one time or another, has prevented them from becoming law. The latest effort was the Stop Insider Trading Act of 2026, and GOP elites are quick to point out that nearly every Democrat voted against it. But what they do not mention is that it exempted the president, who is now the center of concern, and allowed lawmakers to keep their existing portfolios without putting their financial assets into a blind trust. It only prevents them from adding to their portfolios while in office. But even more concerning, GOP lawmakers tied it to voter ID requirements that Democrats have long opposed. It was a textbook poison pill that doomed the legislation in the Senate while still providing GOP lawmakers a dishonest narrative that Democrats were to blame.¹⁹⁸

4.9: Exploiting Public Office to Market & Sell Goods for Private Profit

In March 2025, Trump turned the White House South Lawn into a car lot, lining up Tesla models and declaring, "I’m going to buy [a Tesla] because, number one, it’s a great product," while Tesla's CEO, Elon Musk, was serving as a special government employee, overseeing cuts to departments in which his businesses held massive contracts. Never in America's 250-year history has the office of the presidency doubled as a

sales platform, until Trump. In June 2025, the Trump Organization, owned by the man who appoints the nation's telecommunications regulators, launched Trump Mobile, selling a $499 gold-colored smartphone and a wireless plan priced at $47.45 a month, a nod to his two presidencies. In July 2025, as the GOP-controlled Senate passed cuts to food assistance and Medicaid, Trump was promoting his new $249 fragrance line, "Victory 45-47," its bottle topped with a golden statue of Trump himself. Trump also sold $60 God Bless the USA Bibles that earned him $1.3 million in royalties, and Trump watches brought in $2.8 million one year and $4.7 million the next. He has sold sneakers, a "45"-branded guitar, digital trading cards, and a coffee-table book, to name only a few items. Even "Trump 2028" hats, promoting a third term the Constitution forbids, are sold not through his campaign, but through the Trump Organization website. Ethics experts and legal scholars have frequently warned against treating the presidency as a commercial venture. In the words of Nick Penniman, founder of the cross-partisan reform group Issue One, Trump's "unprecedented disregard for the ethical responsibilities that come with being a public official degrades the office of the presidency and raises significant concerns about the threat of corruption." The highest public office in our nation has been reduced to a marketing ploy.¹⁹⁹

4.10: Major Corruption Scandals Involving GOP Political Elites & GOP Obstruction 

In 2025, as DHS secretary, Kristi Noem fast-tracked a $220 million taxpayer-funded advertising campaign starring herself, including an ad, filmed during a government shutdown, of Noem on horseback at Mount Rushmore. Bypassing competitive bidding, DHS awarded $143 million

in no-bid contracts to Safe America Media, a company run by operatives from Trump's 2024 campaign that had been incorporated just 11 days before the government's solicitation and had no office, no website, and no history of federal work. It kept $15.2 million as its commission. In Florida, $10 million of a $67 million settlement from Centene, the state's largest Medicaid contractor, over charges that it had defrauded the program, went not back to taxpayers but to a charity championed by Governor Ron DeSantis' wife, which then moved $8.5 million to a political committee chaired by DeSantis' chief of staff, James Uthmeier. The Republican lawmaker who led the state House investigation concluded that Uthmeier and the charity's attorney had "engaged in a conspiracy to commit money laundering and wire fraud." DeSantis then made Uthmeier Florida's attorney general, and in February 2026, Pam Bondi's Justice Department, according to Uthmeier, dropped the case without explanation. These are not isolated incidents. Trump's own national security adviser, campaign chairman, chief strategist, personal attorney, and longtime political adviser were all charged with crimes during and after his first term, and most were convicted. In all, 59 people, including Trump himself, faced criminal charges across four states for efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and 15 others in Trump's orbit were charged with an assortment of other crimes; most were convicted or pleaded guilty, and many were later pardoned by Trump. The Obama administration, by contrast, produced just one guilty plea, and the Biden administration not a single indictment. Now, with Trump's personal attorneys running our DOJ, GOP lawmakers refusing to act as a check on their own party, and inspectors general fired and politicized, there are serious concerns that GOP elites will no longer face federal investigations at all. Trump, it appears, is not the only GOP elite cashing in on his administration.²⁰⁰

4.10.A: Ron DeSantis’ Medicaid Scandal

In 2024, Hope Florida Foundation—the fundraising arm of a welfare initiative championed by Ron DeSantis' wife, Casey DeSantis—received $10 million from Centene, Florida's largest Medicaid contractor. The payment was part of a highly unusual settlement between Centene and the State of Florida, based on charges that Centene had defrauded Florida's Medicaid program. Typically, when a company defrauds state taxpayers, settlement funds go back to the state, not the governor's wife's non-profit. But the scandal did not end there. Through a series of transactions, the Foundation ultimately transferred $8.5 million in funds to a political committee called Keep Florida Clean, a PAC chaired by James Uthmeier, then Governor DeSantis' chief of staff. In brief, money taken from poor and sick Floridians ended up in a political operation run by the governor's top aide. The Republican lawmaker who led the state House investigation concluded that Uthmeier and the Foundation's attorney had "engaged in a conspiracy to commit money laundering and wire fraud." Regardless, Governor DeSantis named Uthmeier, the man at the center of the scheme, Florida's new attorney general. Four former federal prosecutors publicly identified eight potential federal crimes, but in February 2026, Pam Bondi's Justice Department dropped the case without explanation or any charges filed. In the words of State Republican Representative Alex Andrade, who launched the probe, "I’m convinced that crimes occurred and I believe those engaged in public corruption should face justice." Unfortunately, the Trump administration has closed the door on such justice.²⁰¹

4.10.B: Kristi Noem’s Ad Corruption Scandal

In a brazen case of self-promotion, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem fast-tracked a $220 million taxpayer-funded advertising campaign in 2025, starring herself. One prominent ad, filmed during a government shutdown, featured Noem on horseback at Mount Rushmore. This single campaign more than doubled DHS's typical ad expenditures for an entire year. To make matters worse, the money did not move through normal channels. Citing an "urgent and compelling need," DHS bypassed the normal rules requiring competitive bidding. Of the $220 million, DHS awarded $143 million in no-bid contracts to a company called Safe America Media, which had been incorporated just 11 days before the government's initial solicitation. It had no office, no website, and no history of federal government work and was run by political operatives from Trump's 2024 campaign. It kept $15.2 million of the taxpayers' money as its commission. A second firm, co-founded by a Trump campaign veteran, handled the campaign's international ads and kept another $7.7 million in commissions. A third firm, which had worked on Noem's own campaign for governor, was subcontracted to produce the Mount Rushmore ad and was paid $286,137, including a $60,000 "signing bonus," $20,000 in horse rentals, and nearly $4,000 for hair and makeup. To put that in perspective, a typical professionally produced commercial costs between $15,000 and $50,000 to shoot. Congressman Joe Neguse, whose questioning helped expose the scheme, called it "wholesale corruption." He added, "It is fraud, and ultimately, I think there's going to be accountability." So far, there has been none. American taxpayer dollars are being siphoned off to political allies, and the Trump DOJ is apparently doing nothing about it.²⁰²

4.10.C: Miscellaneous Corruption Throughout Trump Administration

Scandals can be found in numerous departments throughout the Trump executive branch, in both terms. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt rented a Capitol Hill condo for just $50 a night from the wife of a lobbyist whose clients had business before his agency and then falsely denied the

conflict. He also spent $43,000 in taxpayer money on a soundproof phone booth for his office, flew first class at public expense, and brought his security detail on personal trips, including to Disneyland. Facing more than a dozen federal probes, he resigned in 2018. While serving as our interior secretary, Ryan Zinke pursued a land development deal in his Montana hometown with developers backed by the chairman of Halliburton, an oil services giant regulated by his own department. The inspector general found that Zinke misused his position and "knowingly provided incorrect, incomplete, and misleading answers" to federal investigators, but the Justice Department declined to prosecute. In Trump's second term, DHS has spent roughly $200 million, much of it diverted from the Coast Guard, on a fleet of luxury Gulfstream jets and Boeing 737s, including a VIP model with a bedroom and shower, which Senate investigators describe as "an in-house private jet service for Trump Administration officials." Examples could be multiplied. Corruption is contagious, and so long as Trump remains president, the GOP runs Congress, and our inspectors general are undermined and politicized, consequences will be rare.²⁰³

4.11: Major Democrat Scandals & GOP Elites’ Double-Standard

4.11.A: Serious Democrat Corruption & Real Consequences

Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey took bribes—gold bars and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, much of it found stuffed in envelopes and closets in his home—in exchange for using his office to benefit Egypt and businessmen in his orbit. The day he was indicted, Democrats stripped him of his chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. When a jury convicted him on all counts in July 2024, his fellow Democratic senators publicly demanded he resign or be expelled, and within weeks he was gone. A Democratic administration's Justice Department prosecuted him, and he was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison. Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was caught on tape trying to sell Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat: "I’ve got this thing, and it’s f---ing golden. And I’m just not giving it up for f---ing nothing." Within weeks, the Democratic-controlled Illinois legislature impeached and removed him, and he was sentenced to 14 years. Finally, there is Congressman William Jefferson of Louisiana. The FBI caught him with $90,000 in bribe money hidden in his freezer. Before Jefferson had even been charged, Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi demanded his removal from the powerful Ways and Means Committee, declaring, "This is not about a court of law. This is about a higher ethical standard." He was convicted and sentenced to 13 years. The pattern is clear. In every case, the wrongdoer's own party stripped him of power, the mainstream media covered the scandal relentlessly, and prosecutors, under administrations of both parties, pursued the case to conviction. That is what accountability looks like. And not until Trump came along would this kind of blatant corruption ever conceivably be excused. In 2020, Trump commuted Blagojevich's sentence, and then, in 2025, gave him a full pardon, calling him "a nice man." Currently, Bob Menendez, though sentenced and disgraced, is publicly praising Trump in the hopes that Trump will give him, like other corrupt politicians, a pardon.²⁰⁵

4.11.B: Clinton Foundation Scandal & GOP Elite Propaganda

The Clinton Foundation scandal is the prototypical gray-area case. The Foundation, a global charity run by the Clinton family, accepted hundreds of millions of dollars in donations—including from foreign governments and wealthy individuals with interests before the U.S. government—and all while Hillary Clinton served as secretary of state. It raised legitimate concerns that she might be selling donors ill-gotten access. In 2016, the mainstream Associated Press analyzed Clinton's State Department calendars and found that 85 of 154 private-sector individuals who met with her had donated to the Foundation, contributing a combined $156 million. The mainstream New York Times aggressively covered the Foundation's foreign donations, and every major network reported the story. Under the Obama administration, the FBI initiated an official investigation. Still, there was no smoking gun, no evidence that Hillary traded U.S. policy for donations. Regardless, Trump—who would later be proven a felon and fraud on multiple levels—led his followers in a chant, "lock her up," at rallies across America. Fox News pushed the story relentlessly for years, while almost never mentioning that the money went to an actual charity and that neither of the Clintons took a salary or directly profited from it. The signature right-wing elite accusation—that Clinton approved the sale of American uranium to Russia in exchange for donations—collapsed under the most basic scrutiny, but right-wing elites continued to push the story relentlessly, simply omitting that Hillary Clinton did not have control over the final approval of the sale. One rare exception was Fox News' Shepard Smith. He told viewers on air that the accusations were "inaccurate in a number of ways," but the Fox audience, conditioned by the repetition of a flawed narrative, responded by demanding he be fired. Once Trump came to office, he turned the ongoing investigation into a public vendetta, pressuring his Justice Department to assign U.S. Attorney John Huber to review the Clinton Foundation while cheering on the effort. After roughly two years, the investigation quietly ended, having "found nothing of consequence." No charges were ever filed, yet right-wing elites still periodically mention the Clinton Foundation as the paradigm of corruption, fostering an information ecosystem in which flawed tribal narratives take precedence over the truth.²⁰⁶

4.11.C: Hunter Biden Scandal & GOP Elite Propaganda 

The Hunter Biden scandal begins with facts nobody disputes. In 2014, while his father was vice president and overseeing U.S. policy toward Ukraine, Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company. He was paid $83,333 a month, despite having no experience in energy or Ukraine. He was clearly a "ceremonial figure" hired for his "powerful name." He also pursued other lucrative foreign deals, in China and elsewhere, that plainly traded on his family connections. This raised serious and legitimate corruption concerns that the vice president's son, though not himself a government official, was selling access to the U.S. government. Mainstream outlets covered those concerns extensively. But concern is not the same thing as proof. Regardless, GOP elites coined the term "the Biden crime family," repeating it to their viewers incessantly, as though it were an open-and-shut case. House Republicans opened what was, at first, a legitimate investigation into the Biden family. Though they found no conclusive evidence of actual corruption, they kept it going for years,

even starting a formal impeachment inquiry. Despite the lack of evidence, they repeatedly presented their unremarkable findings as though they were conclusive proof. For example, Congressman James Comer unabashedly pushed the claim of an FBI informant, Alexander Smirnov, that Burisma had paid Joe and Hunter Biden $5 million each in bribes. He referred to Mr. Smirnov as "trusted and highly credible," but in reality, Smirnov was indicted for fabricating the entire story, pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to six years in prison. Eventually, the impeachment inquiry quietly came to an end, having uncovered "no direct evidence" that Joe Biden committed any crime. Meanwhile, a special counsel—David Weiss, a Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney retained by Biden's own Justice Department—prosecuted Hunter without restraint. He was convicted of three felony gun charges and pleaded guilty to nine tax offenses, but none of it involved public corruption beyond selling the illusion of access. There was no bribery, no foreign-agent violations, and nothing connecting Joe Biden at all. Perhaps the only thing approaching public corruption that came out of the entire saga was President Biden's decision to later pardon his son from future criminal probes, but given Trump's ongoing weaponization of our DOJ, as outlined in Section 3.3, even this now seems less like corruption than prescient pragmatism. Despite exhaustive special counsel and congressional investigations, and despite Trump being conclusively determined a felon and fraud after full due process in U.S. courts, right-wing elites still continuously refer to "the Biden crime family." They present a faulty narrative to millions of Americans as proven fact, undermining the sense of shared truth that is essential to American democracy.²⁰⁷

4.11.C.I: Hunter Biden’s Laptop

One of right-wing elites' favorite tools for promoting the narrative that mainstream media is biased concerns Hunter Biden's laptop. As we all know today, the laptop was legitimate and contained compromising and embarrassing information. But its legitimacy was not always clear. Rudy Giuliani was the source of the story, and he was a Trump loyalist then at the center of the effort to dig up dirt on the Bidens in Ukraine. Soon after, he would push unfounded election fraud claims, and a U.S. jury would find him civilly liable, ordering him to pay $148 million for lying about Georgia election workers. There was also a group of 51 former intelligence officials who signed a letter declaring the story had "all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation," though they conceded they had no actual evidence of Russian involvement. Given that Russia had, just four years earlier, systematically interfered with a U.S. election, it was not outside the realm of reason for media outlets to take that concern seriously. Upon the initial release of the contents of Hunter's laptop, the New York Post and other right-wing media ran with the story, but many mainstream outlets hesitated or refused to consider it. Twitter blocked links to the story under its hacked-materials policy but backtracked within a day, though the Post's account did remain locked for roughly two weeks. Later, Twitter's CEO Jack Dorsey would admit the company had made a mistake. Facebook also throttled the story's reach, but that only lasted approximately five to seven days, before it also reversed its decision. Eventually, major mainstream outlets confirmed the laptop's authenticity and reported on it. In the final analysis, the story fell in a gray area; though it could be characterized as a mainstream media failure in some limited respects, that characterization is far from obvious. In comparison, right-wing media engages in a near permanent blackout when it comes to Trump's repeated, verified scandals, though he is an actual sitting president, rather than a private citizen, as was Hunter. They either refuse to report Trump's conduct or actively dismiss it, not because of a lack of corroboration or legitimate doubts, but because it undermines the tribal narrative they sell their viewers.²⁰⁸

4.12: GOP Political Elites Enable Corruption

In May 2025, Democrats introduced a resolution declaring that Trump's acceptance of a $400 million jet from the government of Qatar without congressional approval violated the Constitution, which plainly prohibits any gift from a foreign state "of any kind whatever." Senate Republicans blocked it. That kind of maneuvering is what has made the corruption documented throughout this section possible. GOP political elites are not merely tolerating Trump's corruption; they are actively enabling it. Only Congress can enforce the Constitution's Emoluments Clauses, and GOP lawmakers' refusal to act has essentially nullified them. When roughly 200 members of Congress sued Trump in 2017 for accepting foreign government money, not a single Republican joined, and the courts dismissed the suit because only Congress as an institution can act. GOP lawmakers have also blocked oversight at every turn. During Trump's first term alone, Republicans on the House Oversight Committee voted down 64 Democratic motions for subpoenas and testimony, and they have since tabled a motion to subpoena Jared Kushner over his $2 billion Saudi windfall. They have even rewritten the rules, handing unilateral subpoena power to committee chairs, so the minority cannot issue subpoenas or even force a vote on them. And for decades, GOP elites have blocked campaign finance reform, the one measure that could stop financial corruption at its root and discourage corrupt people from seeking office. GOP senators have repeatedly filibustered the DISCLOSE Act, which would simply require dark money groups to reveal donors who give more than $10,000. In the last Senate vote, not a single Republican supported it. At the very moment corruption is becoming institutionalized in the Trump administration, GOP political elites are bending over backwards to dismantle the checks and balances designed to stop it.²⁰⁹

4.12.A: GOP Lawmakers Refuse to Enforce Emoluments Clauses

The Foreign and Domestic Emoluments Clauses are based in commonsense prohibitions that leave nothing to the imagination. The Foreign Emoluments Clause provides, in plain language, that no federal officeholder may accept "any present… of any kind whatever" from any foreign state without the consent of Congress. Its obvious purpose is to ensure that American officials are not beholden to a foreign power. The Domestic Emoluments Clause provides that the President "shall not receive… any" benefit from federal or state governments, beyond salary, during his term. Its obvious purpose is to stop a president from using his power over the federal government to enrich himself. It is well documented that Trump has received exorbitant gifts from foreign governments and frequently received additional benefits from the federal government's use of his properties. Unfortunately, the sole enforcement mechanism of both Clauses is Congress, and GOP lawmakers have spent a decade making sure that does not happen. In 2017, roughly 200 members of Congress sued Trump for accepting foreign government money without seeking congressional consent, and not a single Republican joined the suit. The courts dismissed the case, ruling individual members lack standing and only Congress as an institution can enforce the Clause. In other words, the GOP majority's refusal to do its constitutional duty served as a shield to protect Trump from accountability. The obstruction did not stop there. That same year, Democrats repeatedly introduced amendments to bills that would have barred federal funds from being spent at Trump's own hotels and businesses, but the Republican-run Rules Committee blocked them from even receiving a vote. Finally, in Trump's second term, as exorbitant sums of foreign money poured into his bank accounts, GOP lawmakers became even more obstinate. In May 2025, as Trump prepared to accept Qatar's $400 million jet, Senate Republicans blocked a resolution that would have authorized the Senate to compel compliance with the Foreign Emoluments Clause. Going on a decade, GOP lawmakers have simply forsaken two of the clearest, most commonsense prohibitions in our Constitution, enabling a president to reap enormous private benefits from his office and providing a motivation for corrupt people to seek that office going forward.²¹⁰

4.12.B: GOP Lawmakers Block Democrat Subpoenas & Restructure Congress

Oversight of the executive is a core constitutional function of our U.S. Congress, and it depends upon its power to subpoena oral testimony and internal documents from the executive. While it is normal for the party in power to control the subpoena process to some extent, Democrats, even when holding the majority, have preserved the minority's role in oversight, allowing them to pursue and get subpoenas. The same cannot be said for GOP lawmakers. They have gutted the minority party's role in oversight, rendering them a nullity. During Trump's first term alone, Republicans on the House Oversight Committee voted down 64 separate Democratic motions for subpoenas and testimony concerning the repeated abuses of power and financial corruption documented throughout this section. The blocking has continued ever since, from tabling the motion to subpoena Jared Kushner over his $2 billion Saudi windfall to voting down efforts to compel testimony about private Middle East dealings that raise serious conflict issues. But blocking individual subpoenas is only part of the story. Long before Trump took office, GOP lawmakers had already changed the rules of the game itself. For decades, no committee chairman ever issued a subpoena unilaterally; doing so required either a committee vote or the minority's consent. GOP lawmakers simply put an end to that tradition—first through the Oversight chairmanship of Dan Burton, who unilaterally issued more than 1,000 subpoenas, 97% of them aimed at Democrats and the Clinton administration, and then, in 2015, by formally rewriting committee rules to hand unilateral subpoena power to the chairs of more than a dozen committees. The result is a Congress in which only the controlling party can conduct any meaningful oversight. Since Republicans hold the majority, only Republican chairmen can issue subpoenas. The minority cannot issue them or compel a vote on them at all. And since GOP lawmakers, for all intents and purposes, refuse to conduct oversight of anyone in their party, there currently is no executive oversight. In other words, not only have GOP lawmakers forsaken their constitutional responsibility to conduct oversight, but they have stripped Democrats of their ability to do so as well, redesigning the rules of Congress to achieve it.²¹¹

4.12.C: GOP Lawmakers and Conservative Justices Prevent Traditional Campaign Finance Reform

Most Americans have long believed that special interests, not their needs and desires, drive our political system. Polling shows 80% of U.S. adults think campaign donors have too much influence over how members of Congress vote, and 73% say the same of lobbyists and special interest groups. These are valid concerns, but what most Americans do not realize is that GOP lawmakers and conservative justices are actively preventing and dismantling reform. While early campaign finance laws were passed on a nominally bipartisan basis, even then GOP lawmakers were far more likely to vote against them. When the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law passed in 2002, House Republicans voted against it 176 to 41 and Senate Republicans 38 to 11, while Democrats in both chambers voted overwhelmingly for it. Since then, GOP opposition has hardened into a unified bloc, voting down even the simplest reforms. The DISCLOSE Act, first introduced in 2010, would do nothing more than require dark money groups to reveal their donors who give more than $10,000, but GOP senators have filibustered it repeatedly. In the last Senate vote, in 2022, not a single Republican supported it. In 2021, the For the People Act passed the House without a single Republican vote, and GOP senators filibustered it too.

But even if GOP lawmakers got on board with reform, which history has shown to be highly unlikely, the Supreme Court has routinely gutted the campaign finance laws that did pass. In Buckley v. Valeo in 1976, the Court allowed for unlimited campaign expenditures from wealthy individuals, equating election spending, no matter how exorbitant, with protected free speech. In First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti in 1978, it extended that reasoning to corporate spending on ballot measures. Then, in Citizens United v. FEC in 2010, conservative justices opened the floodgates, ruling that corporations may spend unlimited money on our elections, whether a ballot initiative or not, giving birth to super PACs and dark money groups. During the next 15 years, outside spending more than quadrupled, significantly altering U.S. elections. But even then, the conservative justices were not done. In McCutcheon v. FEC in 2014, they struck down the cap on the total amount one donor may give to candidates and parties. In FEC v. Ted Cruz for Senate in 2022, they struck down the limit on using post-election donations to repay a winning candidate's personal loans. Finally, in National Republican Senatorial Committee v. FEC in 2026, they struck down the 50-year-old limits on coordinated spending between parties and candidates. Americans overwhelmingly want to reduce the role of money in our politics, but GOP lawmakers and conservative justices have ensured that our political system will remain awash in money, even dark money, the source of which cannot be traced. If there is a silver bullet that can stop the kind of financial corruption detailed throughout this section, it is campaign finance reform. It is money that attracts corrupt people to our political system, and it is the control of money that will get rid of them, making American politicians once again responsive to the needs and desires of the American people.²¹²

The First Amendment of our Bill of Rights guarantees the freedom of speech and the press. Through free and unfettered debate, we discover the truth, which is not decreed by those in power, but found in the marketplace of ideas. Freedom of speech is also the guardian of our other rights, which is why it stands first in our Bill of Rights. Without a voice, people cannot even begin to protect themselves from the immense power of the federal government. As Benjamin Franklin warned, "Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech." But protecting those rights requires more than lone individuals speaking their minds. It requires an institution powerful enough to stand up to our government. It requires a free and independent press, which James Madison called "one of the great bulwarks of liberty." Without freedom of speech and press, the truth is whatever the powerful decide, our rights are compromised, and democratic self-governance cannot survive.²¹³

5.1: Silencing Individuals

The second Trump administration is attacking the free speech of ordinary American citizens and visa holders in ways and to a degree unprecedented in modern American history. In the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk tragedy, top-ranking officials openly urged Americans to report critics to their employers, launching a purge that would eventually affect more than 600 Americans in at least 45 states. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr went so far as to threaten ABC with retaliatory action if it did not punish Jimmy Kimmel, and within hours, ABC suspended him, only

reversing course days later. In September 2025, Trump designated "Antifa" a domestic terrorist organization and directed the federal counterterrorism apparatus to target it; among the supposed warning signs were broad sentiments, including "anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity," turning unpopular but still core political speech into a federal law enforcement target. Later that month, he assembled hundreds of the nation's generals and admirals at Quantico and told them the military, going forward, would be used against "the enemy from within," suggesting American cities would serve as "training grounds" for troops. Given that active-duty Marines and National Guard troops had already been deployed against largely peaceful protests in American cities over the objections of their governors and mayors, his rhetoric should not have been a surprise. The courts repeatedly determined these deployments illegal, but the Trump administration was not deterred, using the same justifications to deploy troops in different jurisdictions, always Democratic-run, always sparing Republican cities with worse crime rates. Meanwhile, masked plainclothes immigration agents were arresting students, shuttling them away in unmarked vans, jailing them, and seeking to deport them over op-eds, social media posts, and participation in peaceful protests. Trump has even ordered his attorney general to "vigorously prosecute" flag burners, despite settled, 37-year-old Supreme Court precedent, as though the Constitution were his to rewrite by decree. And beneath every one of these individual attacks runs something broader and more corrosive still: the wholesale weaponization and politicization of the federal government itself—purged FBI agents, fired inspectors general, funds withheld from Democratic-run states—engineered to send every American the same unmistakable message: only people with conservative viewpoints are safe, and only they are welcome in our government. To kill our free speech rights, our government does not need to jail every dissenter. It only needs to threaten to punish, or actually punish, enough people to make the rest of us feel like silence is the only practical option. Once average Americans are afraid to speak, there is no marketplace of ideas, no check on those in power, and no means for assuring that our other rights remain protected.²¹⁴

5.1.A: Post Charlie-Kirk Speech Purge

On September 10, 2025, conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated while speaking at Utah Valley University. It was a tragedy involving a provocative right-wing political activist. For some Americans, he was a hero who promoted conservative values and challenged "woke" orthodoxy. For others, he was a divisive and hateful figure whose rhetoric caused more harm than good. In the days after his death, many of his critics—some thoughtfully and some callously—spoke their minds. While some of the

responses were in poor taste and cruel, it was all protected First Amendment speech that Kirk himself, an outspoken critic of cancel culture, had long championed. Regardless, right-wing elites responded not with speech of their own, but with calls for revenge via the power of the state and private institutions. Vice President J.D. Vance, guest-hosting Kirk's podcast, urged listeners to "call them out, and, hell, call their employer." Defense Secretary Hegseth announced the Pentagon was "tracking" service members who mocked Kirk's death and would address it "immediately." Florida's education commissioner vowed to investigate "every educator who engages in this vile, sanctionable behavior," and Oklahoma's school superintendent promised to revoke teaching licenses. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr threatened retaliatory action against ABC if it did not punish Jimmy Kimmel for a particularly innocuous comment he made in his monologue, and Kimmel was in fact suspended within hours. A Reuters investigation documented more than 600 Americans across at least 45 states who were fired, suspended, or otherwise punished for what they said about Kirk, including more than 350 teachers, professors, and other education workers, along with soldiers, nurses, police officers, and private employees. The First Amendment does not exist to protect polite speech. As Justice Alito wrote for a unanimous Supreme Court, "the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express ‘the thought that we hate.’" When GOP elites punish those who engage in speech they don't like, they have abandoned that sacred principle.²¹⁵

5.1.B: Officially Labelling the Opposition Terrorism

The second Trump administration has officially branded the opposition "terrorists," outlawing constitutionally protected opinions. On September 22, 2025, Trump signed an executive order designating "Antifa"—a loose anti-fascist movement with no formal membership or structure—a "domestic terrorist organization." Three days later, he signed a presidential memorandum directing the federal counterterrorism apparatus to investigate and disrupt what it called the "anti-fascism umbrella." Among the supposed warning signs of domestic terrorism was a laundry list of constitutionally protected opinions, including "anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity"; "extremism on migration, race, and gender"; and "hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality." In America, holding an opinion, even a highly unpopular opinion, is not terrorism. Federal law is explicit that domestic terrorism requires "acts dangerous to human life," not simply beliefs. Even if Trump's decree is eventually deemed unconstitutional, every American who holds one of the listed opinions must, in the meantime, weigh whether speaking, donating, or organizing is worth the risk of drawing the attention of a Joint Terrorism Task Force. The chilling effect on constitutionally protected free speech is obvious. The Supreme Court warned of exactly this danger more than 60 years ago, noting that the "threat of sanctions may deter" the exercise of our First Amendment rights almost as much "as the actual application of sanctions." The Court continued, "First Amendment freedoms need breathing space to survive."²¹⁶

5.1.C: Chilling Effect of Military Deployments

In September 2025, Trump assembled hundreds of generals and admirals at Quantico and told them the military would be used against "the enemy from within," suggesting American cities should serve as "training grounds" for our troops. This was no mere empty threat. As detailed in Section 1.6, the administration has deployed National Guard troops and active-duty Marines against protests in Los Angeles, Portland, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., over the objections of governors and mayors.

Repeatedly, the courts have found these deployments illegal. One federal judge ruled that the Los Angeles deployment violated the Posse Comitatus Act and warned that the administration's plans to repeat it in city after city would create "a national police force with the president as its chief." Another judge, appointed by Trump himself, permanently blocked the Portland deployment, finding "no credible evidence" of any rebellion and calling the president's justification "simply untethered to the facts." Rather than heeding these rulings, Trump has toyed with the idea of invoking the Insurrection Act, which would allow him to deploy active-duty military personnel to perform domestic law enforcement duties throughout America. The chilling effect these deployments and threats have on Americans' First Amendment rights is obvious. Americans who want to attend a protest must now weigh whether it is worth potentially coming face to face with the U.S. military. The First Amendment guarantees "the right of the people peaceably to assemble," and a right Americans are afraid to use is a right they no longer possess.²¹⁷

5.1.D: Targeting Free Speech Through Immigration Law

The second Trump administration has also turned immigration law into a weapon for policing speech. In March 2025, ICE agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate and lawful permanent resident, over his participation in peaceful campus protests. Weeks later, masked plainclothes agents surrounded Tufts doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk on a sidewalk and forced her into an unmarked van. Her offense was co-authoring an op-ed in the student newspaper that called for the university to divest from companies tied to Israel. Khalil was jailed for more than three months and ordered deported before federal courts intervened; Öztürk spent six weeks in a detention cell. These were the first of many arrests of students Secretary of State Marco Rubio has dubbed "lunatics" who are to be rounded up and deported under a new official policy called "Catch and Revoke." By August 2025, the State Department had revoked more than 6,000 student visas. And this targeting has not been limited to students. A French space researcher was turned away at the border after agents searched his phone and found messages criticizing Trump's science policies. An Australian writer was detained at Los Angeles International Airport, interrogated about his reporting on the Columbia campus protests, and put on a plane home. The State Department now requires visa applicants to open their social media accounts to government review, screening for "any indications of hostility towards the citizens, culture, government, institutions or founding principles of the United States." Among the red flags that can result in a rejection is a "history of political activism," which might as well be a history of engaging in protected free speech. The courts have recognized these policies for what they are. In September 2025, a federal judge appointed by Ronald Reagan ruled that the ideological-deportation campaign violates the First Amendment, whose protections, he emphasized, extend to citizens and noncitizens alike: "‘No law’ means ‘no law,’" he wrote, concluding "We are not, and must not become, a nation that imprisons and deports people because we are afraid of what they have to tell us."²¹⁸

5.1.E: Executive Order Targeting Protected Free Speech: Flag Burning

5.1.F: Chilling Effect of Weaponization & Politicization of the Federal Government

The greatest threat the second Trump administration poses to our First Amendment is not found in any specific attack on free speech or the press. Rather, it is the diffuse politicization of virtually every department and agency of our federal government, converting institutions that belong to all Americans into instruments of a single party with a single point of view. The pattern is manifest throughout this document. Kash Patel and Pam Bondi purged the FBI and DOJ of agents and prosecutors deemed insufficiently loyal. Trump, without providing cause, fired inspectors general responsible for policing his administration and preventing waste, fraud, and abuse. Hundreds of thousands of nonpartisan, career civil servants have left our government, many replaced with deeply partisan loyalists. The DOJ is now run by Trump's personal criminal and civil defense attorneys. Together with the FBI, they are targeting his perceived enemies on his orders. This administration has even begun rewriting tax and regulatory enforcement to punish enemies and show favoritism to allies. Mergers involving friendly companies are fast-tracked, while those involving perceived enemies are held up. Left-leaning nonprofits—and even ActBlue, the Democrats' primary fundraising platform—have been subjected to relentless investigations spearheaded by Trump's DOJ and GOP lawmakers. Meanwhile, conservative equivalents, such as WinRed, have been left alone, often despite a far worse track record. The FCC is going after media companies that engage in speech Trump does not like. Executive orders have singled out specific law firms that champion left-leaning causes. Funding and accreditation have been used to target universities that support forbidden ideologies. The Trump administration has denied disaster aid to blue states while approving comparable requests from red states, and frozen billions in funding for Democratic-run states. In one case, a Department of Energy attorney openly admitted in court filings that cancellations were based "solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state." The overall effect of this brazen politicization is to send two unmistakable messages to every American: only those who express government-approved ideologies are safe, and those who express forbidden ideologies will be subject to relentless government harassment. Americans must either adopt government-approved ideologies or live in fear of speaking their minds. It is the beginning of a one-party state in which only government-approved speech is tolerated.²²⁰

5.1.G: Biden Administration & Social Media Platform Censorship

There is legitimate concern that the Biden administration systematically pressured social media platforms to censor speech in violation of the First Amendment. Missouri's and Louisiana's attorneys general sued the federal government in May 2022. They argued that numerous Biden administration agencies—including the surgeon general's office, the CDC, the FBI, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)—unconstitutionally pressured social media platforms into removing or suppressing Americans' protected speech about COVID-19 and the 2020 election. The Biden administration rejected these censorship allegations as overblown. It argued it was merely engaging in government speech, sharing vital public health and election security information, and alerting platforms to foreign influence or harmful disinformation rather than coercing. However, both the district court and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the plaintiffs and issued a preliminary injunction, finding the Biden administration "coerced or significantly encouraged" the companies to remove protected speech. To complicate matters further, the Supreme Court then dismissed the case on procedural grounds, finding the plaintiffs lacked standing. In her majority opinion, Justice Barrett contradicted the lower court's finding of government-sponsored censorship. She emphasized that social media platforms operated on independent incentives and, on multiple occasions, declined government requests to remove content. While the overall record is confusing and far from conclusive, a reasonable American can still be uncomfortable with any administration getting involved with social media content moderation and censorship on any level. But consistency would require that same reasonable American to recognize that the Trump administration's conduct is far more concerning. The Biden administration did not officially label the opposition's opinions "terrorism"; instruct private organizations to fire Americans for engaging in protected speech; deploy the military to peaceful protests; deport lawful residents for engaging in protected speech; issue an executive order criminalizing long-standing protected expressions; or systematically remove the opposing party from our federal workforce. A reasonable American can hold both concerns at once: real discomfort with the Biden administration's relationship to social media censorship, and the recognition that nothing in that record approaches the depth or breadth of what the Trump administration is doing right now.²²¹

5.2: Silencing American Institutions

In 2025, the Trump administration froze $2.6 billion in research funding at Harvard. A federal judge later ruled the freeze unconstitutional retaliation for protected speech, writing that the record made it "difficult to conclude anything other than that Defendants used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities." The First Amendment does not belong to individuals alone. As social creatures, we often express our ideas and pursue our causes together, and the Supreme Court has long recognized that the worth of speech "does not depend upon the identity of its source, whether corporation,

association, union, or individual." Regardless, the Trump administration is systematically attacking the speech of the institutions it deems a threat. Beyond Harvard, it canceled hundreds of millions in funding at Columbia, opened civil rights investigations at some 60 universities, moved against the accreditors universities depend upon, and, in August 2026, demanded that every university in America publicly commit to its list of ideologically driven reforms. It has also pressured businesses into silence. When Amazon reportedly planned to show customers how much of its prices came from tariffs, the White House branded it "a hostile and political act," Trump personally called Jeff Bezos, and the plan was scrapped. With GOP lawmakers' help, the administration even killed public broadcasting, which has long provided universal access to high-quality, commercial-free media to all Americans. After Trump warned that any Republican who voted to keep it alive would lose his support, GOP lawmakers fell in line, clawing back $1.1 billion in already-approved funding. Republicans have also used congressional committees to harass and target academic researchers who study how falsehoods spread online. After Congressman Jim Jordan buried them in subpoenas, Stanford shut down its renowned Internet Observatory, and once Trump returned to office, the National Science Foundation canceled more than 400 research grants in a single day. Whereas individuals must be silenced one at a time, when the Trump administration goes after our institutions for engaging in speech it does not approve of, it silences millions of us at once, undermining our constitutionally protected, collective voice.²²²

5.2.A: Targeting Universities

One does not have to agree with everything American universities have done to recognize how dangerous it is for the federal government to dictate speech to them. The Trump administration has used money, civil rights law, and accreditation to force its ideology upon our universities, attempting to make institutions of higher learning into institutions of government-mandated ideology. The administration has frozen $2.6 billion in research funding at Harvard, canceled hundreds of millions at Columbia, and squeezed other campuses across the country. Columbia relented, accepting government-dictated policy changes to win its funding back. Harvard sued instead and won. A federal judge ruled the freeze unconstitutional retaliation for protected speech, writing that the record made it "difficult to conclude anything other than that Defendants used

antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities." In terms of civil rights law, the administration opened Title VI investigations at some 60 universities and issued an executive order, entitled "Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism," that does not merely punish harassment, but requires universities to "monitor for and report" the activities of foreign students and staff so the government can deport them. The order effectively demands that universities enforce a single, government-approved perspective on the Israel-Palestine conflict, forcing them to turn in their own students who express alternate views. In terms of accreditation, which Trump himself called his "secret weapon," an April 2025 executive order empowered the education secretary to suspend or terminate accreditors that maintain Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies. While there are DEI initiatives that, through favoring minorities, can cross a line into constitutional discrimination, Trump's order went well beyond these concerns to target a general, constitutionally protected point of view. Finally, in August 2026, Education Secretary Linda McMahon issued a National Call to Action demanding that every university in America publicly commit, by the end of the year, to the administration's list of approved reforms. These reforms boil down to a very specific, limited ideology that conflicts with other constitutionally protected points of view. Though the Trump administration claims it is fighting forced ideology in universities, the measures it has taken clearly do the opposite. These measures impose a singular, government-mandated ideology, undermining academic freedom in what has been, at least until now, the greatest university system in the world.²²³

5.2.A.I: Biden Administration's Imposition of Ideology & GOP Double-Standard

In fairness, the federal government has, prior to Trump, utilized its power to force ideological conformity. In April 2024, the Biden administration issued a Title IX rule extending sex-discrimination protections to gender identity and sexual orientation. Among other things, it required schools to honor students' chosen names and pronouns. Critics reasonably argued this crossed a line, requiring teachers to use certain words that reflect a government-mandated ideology. Republican states sued, and in January 2025 a federal judge vacated the rule nationwide, finding it exceeded the statute and "offends the First Amendment." But note the differences. Biden's rule was an interpretation of an existing anti-discrimination law, not the imposition of an entirely new ideological system. Its scope was limited to how schools treat their own students, and when the courts said no, that was the end of it. There were no funding freezes, no widespread abuse of civil rights actions, and no threats to the very existence of schools through manipulating accreditation. The rule died in court, precisely the way government overreach is supposed to die in America. Universities themselves have also crossed lines, enforcing policies that amount to ideological screening. For years, the University of California required faculty applicants to submit diversity statements, and at Berkeley, the life-sciences departments used them as an initial screening tool, prior to looking at a candidate's broader qualifications. These policies essentially required applicants to express commitment to a contested political viewpoint before even being considered for a faculty job, which is worthy of criticism. But here too, note the differences. The University of California abandoned the policy, and UC is one university system making its own hiring rules, not the federal government dictating ideology to every campus in America. Some government action in the face of such policies may be justified, but the answer is not replacing one ideology with another. The Trump administration's remedy is to give our universities a far more serious disease: federal government-mandated ideology that effectively ends academic freedom as we know it.²²⁴

5.2.B: Targeting Corporations

The Trump administration has sent a clear message to corporate America: if you displease the president, you will pay for it. In January 2026, after the U.S. government captured Nicolás Maduro, Trump summoned oil executives to the White House to urge investment in Venezuela. Exxon's CEO gave a candid assessment, telling Trump that given "the commercial constructs and frameworks in place today in Venezuela … it’s uninvestable." Days later, Trump told reporters, "I didn’t like Exxon’s response. They’re playing too cute," and announced he was "inclined" to freeze the largest American oil company out of Venezuela entirely, punishing it not for wrongdoing, but for telling him something he did not want to hear. Trump has also repeatedly used the bully pulpit to go after companies. In his first term, after Goodyear barred political attire in the workplace, including MAGA hats, he called for a national boycott. In his second term, when Amazon reportedly planned to show customers what portion of its prices was attributable to Trump's tariffs, the White House branded it "a hostile and political act." Trump personally called Jeff Bezos, and the plan was scrapped. As previously noted, Trump has also issued executive orders, since deemed unconstitutional, that singled out specific law firms, punishing them merely for supporting left-leaning causes. But perhaps the starkest abuse of presidential power to make a major corporation fall in line was the Anthropic case. In February 2026, after the AI company refused to strip contract safeguards barring the use of its technology for mass surveillance of Americans and fully autonomous weapons, Trump ordered the entire federal government to stop using its products, deriding the company as "radical left, woke." Defense Secretary Hegseth then formally designated Anthropic a "supply-chain risk," a designation used against foreign adversaries, not American companies running their business based on their own ethical standards. Anthropic sued and won, twice. In blocking the ban, Judge Rita Lin wrote that "[n]othing in the governing statute supports the Orwellian notion that an American company may be branded a potential adversary." She concluded, "The empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics." We are a nation built upon the notion of free enterprise, not government-induced fear to conform.²²⁵

5.2.C: GOP Lawmakers Defund Public Broadcasting

For nearly 60 years, public broadcasting has provided universal access to high-quality, commercial-free media to all Americans. Created by the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting funded roughly 1,300 local public radio stations and nearly 350 public television stations. It cost each American about $1.60 per year. For that price, rural and small-town stations, many of which went unserved by any other local media, delivered news, educational children's programming, and emergency alerts. In July 2025, GOP lawmakers killed this great tradition. Trump's orders were clear: "Any Republican that votes to allow this monstrosity to continue broadcasting will not have my support or Endorsement." GOP lawmakers overwhelmingly obeyed. The Senate voted 51-48 to claw back $1.1 billion in already-approved funding. Every Democrat opposed, only two Republicans broke ranks, and the House followed suit with 214 Republicans voting to kill commercial-free public broadcasting. Within weeks, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced it would shut down. PBS estimates roughly 15% of its stations will be unable to operate at all, with rural stations hit hardest. While GOP elites have long accused public broadcasting of liberal bias, large, empirical, peer-reviewed studies do not agree. Extensive quantitative data demonstrates that public broadcasting has prioritized factual, balanced reporting over partisan agendas. This raises a serious question: were GOP elites opposed to the supposed bias of public media, or its lack thereof?²²⁶

5.2.D: GOP Lawmakers Target Academic Research

For years, academic researchers at Stanford, the University of Washington, and elsewhere studied how falsehoods spread online, tracking foreign influence operations, viral election rumors, and health misinformation. Their findings helped platforms, journalists, election officials, and ordinary citizens understand the content, form, and scope of manipulative messaging in our information ecosystem. A more legitimate exercise of free speech than that of these researchers is hard to imagine. Regardless, GOP lawmakers decided to silence them. Beginning in 2023, Jim Jordan, himself a spreader of election misinformation, used the House Judiciary Committee and its "weaponization" subcommittee to bury disinformation researchers in sweeping subpoenas and record demands, branding scholars a "censorship industrial complex." In the end, Jordan's pressure campaign worked. Facing millions of dollars in legal costs from the congressional campaign and allied lawsuits, Stanford wound down its renowned Internet Observatory in 2024, despite no official findings that it violated the First Amendment in any way. Jordan celebrated the death of an academic research center with a post reading, "Free speech wins again!" When Trump returned to office, the pressure campaign became official policy. Under an inauguration-day executive order, the National Science Foundation canceled more than 400 research grants in a single day, expressly targeting misinformation and disinformation research. But studying how lies spread and how manipulation works is not censorship. It is science, and an extremely valuable form of protected speech in its own right. GOP lawmakers went after an entire field of American research not because it violated the First Amendment, but because its findings—about who spreads falsehoods, and which falsehoods spread—did not align with their narratives or interests.²²⁷

5.2.D.I: Academic Researchers & Platform Censorship

Some of the decisions these academic researchers made were controversial and open to legitimate criticism. The Election Integrity Partnership (EIP)'s mandate went beyond flagging outright falsehoods to include content meant to "delegitimize" elections. For instance, a true claim that voter rolls contained deceased individuals might be flagged if researchers decided it was framed in a deceptive manner to imply voter fraud that does not exist. Likewise, Stanford's Virality Project flagged stories that were true, including a celebrity's death after vaccination and a New York school's closure following reports of post-vaccine illness, because researchers considered them "malinformation" that "could fuel hesitancy." Their reports also had real consequences, influencing content moderation decisions on all the major social media platforms. By EIP's own accounting, platforms took action—ranging from labeling to removal to soft-blocking—on 35% of the content they flagged in 2020. But that still does not mean researchers acted as official censors. They pointed out the speech they considered manipulative or false, and social media platforms made their own informed decisions based on their own internal policies. Furthermore, the First Amendment does not protect Americans from private censorship. Though GOP lawmakers claimed the EIP was a government proxy, the evidence simply does not support their claim. It was an independent academic research coalition, involving several university departments and nonprofits, all with their own First Amendment rights. Just as one person or organization has a right to speak their mind, another person or organization has a right to speak out against that speech. That back and forth, between private persons and organizations, is what constitutes the marketplace of ideas. The First Amendment protects us against the government, and GOP lawmakers are part of that government. They are the ones who used the subpoena power of a congressional committee to bury private organizations in legal costs and ultimately silence them.²²⁸

5.3: Weaponization of the FCC

In December 2025, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr told the Senate that the Federal Communications Commission "is not an independent agency, formally speaking." That very same day, the word "independent" was deleted from the FCC's mission statement on its website. Since the Communications Act of 1934, the FCC has licensed America's broadcast airwaves in the public interest, and Congress deliberately built it as an independent agency, with five commissioners, no more than three from either party. It did this for an obvious reason: no president, Democrat or Republican, should have the power to decide who may broadcast the news or what may be broadcast. For more than 90 years, both parties largely respected that independence. Then Trump elevated Carr, the author of Project 2025's chapter on the FCC, to chairman. Records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that between March 2025 and February 2026, Carr attended at least eight White House meetings,

held scheduled calls with the president's chief of staff, and even held undisclosed meetings with right-wing media executives, including Fox's Lachlan Murdoch. Meanwhile, his enforcement actions have moved in lockstep with Trump's demands. Trump has openly called for revoking network licenses, and Carr ordered ABC's stations to file license-renewal applications years before they were due. Carr revived complaints against ABC, CBS, and NBC that his predecessor had dismissed, while leaving alone the only one involving a knowing lie: Fox News's false claims about Dominion voting machines. He has also wielded the "equal time" rule against network talk shows that interview Democratic candidates, such as The View, while conservative programs that openly champion Republican candidates have faced nothing similar. FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez has described a "pattern of threatened investigations, broadcast license revocations and regulatory harassment" that is "grounded in neither reality nor law." Yet GOP lawmakers have abandoned their long-held principles and refused to hold a single oversight hearing. Senator Ted Cruz compared Carr's pressure on ABC over Jimmy Kimmel to a scene "right out of ‘Goodfellas,’" but as chairman of the committee that oversees the FCC, he refused a Democratic request to bring Carr in to testify. The politicization of the FCC is not an accusation; it is an open reality. The Trump administration has destroyed a 90-year tradition of FCC independence, and GOP lawmakers have allowed it. The freedom of the press is now subordinate to partisan politics.²²⁹

5.3.A: Weaponization of the Equal Time Rule

The "equal time" rule is nearly as old as broadcasting itself, dating back to the Radio Act of 1927. It originally provided that a broadcast station must afford "equal opportunities" to opposing candidates leading up to an election. In 1959, Congress added an exemption for bona fide news programming, which was interpreted broadly to include interview programs like daytime talk shows and late-night television. Ever since, enforcement of the provision has been rare and evenhanded, but that has changed dramatically under the second Trump administration. In January 2026, the FCC announced that late-night and daytime talk shows would no longer be presumed exempt as news programming. Noticeably absent from the FCC's new enforcement zeal was right-wing talk radio. The effects were immediate and precisely aimed. CBS pulled a scheduled Stephen Colbert interview with Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico over equal-time fears. Weeks later, after Talarico appeared on ABC's The View, Carr announced an enforcement action against the show, even though Talarico's primary opponent, Jasmine Crockett, had appeared on the show a month earlier, and no rival candidate appears to have requested equal time or filed any complaint at all. FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez called out the action for what it was: "The real purpose is to weaponize the FCC’s regulatory authority to intimidate perceived critics of this Administration and chill protected speech." Meanwhile, conservative talk programming has faced nothing similar, despite hosts interviewing and openly championing Republican candidates as a matter of format. As ABC noted, programs like The Mark Levin Show conduct one-sided candidate interviews constantly, yet "there is no indication that any of them has ever received a Declaratory Ruling," which is a pattern that "raises serious concerns about viewpoint discrimination and retaliatory targeting." When the government enforces a neutral rule against only one side's speech, it is not enforcing that rule at all; it is weaponizing it.²³⁰

5.3.B: Weaponization of Broadcast Licenses

Broadcast licenses provide television and radio stations their permission to exist. Without one, a station cannot lawfully transmit at all, which is why the law strictly limits what the government may consider in granting or renewing one. The FCC's own website states that the "First Amendment and the Communications Act expressly prohibit the Commission from censoring broadcast matter." For that reason, in nearly a century of American broadcasting, no administration has openly wielded licenses as a weapon against news coverage it disliked, but the second Trump administration does it routinely. In August 2025, Trump declared that NBC and ABC "give me 97% BAD STORIES" and said he would be "totally in favor" of revoking their licenses. In September, after Jimmy Kimmel's suspension, he told reporters: "They give me only bad publicity or press … I would think maybe their license should be taken away." Of late-night hosts, he said: "All they do is hit Trump. They’re licensed. They’re not allowed to do that." But, of course, under our First Amendment, they are very much allowed to do that, whether Trump likes it or not. Regardless, FCC Chairman Carr has backed up his threats with action, ordering ABC's stations to file license-renewal applications years before they were due. More recently, after Trump attacked the networks' coverage of his war in Iran as "Fake News," Carr posted a warning: "Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions - also known as the fake news - have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up." Then, in July 2026, when ABC and NBC declined to interrupt their programming for a primetime Trump address in which he spread unfounded election-fraud claims, Trump responded by again demanding the "revocation of their licenses." The concern here could not be more obvious. An administration willing to pull broadcast licenses over speech it dislikes holds every station's existence hostage. In this environment, every newsroom must ask, before airing a story, not whether it is true, but whether it will result in political retaliation from the Trump White House.²³¹

5.3.C: Weaponization of Investigations

The FCC has broad power to investigate the stations it licenses, and for generations, chairmen of both parties used that power cautiously, making sure nothing they did could be construed as an attempt to influence newsroom content. In the final days of the Biden administration, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel dismissed four complaints, stating that the agency "should not be the president’s speech police." The complaints included one against ABC, one against CBS, one against NBC, and one against Fox News. The complaint against Fox News was for broadcasting false claims about Dominion voting machines in the aftermath of the 2020 election, and it was the only complaint involving a knowing lie. By then, Fox had settled Dominion's civil suit for $787.5 million, and executives had privately admitted they knew their claims were false. Regardless, within days of taking over the FCC, Chairman Carr revived the far less serious complaints against ABC, NBC, and CBS, while refusing to reopen the claim against Fox News. Media watchdogs, nonpartisan organizations, and legal experts have all documented clear parallels between right-wing media conduct and the conduct at issue in the revived complaints, parallels that continue to go uninvestigated. For instance, the complaint against CBS's 60 Minutes centers on its supposed manipulative editing of an interview with Kamala Harris, but it is standard practice to edit such interviews across all media companies, and it aired the full unedited interview online. Meanwhile, that same month, Fox News edited a Trump interview from roughly an hour of footage down to 15 minutes—well beyond anything 60 Minutes did—scrubbing his rambling answers and false claims from the final product. Clearly, these investigations are not based in real-world standards; they are about punishing Trump's enemies. When a president targets news agencies he does not like through arbitrary FCC investigations, it is textbook weaponization.²³²

5.3.D: Attempted Social Media Crackdown During Trump’s 1st Term

Though Trump's willingness to use the FCC against speech he dislikes has escalated in his second administration, it is a pattern that began in his first. On May 26, 2020, Twitter attached fact-check labels to two of Trump's tweets that falsely claimed mail-in voting would

produce widespread fraud. The labels did not remove or alter his words but simply linked readers to accurate information. The next day, Trump tweeted, "Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen." The day after that, he signed an executive order that directed his administration to petition the FCC to narrow the law that shields online platforms from liability for moderating content. It also instructed the Federal Trade Commission to consider action against platforms. The sequence of events says it all: a private company accurately fact-checked the president, and within 48 hours the president ordered two federal agencies to find ways to punish it. Legal experts across the spectrum called out the order as unconstitutional retaliation. Though the FCC did not complete the rulemaking before the end of Trump's first term, and President Biden revoked the order upon ascending to office, social media companies got the message. Today, America's most popular social media platforms have abandoned independent fact-checking, relying instead upon less authoritative crowdsourced systems. Meanwhile, Trump continues to use social media to disseminate factually inaccurate information, and our FCC, now fully politicized, is openly trying to influence and silence Trump's perceived enemies in the media.²³³

5.3.E: GOP Lawmakers Abandon Principle of FCC Independence

Historically, both parties strongly defended the FCC as an independent regulatory agency, and GOP lawmakers were particularly adamant about keeping the FCC out of the business of policing broadcast content in any manner, even if nonpartisan. In 2007, when Republicans feared Democrats might revive the Fairness Doctrine, which required all broadcasters to present contrasting viewpoints on controversial issues of public concern, they introduced the Broadcaster Freedom Act to prevent it. Senator John Thune, in response to mere talk of reviving a neutral rule, accused Democrats of trying to "regulate voices they don’t agree with." Congressman Mike Pence declared, "It is up to the U.S. Congress to ensure that freedom continues to reign on the airwaves of America." And when Trump first threatened NBC's broadcast licenses in 2017, Republican Senator Ben Sasse, who has since left the Senate, confronted him directly: "Are you recanting of the Oath you took on Jan. 20 to preserve, protect and defend the First Amendment?" But today's GOP lawmakers have totally abandoned their long-stated positions and principles. While Chairman Carr meets regularly with the White House, targets the president's critics, and has admitted to the Senate that the FCC is not operating as an independent agency, GOP lawmakers, including now-Majority Leader Thune, have not held a single oversight hearing. And their refusal is not because they do not understand the implications of what is happening. After Carr's threats forced Jimmy Kimmel off the air, Senator Ted Cruz said it was "right out of ‘Goodfellas,’" like "a mafioso coming into a bar, going, ‘nice bar you have here, it’d be a shame if something happened to it.’" But talk is cheap. Though Cruz chairs the Senate committee that oversees the FCC, he refused a Democratic request to bring Carr in to testify. Likewise, when House Democrats moved to subpoena Chairman Carr, House Republicans blocked it. Finally, when Democrats introduced the Broadcast Freedom and Independence Act of 2025 to prevent the political weaponization of the FCC, GOP lawmakers made sure it never received a vote in either chamber. Carr's FCC is now doing precisely what Thune falsely accused Democrats of doing—regulating voices it does not agree with—and the GOP lawmakers who once vowed to prevent conduct a fraction as bad are now actively protecting the complete and total politicization of a once proudly independent agency.²³⁴

5.4: Direct Attacks on Journalists

In January 2026, FBI agents raided the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson and seized her phone and computers, even though she had never been accused of a crime or even been under investigation. The magistrate judge who signed the warrant learned only afterward that it likely violated the Privacy Protection Act, and in open court he berated DOJ attorneys: "How could you miss it? How could you think it doesn’t apply?" Trump has long taught his supporters to hate the people who report the news. Weeks into his first term, he declared the press "the enemy of the American People," and he later praised a Montana congressman who had pleaded guilty to assault for body-slamming a

reporter, as the crowd cheered. In his second term, these attacks have moved beyond rhetoric into clearly repressive government action. After Attorney General Pam Bondi rescinded long-standing DOJ protections for reporters, the department subpoenaed at least 10 journalists and seized their records, and federal agents appeared at the homes of four New York Times reporters over a true story about the Qatari-gifted Air Force One. Journalists covering protests have been arrested, jailed, and hit with pepper balls by federal agents. Don Lemon was indicted even after a federal magistrate refused to approve his arrest for insufficient evidence. In January 2026 alone, the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker recorded 54 incidents against journalists, an all-time high. Meanwhile, Trump, the first sitting president ever to sue a news organization for defamation, has filed suit after suit, many of them thrown out of court. Even those that settled were, according to legal experts, extremely weak cases. When CBS's parent company settled for $16 million, the FCC approved its $8 billion merger three weeks later. The administration has even deported Emmy-winning reporter Mario Guevara after arresting him while he covered a protest, the first retaliatory deportation of a journalist the Committee to Protect Journalists has ever documented in the United States. And GOP lawmakers have done nothing. In January 2024, the PRESS Act, which would have shielded journalists' sources and records, passed the House without a single objection, but after Trump posted, "REPUBLICANS MUST KILL THIS BILL!" Senate Republicans blocked it. A free press can only work if a reporter can protect the confidentiality of their sources, safely stand at the edge of a protest, and publish a true story without fear of government reprisal. The state is supposed to protect journalists, not target them. And when it targets them, our First Amendment is in grave peril.²³⁵

5.4.A: Surveillance and Subpoena Actions Targeting Journalists

Our nation has long recognized that for journalists to perform their vital function in our democracy, they must be protected from an overbearing government. In Branzburg v. Hayes in 1972, the Supreme Court stated that "without some protection for seeking out the news, freedom of the press could be eviscerated." In the Privacy Protection Act of 1980, Congress shielded journalists' work product from government searches. Finally, the DOJ's own guidelines have, for decades, barred prosecutors from seizing reporters' records to hunt down their sources. Sadly, the second Trump administration is disregarding and dismantling these protections. Attorney General Pam Bondi wasted no time, rescinding the DOJ guidelines and declaring that the DOJ "will not tolerate unauthorized disclosures that undermine President Trump’s policies." Since then, the DOJ has subpoenaed at least 10 American journalists and even seized their records. In January 2026, the FBI raided the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson. Though she was never accused of a crime or even under investigation, it seized her phone and computers. Only after the search became public did Magistrate Judge William Porter, who issued the search warrant, learn about the Privacy Protection Act. In open court, he berated DOJ attorneys, asking, "How could you miss it? How could you think it doesn’t apply?" He went on to lament that Natanson "has been deprived of basically her life’s work." In July 2026, federal agents appeared at the homes of four New York Times reporters with grand jury subpoenas. Their offense was reporting that the Secret Service had urged Trump not to fly on the Qatari-gifted Air Force One because it lacked the security features of the old model. It was a true story of interest to all Americans. The DOJ also sought the reporters' phone records, and reportedly even those of their family members. The Times' lawyer summed up the situation well: "The appearance of Federal law enforcement agents on the doorstep of news reporters should shock the conscience of any American who believes in the Constitution." These examples could be multiplied, and the threat is obvious. Journalists who report on corruption and dysfunction within our government require sources, and those sources will not come forward if the government can use its surveillance and subpoena powers to compel disclosure of their identity. When the government raids reporters' homes and subpoenas their records, sources are silenced, and stories do not get written. The ultimate victim, however, is the American public, who will remain ignorant of government dysfunction and corruption.²³⁶

5.4.B: Arrest, Detainment & Use of Physical Violence Against Journalists

When Americans protest their government, journalists are there to document what happens, including how the government responds. They cannot do that job if covering a protest means risking being arrested, detained, or brutalized by federal agents. But that is precisely what is happening under President Trump. In January 2026, veteran journalist Don Lemon and Minnesota reporter Georgia Fort were arrested after covering a protest at a St. Paul church where an ICE official serves as pastor. A federal magistrate refused to approve Lemon's arrest, citing insufficient evidence, and the chief judge of the federal appeals court agreed there was "no evidence" of criminal conduct. The administration indicted them anyway. Lemon was blunt: "now they’re trying to silence journalists. And I will not be silenced." Other journalists have been detained simply for doing their jobs. Photojournalist Matthew Kaplan was arrested while photographing an anti-deportation protest near the Gary, Indiana, airport. Later, prosecutors dropped every charge. Tampa photojournalist Dave Decker, despite wearing visible press credentials, ended up spending two days in jail after photographing a protest outside Miami's Krome ICE detention center. Again, the state attorney eventually dropped all charges. Still others have faced violence. Federal agents at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, shot photographer John Abernathy twice with pepper bullets, tackled him, and pepper-sprayed him directly in the face. In Los Angeles, federal agents hit reporter Lexis-Olivier Ray with pepper balls as he stood on a sidewalk with other credentialed media. "It seemed so blatant," Ray said. "They didn’t seem to care that we were media." A group of Chicago journalists, tired of being subjected to government violence, finally sued. Judge Sara Ellis found that the agents' use of force "shocks the conscience," called the government's evidence "simply not credible," and barred agents from using force against journalists who pose no threat. In January 2026 alone, the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker—a nonpartisan, open-source database that systematically measures press freedom violations—reported 54 incidents against journalists in the United States of America, an all-time high since data collection began. In countries with a viable free press, journalists who cover protests do not end up in jail cells or emergency rooms.²³⁷

5.4.C: Frivolous Lawsuits Designed to Silence Journalists

Prior to Trump, no sitting American president had ever sued a news organization for defamation in our 250-year history. That is not because presidents liked their coverage. It is because they respected our First Amendment and understood that it exists to protect those who critique the powerful. But Trump has broken that tradition, repeatedly, filing numerous lawsuits, many of which have been summarily dismissed by the courts. He sued veteran Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register for "consumer fraud" because their final 2024 poll showed him trailing in Iowa, a state he ended up winning. The poll was wrong, but being wrong is not fraud. If it were, any politician could sue any pollster, pundit, or newspaper that made a judgment call that ended up being inaccurate. On September 23, 2026, Iowa District Court Judge Scott J. Beattie threw out the lawsuit, ruling that the pre-election poll and the newspaper's reporting were fully constitutionally protected political speech under the First Amendment. He sued the Wall Street Journal for $10 billion over its report on a sexually suggestive birthday letter he allegedly sent Jeffrey Epstein, a letter Congress itself later released to the public from the Epstein files. A federal judge threw that suit out, and Trump simply refiled it. He and his campaign have filed three major lawsuits against the New York Times, two of which have been dismissed. Still pending is a $15 billion suit concerning allegedly defamatory remarks The Times made about his record as a businessman. Federal Judge Steven Merryday has repeatedly thrown out Trump's initial filings, stating they were "improper and impermissible." A legal complaint, Judge Merryday insisted, is not a "protected platform to rage against an adversary." This behavior is nothing new for Trump. Before the 2016 election, USA Today counted at least 3,500 lawsuits involving Trump and his businesses over three decades, which is an unprecedented number for a presidential candidate. He has wielded litigation as a weapon his entire life. The difference is that he now wields it from the presidency, with the full weight of the office behind him, and he is not targeting business adversaries but the American press.²³⁸

5.4.C.I: Two Settled Cases, Neither Demonstrates "Fake News"

Trump has settled two of his lawsuits against the press, and GOP elites cite both in support of their "fake news" narrative. However, a cursory examination of the two settlements does not support that narrative at all, but rather demonstrates its emptiness. The first settled lawsuit was against ABC and anchor George Stephanopoulos, who said on air that Trump had been "found liable in a civil suit of rape." That claim was wrong and mistaken. The jury in the E. Jean Carroll case found Trump liable for "sexual abuse," not rape. Still, it was not a major overstatement. The trial judge later wrote that the jury's finding of sexual abuse meant the jury concluded Trump had forcibly penetrated Carroll digitally, which meets the common definition of rape. In the end, Stephanopoulos overstated a jury finding of sexual abuse by one legal degree. First Amendment lawyers told NPR that ABC likely would have won in court, but it chose instead to pay $15 million to Trump's presidential library and move on. That is the strongest case, out of many, Trump has ever filed against the press, and it involved a minor misstatement. The second settlement involved a Trump suit against CBS in which he sought $20 billion in damages. Trump claimed 60 Minutes engaged in "deceptive doctoring" of a Kamala Harris interview. But that is not a legally recognized claim. Editing is something every news program does regularly and is not grounds for a civil lawsuit. Furthermore, since 60 Minutes later released the entire unedited interview online, it was hard to understand how its actions could have been characterized as "deceptive" at all. Legal scholars across the spectrum called the suit meritless. Harvard's Noah Feldman called it an "outrageous violation of First Amendment principles." But Paramount, CBS's parent company, decided to pay Trump $16 million of the $20 billion asked for anyway, and it appears it did so because it needed the Trump administration's approval of its $8 billion merger with Skydance. Three weeks after the settlement, the FCC approved the merger. Senator Elizabeth Warren said it plainly: "this could be bribery in plain sight." The FCC's own dissenting commissioner wrote that the agency "used its vast power to pressure Paramount to broker a private legal settlement," and that such violations "endure only when institutions choose capitulation over courage." Rather than supporting the GOP elites' "fake news" narrative, one settlement shows a network owning up to and paying for a one-word overstatement, and the other shows a corporation paying off the president to get its merger approved. What both settlements reveal is the systematic abuse of the presidency to silence the American press.²³⁹

5.4.D: Immigration Actions Against Foreign Journalists

5.4.E: GOP Lawmakers Abandon Free Press Principles

GOP lawmakers have conducted no oversight to protect American and foreign journalists from the ongoing, direct attacks of the Trump administration. After the FBI raided the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson, Democrats demanded answers from the FBI director and the attorney general, describing a "continuing campaign to punish and dissuade the media and whistleblowers from reporting any damaging facts." After the arrests of Don Lemon and Georgia Fort, Democrats demanded an inspector general investigation, calling the detentions "a clear violation of the First Amendment and a massive abuse of power." Unfortunately, Democrats are in the minority in both houses of Congress and have very little power. They can write letters, but only the GOP majority can hold hearings and issue subpoenas, and they simply refuse to do so. Prior to Trump's election, there was bipartisan agreement to protect journalists through the PRESS Act. The legislation would have barred the federal government from forcing journalists to reveal their sources and from secretly seizing their records. The law passed the House unanimously in January 2024, without a single objection from either party. Then Trump posted his marching orders on Truth Social, writing, "REPUBLICANS MUST KILL THIS BILL!" GOP senators fell in line immediately. When the bill came to the Senate floor in December 2024, Republicans blocked it, and it died. Based on one social media post from a man who was not even in office, GOP lawmakers altered their principles overnight, blocking what had been a unanimously supported, bipartisan bill designed to protect American journalists. As a matter of public record, GOP lawmakers have repeatedly chosen Trump over our First Amendment and the protections it guarantees to journalists.²⁴¹

5.5: Barring Journalist Access to the Executive Branch

In October 2025, nearly every major American news organization turned in its Pentagon press credentials rather than sign Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's pledge not to gather any information, even unclassified information, without prior government authorization. Only One America News, a network known for its sycophantic support of Trump, signed. A federal judge later found that Hegseth's policy was designed "to weed out disfavored journalists" and struck it down twice, yet most outlets have still not returned, and a Pentagon-approved press corps occupies their old workspace. For generations, journalists have had access to the military. Accredited reporters walked the Pentagon's unclassified hallways

unescorted, verifying facts through every major American war since World War II. At the White House, the Correspondents' Association, founded in 1914, managed the briefing room seating chart for decades, but the Trump administration ended that tradition, handing prime seats to pro-administration outlets while Reuters and Bloomberg News lost theirs. Among the commentators it has elevated is Tim Pool, who received roughly $400,000 a month from a company federal prosecutors say was a front for Russian state media. In September 2026, it barred reporters from CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from entering the White House altogether, until a Trump-appointed judge ordered their access restored, and recent reports indicate that order is not being followed. Across the executive branch, the administration froze nearly all public communications from the CDC, FDA, and NIH, and it has proposed nondisclosure agreements for federal employees that the ACLU warns could cover "almost any job-related information." Even news-gathering institutions within the government are not safe. One day after Stars and Stripes reported on dire conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, Pentagon officials ordered its publisher to fire two staff members who worked on the story; when he refused, they fired all three. At Voice of America, founded during World War II to fight fascist propaganda, Trump appointee Kari Lake planned to cut the workforce from roughly 1,300 to just 81 and brokered a deal to pipe in coverage from One America News. These are unprecedented actions entirely contrary to our First Amendment tradition, not to mention the traditions of modern liberal democracies throughout the world.²⁴²

5.5.A: Barring Journalists & Admitting Partisan RW Influencers to WH Press Corps

The Trump administration has systematically excluded professional journalists from White House access while opening the doors to radical, partisan social media influencers. In February 2025, the White House banned the Associated Press (AP)—an independent, global nonprofit news agency—from the Oval Office, Air Force One, and press pool events. It did so because the AP refused to rename the Gulf of Mexico the "Gulf of America" in its own reporting.

A Trump-appointed federal judge ruled the ban unconstitutional, writing that if the government opens its doors to some journalists, "it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists" because of their viewpoints. Despite this clear reprimand, the White House appealed anyway. Today, the AP still has only sporadic access to major events. The administration also stripped the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) of control over the briefing room seating chart, a responsibility reporters had managed for decades. Ever since, respected journalistic institutions such as Reuters and Bloomberg News have lost their seats, whereas right-wing and pro-administration outlets have been given prime positions. The administration even created a new rotating seat for online influencers and podcasters. The WHCA stated the obvious: "In a free country, leaders must not be able to choose their own press corps." As real journalists have been shut out, the Trump administration has elevated radical, partisan commentators like Tim Pool. Not only does Pool have no formal journalistic training, but he received roughly $400,000 a month from Tenet Media, a company federal prosecutors say was a $10 million front for Russian state media, funded by the Kremlin. When an American presidency denies access to real journalists but supports radical, partisan commentators funded with money from foreign dictatorships, the very concept of a free press in America is in serious jeopardy.²⁴³

5.5.B: Pentagon’s Loyalty Oath & Barring Journalists

As real journalists are barred from the White House press corps, Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth—himself a former paid partisan Fox News commentator—has systematically targeted independent journalists through sweeping physical lockouts and a strict reporting pledge. Earlier in 2025, Hegseth ended the decades-old practice of unescorted hallway access, requiring reporters to have an approved government escort just to move through unclassified areas of the building. In September 2025, he created a new policy, requiring credentialed reporters to sign a pledge promising not to gather any information—even unclassified information—without prior government authorization. Any journalist who violated the pledge would lose Pentagon press credentials entirely and be labeled a "security or safety risk." Hegseth's message to reporters was simple: "Wear a badge and follow the rules — or go home." At least 30 news organizations refused to sign. Fox News, Newsmax, CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, AP, Reuters, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal all surrendered their press badges rather than accept the pledge. Only One America News—a network known for its sycophantic support of President Trump—signed the pledge. In March 2026, Federal Judge Paul Friedman ruled Hegseth's policy violated both the First and Fifth Amendments. Judge Friedman noted that the government's goal was "to weed out disfavored journalists" and replace them with reporters who were "favorable to or spoon-fed by department leadership." He warned: "The curtailment of First Amendment rights is dangerous any time, and even more so in a time of war." Friedman ordered the Pentagon to restore credentials to seven New York Times journalists. The Pentagon tried again days later with a revised policy. Friedman struck that down too, finding the Pentagon had merely "invoked slightly different language to achieve the same unconstitutional result." Courts keep striking Hegseth's policy down as unconstitutional, but most of the outlets that walked out in October still have not returned. A Pentagon-approved press corps occupies their old workspace instead. A former partisan Fox News host, elevated to lead our United States military, has ended a tradition of journalistic access to the Pentagon that survived every American war since World War II.²⁴⁴

5.5.C: Barring Journalists from Other Executive Departments

5.5.D: Politicization of Stars & Stripes & Voice of America

Within our federal government are two proud news-gathering institutions: Stars and Stripes and Voice of America (VOA). Stars and Stripes was founded by Union soldiers during the Civil War. It provides independent, uncensored news and information to U.S. military personnel, department civilians, and their families stationed around the world. VOA was founded during World War II to fight fascist propaganda. Its mission is to broadcast accurate, objective, and comprehensive news to international audiences, with a particular emphasis on regions lacking a free press. In January 2026, the Pentagon rescinded decades-old regulations that had guaranteed Stars and Stripes "a free flow of news and information to its readership without news management or censorship." From now on, the Pentagon can censor anything it deems inconsistent with "good order and discipline." Soon thereafter, the Pentagon fired the paper's independent ombudsman after she warned of "attempted control" over the newsroom. In August 2026, the paper reported on dire conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, including mental health strain and supply shortages. One day later, Pentagon officials ordered publisher Max Lederer, who had already announced his retirement over "fundamental" disagreements with Pentagon leadership, to fire two people who had worked on the story for "insubordination." Lederer refused, and the Pentagon fired all three of them. They have since sued, alleging retaliation for protected speech. Trump administration attacks on Voice of America have been even more dramatic. In March 2025, Trump ordered the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM)—an independent agency responsible for numerous government-funded media endeavors, including VOA—"reduced to the minimum statutory requirements." He then appointed election denier and loyalist Kari Lake to run the agency. She placed nearly all 1,300 VOA staff and contractors on leave, cutting the workforce to just 81 people. She also brokered a content-sharing deal with One America News, a fringe pro-Trump network, to pipe its coverage into USAGM broadcasts. Then, in April 2025, Judge Royce Lamberth ruled Lake's cuts were unlawful and ordered USAGM to resume its legally required functions. Lake resisted anyway, and in March 2026, Lamberth ruled again, finding she "did not have the legal authority" to gut the agency and that her decision offered "nothing approaching a principled basis." Even after two court orders, the damage was done. A broadcaster that once reached 300 million people a week in 48 languages is now a shadow of its former self. Under the second Trump administration, two once-proud journalistic institutions built over generations are being dismantled and turned into government propaganda.²⁴⁶

5.6: GOP Elite Double-Standard & Abandonment of First Amendment Principles

5.7: GOP State Lawmakers Push Book Bans & Prohibit Classroom Speech

5.7.A: Book Bans

The wave of school book bans in recent years has no precedent in modern American history. Since July 2021, PEN America has documented nearly 23,000 instances of book removals across 45 states and 451 public school districts. In the 2024–2025 school year alone, Florida had 2,304 bans, followed by Texas with 1,781 and Tennessee with 1,622. As noted earlier, these cases involve a complex array of interests, and courts are extremely reluctant to interfere with state decisions. No one doubts states have a real interest in setting curricula and managing school

libraries; reasonable people also disagree about what books belong in schools. Still, GOP legislatures have repeatedly crossed long-established constitutional lines. In Florida, a coalition of major publishers, authors, and parents challenged a law that mandated school districts pull books based on a vague "sexual content" standard. The law resulted in the removal of literary classics, including Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, both of which contain almost no sexual content. Federal Judge Carlos Mendoza struck down key provisions of the law, finding it violated the First Amendment rights of students to receive information and ideas. A recent Texas law forced booksellers to provide a rating for every book they sold to a school, but the Fifth Circuit — long considered the most conservative circuit in America — struck down the scheme. Judge Don Willett, a Trump appointee, held that the law amounted to unconstitutional compelled speech. These examples could be multiplied. Increasingly, GOP legislatures are ignoring the complex balance of interests required by our First Amendment in favor of their partisan agendas. As former Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote in Dennis v. United States, "free speech in a democratic society" requires "candid and informed weighing of the competing interests," not "dogmas too inflexible… [for] problems to be solved."²⁴⁹

5.7.B: Prohibiting Classroom Speech

In addition to book bans, GOP state and local leaders have introduced a variety of legal and regulatory mechanisms designed to restrict how educators address a range of topics, banning honest and free discussion in classrooms. States have a legitimate interest in setting curriculum standards, and courts give local leaders substantial latitude to design coursework. Still, many of these laws, like the book bans, cross a line. They often punish teachers who express any viewpoint on race, sex, or history. They are also written in such vague terms that education boards and teachers are left guessing what they mean and whether they will face termination or even criminal punishment. In Mississippi, a federal

judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking parts of a sweeping ban that prohibited schools, from kindergartens to universities, from maintaining DEI offices or offering teachings about structural inequality. As previously noted, the Eleventh Circuit struck down the higher education provisions of Florida's "Stop W.O.K.E. Act." Judge Britt Grant called the law a "breathtaking assertion of power to ban unpopular ideas from public discourse." In New Hampshire, the legislature passed a so-called "divisive concepts" law, which was struck down for being "fatally vague," failing to provide educators notice, and creating an unconstitutional chilling effect. Even laws that seem reasonable on their face have later been used to justify clearly partisan attempts to shape school curriculum. The South Carolina legislature passed a law that prevented the teaching of eight banned concepts, all of which sound reasonable. For instance, it prohibits teachings that claim any race or sex is inherently superior, an idea reprehensible to most Americans. But the South Carolina Department of Education then used the law as justification for pulling Advanced Placement African American Studies from the state curriculum, even though the course does not teach any of the eight concepts. The Department argued the potential for violating the law was reason enough. Though state GOP leaders claim these laws are about eliminating partisan politics from classrooms, that is clearly not true. In fact, they often mandate or provide justification for creating a truly partisan curriculum.²⁵⁰

5.8: Use of Government Power to Favor Private, Partisan, Media Allies

As the Justice Department reviewed his $111 billion bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, David Ellison hosted a lavish dinner party for Trump attended by Todd Blanche, the very official overseeing that review. Republican megadonor Larry Ellison, David’s father, had done even more for Trump, pouring roughly $45 million into a pro-Trump nonprofit before the 2024 election. In June 2026, Blanche's DOJ cleared David’s deal, bypassing career merger investigators before they could submit their final recommendation.

In today's world, government repression of speech and press is only one path to autocratic control. Countries such as Russia, Hungary, and Turkey—all autocratic to varying degrees—have used the power of government to help allies take over private media, and the Trump administration has embraced the same playbook. Earlier, Trump's FCC approved the Ellisons' takeover of CBS just three weeks after its parent company paid $16 million to settle a legally baseless lawsuit. The Warner Bros. Discovery deal remains formally pending, but it appears it will go through, giving the Ellisons two of Hollywood's "Big Five" studios, some of the most powerful cable networks in the country, and a vast library of intellectual property, including DC Comics and the Harry Potter franchise. In just two years, the Ellisons, thanks to Trump administration approval, are poised to own the largest media empire in American history, with the power to decide what tens of millions of Americans see and hear. Meanwhile, Elon Musk, Trump's largest donor, turned X into a partisan megaphone, at one point ordering engineers to boost his own posts by a factor of 1,000, and the administration has rewarded him. Trump's Federal Trade Commission opened an investigation into Media Matters, a Musk critic, after it reported on advertisers fleeing X, and key federal accounts now post more than twice as much on X as they did under the previous administration. As the Supreme Court recognized more than 80 years ago, "the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public … a free press is a condition of a free society." That is precisely why autocrats have long helped their allies take over private media, and it is precisely why the Trump administration's favoritism for its media allies is an existential threat to our democracy.²⁵¹

5.8.A: Musk’s Politicization of X & Trump Administration Favoritism

In October 2022, Elon Musk purchased Twitter, then a vital and beloved digital square, which he would later rename X. Almost immediately, Musk moved to gut the platform's content moderation infrastructure. According to an audit by Australia's online safety regulator, X cut its trust-and-safety engineering staff by 80% and its full-time content moderators by 50%. A "general amnesty" was also granted for thousands of previously banned accounts, including Trump, who used the platform to spread election lies; Andrew Tate, who used the platform to preach his misogynistic ideology; and Kanye West, who used the platform to announce that he was going "death con 3" on Jewish people. Meanwhile, Musk was engineering the platform's algorithm to favor his own posts. After he noticed Biden's posts had significantly more views than his, Musk ordered X engineers to build in a "power user multiplier," artificially boosting his posts by a factor of 1,000.

Beyond drowning X users in his own highly partisan opinions, Musk also uses his predominance on the platform to systematically boost the reach of fringe and conspiratorial accounts by regularly commenting on their posts. For instance, in November 2023 he interacted with a post claiming Jewish communities push "dialectical hatred against whites," replying, "You have said the actual truth." Independent academic researchers have also found that X users, after prolonged exposure to X's algorithm, systematically shift their viewing habits rightward. X is literally engineering political opinions. Despite Musk's politicization of X — or likely because of it — the Trump administration has showered both Musk and X with favoritism. As previously noted, Musk was made an unelected special government employee with sweeping powers. Trump's Federal Trade Commission also opened a formal investigation into Media Matters, one of Musk's enemies, after the group published a report on an advertiser exodus from X. The Trump White House and key federal agencies also began using X as a primary mechanism for governance and policy enforcement. DOGE, the agency Musk was placed in charge of, used X to publicize federal contracts, highlight perceived bureaucratic waste, and crowdsource ideas from the public on which regulations and offices to eliminate. Data from the Pew Research Center indicates that key federal accounts — including the White House, DHS, and ICE — posted more than twice as much on X compared to the previous administration, driving massive engagement numbers. In the final analysis, a deeply politicized platform, owned by Trump's largest donor, is now backed by the power of the United States government.²⁵²

5.8.B: Ellison Media Oligopoly & Trump Administration Favoritism

Within two years, media mogul David Ellison has, with the blessing of the Trump White House, accumulated a media empire. Larry Ellison, David's father and the co-founder of Oracle, is a Republican megadonor who poured roughly $45 million into a pro-Trump political non-profit prior to the 2024 election. As the Trump administration has been conducting oversight over the expansion of David's media empire, Ellison could be found sitting ringside with Trump at UFC fights, throwing a lavish dinner party for Trump attended by Attorney General Todd Blanche — who was then overseeing the DOJ's antitrust review of Ellison's pending merger with Warner Bros. Discovery — and attending Trump's private birthday party. Immediately after Ellison's Trump-FCC-approved takeover of CBS, the company implemented a barrage of conservative policies, including installing a "viewpoint diversity" editor and dismantling the company's DEI program. New CBS news management then purged veteran journalists and producers — including Scott Pelley and Cecilia Vega — from their flagship program, 60 Minutes, long considered the gold standard of broadcast news and the most successful news magazine in television history. The purge raises serious questions about the company's commitment to unbiased journalism. Then, in June 2026, Todd Blanche and the DOJ cleared the way for Ellison's $111 billion megamerger with Warner Bros. Discovery, which would result in an unprecedented entity combining two of Hollywood's "Big Five" legacy film studios, massive intellectual property holdings, and control of some of the biggest names in network and cable television. The DOJ's approval process was anything but normal: it bypassed career merger investigators before they could submit their final, formal recommendation. According to many legal experts and watchdog groups, it was blatant political cronyism, sidestepping normal independent oversight channels and ignoring modern merger guidelines. The deal remains formally pending, but state attorneys general dropped their challenge to the merger after Ellison threatened to relocate the business — a move that could have cost thousands of jobs and significant tax revenue. With that threat forcing their hand, the merger now appears set to go through, and the largest media company in American history will soon control much of what Americans see and hear.²⁵³

5.9: RW Media’s Abandonment of Journalistic Standards & Adoption of Propaganda Techniques

After the 2020 election, right-wing media played a vital role in spreading the Big Lie pushed by Trump and GOP elites, convincing millions of Americans that the election was stolen despite no credible evidence. In private texts later revealed in court, some of the same Fox News hosts who spent weeks telling viewers the 2020 election had been stolen dismissed the fraud claims as "kooky." When Dominion Voting Systems sued over the network's false claims that its machines had "shaved" votes from Trump, Fox paid $787.5 million to settle, the largest publicly disclosed defamation settlement in American media history. For decades, media scholars and journalism historians have documented right-wing media's transformation from a competing brand of conservative journalism into a sophisticated apparatus of political propaganda. That transformation did not happen by accident. Right-wing media originated as a deliberate political project, intimately tied to the conservative institutions it claims to cover. Fox News was built by Roger Ailes, a longtime Republican media strategist for Nixon, Reagan, and George H.W. Bush. Those ties have only deepened: the second Trump administration has recruited 23 current and former Fox News hosts, contributors, and staffers.

Rather than hold itself to journalistic ethics, right-wing media routinely revives journalists cast out of legitimate newsrooms, such as Benny Johnson, who was fired from BuzzFeed for 41 instances of plagiarism and is now a credentialed White House correspondent. It deploys well-documented propaganda techniques, including tribalizing rhetoric that recasts political opponents as enemies of the nation; fear-and-outrage programming that keeps audiences perpetually alarmed; and the relentless repetition of narratives, regardless of truth, until they become received wisdom. Far more than any mainstream outlet, right-wing media labels its audience "patriots" while dismissing other Americans as the "radical left"; it has spent decades manufacturing identity-threatening narratives, such as Fox News's "War on Christmas"; and one of its leading strategists, Steve Bannon, has publicly admitted that the goal is to "flood the zone with shit." When stories harmful to conservative elites surface, right-wing media simply does not report them. In one study, researchers paid devoted Fox viewers to watch CNN for a month and found Fox had withheld basic, undisputed facts about the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the Trump administration's missteps in handling the crisis. At the same time, it manufactures scandals to demonize its enemies, as when Fox promoted the false claim that murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich, not Russian intelligence, leaked the Democrats' emails, a lie that ended in a seven-figure settlement with his grieving parents. There are legitimate concerns about mainstream media bias, but, as is explored in detail in the sections below, right-wing media's tactics go well beyond bias into the realm of deliberate political propaganda. Right-wing media simply is not in the business of informing its audience or even honestly advocating for a political point of view. It is in the business of manipulating its audience, selling them what they want to believe while manufacturing political victories for conservative politicians, one story, one segment, and one outrage cycle at a time.²⁵⁴

5.9.A: Early RW Media’s Intimate Ties to GOP

In the 1980s, Rush Limbaugh launched the right-wing media revolution, turning nationally syndicated talk radio into a permanent, loyal instrument of Republican politics rather than an independent journalistic enterprise. His ties to the GOP were never hidden. In 1992, President George H.W. Bush personally invited Limbaugh to spend the night in the White House's Lincoln Bedroom and literally carried his bags. Two years later, days after Republicans won control of the House for the first time in 40 years, House Republican freshmen held a celebratory dinner to honor Limbaugh, crediting him directly for their victory and making him an honorary member of their caucus. Meanwhile, Limbaugh's nationally syndicated program, which was reaching approximately 20 million listeners per week, simply was not journalism. It had no original

reporting and no fact-checking process, and it often got the facts wrong without ever issuing a retraction. It was an utterly one-sided, partisan expression of one man's opinion that deliberately screened out alternative views. Then, in 1996, Rupert Murdoch, an Australian billionaire and renowned conservative, founded Fox News. Murdoch tapped Roger Ailes — a longtime Republican media strategist who had shaped the television image of Richard Nixon's 1968 campaign, Ronald Reagan's 1984 re-election effort, and George H.W. Bush's 1988 campaign — to run the company. Ailes largely followed Limbaugh's proven model, blending explicit ideological counterprogramming with the high-energy, entertainment-driven tactics of tabloid television. Though Fox still clung to some journalistic standards in its early years, it became, over time, a full-blown propaganda network, as detailed in the sections below. Today, the right-wing media landscape is bursting at the seams with Ailes's and Limbaugh's disciples. Breitbart News, founded by conservative provocateur Andrew Breitbart in 2007, was kept alive by a $10 million investment from Republican megadonor Robert Mercer. Newsmax was founded by Christopher Ruddy, a longtime personal friend of Donald Trump. Finally, One America News was explicitly created to outflank Fox News. Its founder, Charles Herring, argued that independents, libertarians, and others "on the outside" of Fox's coverage had nowhere else to go, framing OAN as "opening up another front, another platform" to Fox's right. Today, a significant share of American conservatives get their news not from journalists, but from openly partisan propaganda networks with direct, longstanding ties to the Republican Party.²⁵⁵

5.9.B: Escalating Ties Between RW Media & GOP

Today, there is a revolving door between right-wing media and the Republican Party. Trump filled his second administration with an unprecedented number of right-wing media personalities. According to Newsweek, the Trump administration has recruited 23 current and former Fox News hosts, contributors, or staffers. Former Fox & Friends Weekend host Pete Hegseth — despite lacking executive or senior military command experience — was named Secretary of Defense, now Secretary of War. Jeanine Pirro — a Fox News firebrand who played a major role in the company's $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems — became the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, widely considered the most powerful federal prosecutor's office in the United States. During both Trump administrations, Fox host Sean Hannity has functioned as a de facto presidential advisor, speaking with Trump multiple times a week and serving, in the words of Trump's own aides, as "a sounding board for ideas, a litmus test for what his base thinks." Trump regularly teases Hannity's upcoming show topics on social media before they air. During the January 6 riot, some of the most powerful right-wing media personalities were in direct text communication with the White House, privately pleading with Trump's chief of staff to get the president to call off the violence, even as some of them suggested to their viewers that same night that the rioters might not be Trump supporters at all. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has created new "media" seats in the White House press pool for friendly podcasters and influencers while using its control over press access to punish long-respected journalistic institutions, including the Associated Press, NBC News, and Reuters. Right-wing media personalities and Republican officials increasingly function as parts of a single messaging apparatus, coordinating and amplifying each other's talking points in near lockstep to manufacture the appearance of independent consensus. A country that cannot differentiate between its media and political figures cannot remain free for long.²⁵⁶

5.9.C: RW Media Revival of Disgraced Journalists

Mainstream news organizations operate under professional standards, codified by groups like the Society of Professional Journalists, that require verified sourcing, clear separation between reporting and opinion, disclosure of conflicts of interest, and prompt correction of errors. Journalists who violate these standards, whether through plagiarism, fabrication, or undisclosed bias, are typically fired and ostracized from the profession. Right-wing media's ecosystem not only lacks these standards but has built something of a business model out of actively reviving journalists disgraced elsewhere, who are uniquely positioned to peddle their discredited narratives while attacking the very institutions that rejected them. Benny Johnson, fired from BuzzFeed in 2014 after an internal review found 41 instances of plagiarism across more than 500 of his posts, is now a fixture at Trump White House press briefings, credentialed as "new media." Lara Logan was forced to take a leave of absence from 60 Minutes after her 2013 report on the Benghazi attack, which was built on a source who had lied to her. The story was publicly retracted, and CBS determined she had an undisclosed conflict of interest, having given paid speeches attacking the Obama administration's handling of the same story she was covering. She left the network for good in 2018 and is now a mainstay across right-wing media, hosting her own show and appearing regularly on Steve Bannon's War Room. These examples could be multiplied. Right-wing media outlets do not merely tolerate personalities with a documented history of bending or breaking basic professional rules; they actively seek them out, prizing figures who already have an axe to grind against the mainstream press. In doing so, they are not building news organizations, but institutions with a fundamental disregard for journalistic ethics.²⁵⁷

5.9.D: Manipulation Through Propaganda Techniques

For decades, media scholars, communications researchers, and public interest organizations have studied propaganda techniques — building on a formal typology of these tactics dating back to the 1930s — to understand how information can be weaponized to shape public perception and behavior. These same researchers have long recognized that right-wing media employs these very tactics, shamelessly and systematically. This includes tribalizing rhetoric that casts political opponents as existential enemies of the nation; fear-and-outrage programming engineered to keep audiences in a perpetual state of alarm; the relentless repetition and flooding of narratives until they become accepted as fact regardless of their truth; and the routine deployment of basic logical fallacies, from straw-manning opponents' arguments to whataboutism, designed to short-circuit critical thinking. Right-wing media does not deploy these tactics blindly or naively. Internal communications made public through the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit revealed that some of the very hosts most aggressively pushing 2020 election fraud claims on air privately dismissed those same claims as "kooky," even as they told their own viewers something very different. Right-wing media's leading figures know precisely what they are doing: purposefully manipulating their own audience.²⁵⁸

5.9.D.I: Tribalizing Rhetoric

5.9.D.II: Fear & Outrage Programming

Communications scholars have consistently found that right-wing media relies more heavily on outrage and threat-based programming than mainstream or left-leaning outlets. For instance, they are more likely to deploy slippery-slope and apocalyptic framing that casts ordinary political disagreements as existential threats to civilization itself. They often rely upon what researchers call "emotional shortcuts" that focus the viewer on isolated dramatic anecdotes or freak occurrences. Finally, they are far more likely to openly mock and express contempt through exaggerated facial expressions and heavy sarcasm. One need not look far to find examples; they are plentiful. In the weeks before the 2018

midterm elections, Fox News devoted more than 23 hours to a caravan of Central American migrants still hundreds of miles from the U.S. border, which was more airtime than CNN and MSNBC combined. Even after the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, in which 11 Americans died, the caravan remained their lead story. Fox News has spent decades manufacturing an annual "War on Christmas," a narrative, popularized by Bill O'Reilly, that casts ordinary pluralism, like retailers saying "Happy Holidays," as a coordinated assault on Christianity. Following the 2020 murder of George Floyd, researchers have found that right-wing outlets consistently framed the resulting demonstrations primarily as "riots" rather than protests, emphasizing property destruction and violence while largely ignoring peaceful protests and the underlying case for police reform. After the 2020 election, right-wing media spent months promoting a "Stop the Steal" narrative that has been thoroughly debunked. Trump and his allies lost more than 60 election lawsuits, with judges repeatedly finding that there was no fraud sufficient to change the outcome. Still today, polls find that somewhere between 50% and 63% of Republican voters believe that false, inflammatory narrative that no doubt contributed to a riot at our nation's capital. Beyond simply sensationalizing the news for profit, this right-wing media tactic of fostering fear and outrage is used to engineer GOP election victories and further tribalize right-wing Americans.²⁶⁰

5.9.D.III: Repetition & Flooding

Repetition and flooding refers to the deliberate, high-volume repetition of a narrative, whether true or false, across as many channels as possible until it displaces competing information and comes to be perceived as self-evidently true and self-evidently important. Researchers have found that right-wing media relies on this tactic far more heavily than mainstream outlets. Whereas the mainstream media, consisting of outlets ranging from left to center-right, forms a broad-based network that is constantly cross-referencing and checking each other's sources, right-wing media operates in a highly insulated and coordinated closed loop, with stories checked for their usefulness to the conservative political cause rather than their accuracy. This dynamic was laid bare most vividly in 2018, when a viral compilation revealed dozens of Sinclair Broadcast Group's local news anchors around the country reciting, almost word for word, an identical, corporate-mandated script ironically warning viewers about "fake news." And the coordination extends beyond media outlets to Republican politicians and administration officials, who frequently echo, and sometimes directly shape, the same phrases and framing being pushed on right-wing airwaves. Beyond flooding the ecosystem with accurate stories useful to Republican political fortunes, right-wing media also employs what RAND Corporation researchers have termed the "firehose of falsehood," a propaganda model built on high-volume, multichannel messaging that makes no commitment to consistency or objective reality. This tactic relies on the well-documented "illusory truth effect," through which repeated exposure to a claim increases the odds people will perceive it as true, regardless of its actual accuracy. As Trump strategist Steve Bannon once openly admitted, the goal is simply to "flood the zone with shit." Examples of these kinds of false stories are numerous, including the thoroughly debunked "great replacement" conspiracy theory and, more recently, the claim that the government can control the weather through geoengineering. Not only do right-wing media personalities elevate accurate stories that serve Republican political interests to the center of their viewers' consciousness through constant repetition, but they repeat outright falsehoods, again and again, until they become, in the minds of millions of Americans, indistinguishable from reality.²⁶¹

5.9.D.IV: Reliance Upon Logical Fallacies

5.9.E: Systematically Ignoring Real Journalism Harmful to RW Elites

Right-wing media does not simply report stories that serve GOP political interests; it also systematically ignores stories that harm GOP political interests. The examples are legion. When Mike Pence announced, live on Fox News, that he "cannot in good conscience" endorse Donald Trump, the network proceeded to bury its own scoop. Though a former vice president refused to endorse his own former running mate, Fox gave the story roughly four minutes of airtime over the following three days, and its prime-time hosts largely ignored it altogether, with some never even mentioning it. A similar pattern played out with the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit, which surfaced internal texts and emails showing Fox hosts and executives privately mocking the very election-fraud claims they were promoting to their audience. A New York Times analysis found that 18 of the 26 most popular conservative news outlets never reported on these revelations at all. While it is impossible to know just how many stories right-wing media has either ignored or buried beneath lesser ones, some idea of the practice's scale can be gleaned from David Broockman and Joshua Kalla's landmark peer-reviewed field experiment, published in 2022. The researchers paid hundreds of devoted Fox News viewers to watch CNN instead during prime time for nearly a month, and found that Fox had been withholding basic, undisputed facts about major national crises. Most notably during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, it gave its viewers no sense that infection rates in the United States were far higher than in other countries, nor any real accounting of the Trump administration's missteps in responding to it. It is indisputable: right-wing media does not merely spin the news in the GOP's favor; it actively conceals reality from its audience.²⁶³

5.9.E.I: Example: Coverage of January 6th Committee

Perhaps the most outlandish example of right-wing media simply refusing to report a real story of the utmost importance was its decision to counterprogram the first live congressional hearing into the January 6 insurrection. Rather than airing official congressional hearings into a violent mob that overtook the United States Capitol — resulting in all members of Congress fleeing for their lives and the postponement of the certification of a newly elected president — Fox News ran a two-hour, commercial-free rebuttal hosted by its most popular on-air personalities,

Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity. Both men went to extraordinary lengths to minimize the insurrection and vilify members of Congress, Republican and Democratic. Tucker Carlson began his broadcast by saying, "[We] will not be carrying their propaganda live. They’re lying and we’re not going to help them do it." Abandoning any semblance of journalistic standards, Carlson labeled the Committee members as his "moral inferiors," the riot as a "forgettably minor outbreak" of "mob violence," and the hearings themselves as "deranged." Sean Hannity picked up where Carlson left off. He labeled the hearing a "show trial" and a "selectively edited, political ad." In the weeks that followed, as the Committee continued to present sworn testimony, emails, text messages, video recordings, audio recordings, and official memoranda that would be admissible in any legitimate court of law, neither Hannity nor Carlson addressed any of it. Most of the government officials who testified against Trump were Republicans who worked in his administration, including Attorney General Bill Barr, who characterized the claim "that the election was stolen" as "bullshit." Jeff Rosen, the acting Attorney General after Barr resigned, testified that Trump told him to "just say the election was corrupt [and] leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen." A tape of Trump pressuring Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" 11,780 votes, the exact number necessary to alter the outcome, was played out loud. But neither Carlson nor Hannity shared any of this information with their audience. Some of the most newsworthy information imaginable, and they simply suppressed it.²⁶⁴

5.9.E.II: Example: Coverage of Trump's Civil & Criminal Cases

5.9.F: Pushing Flawed Narratives to Demonize Enemies

Right-wing media is far more likely than its mainstream counterparts to actively promote flawed or outright false narratives specifically designed to demonize its political opposition. It accomplishes this through a familiar toolkit: outrage discourse that turns policy disagreements into moral emergencies, disinformation spread through selective reframing of true facts into misleading narratives, and dehumanizing language that casts opponents as fundamentally illegitimate rather than merely mistaken. A landmark study by Harvard's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society tracked 1.25 million stories and their Facebook and Twitter shares across roughly 25,000 outlets in the run-up to the 2016 election. It found that right-wing media operates as a tightly insulated ecosystem capable of setting the broader media agenda, particularly around attacks on political opponents, while center-left and mainstream outlets remained structurally tethered to institutional fact-checking norms that moderated the spread of partisan clickbait. The sections that follow discuss two prominent examples that illustrate this dynamic. The first is the Seth Rich conspiracy theory, which falsely suggested a murdered Democratic National Committee staffer, rather than Russian intelligence, was the source of the DNC's hacked emails leading up to the 2016 election. The story served to distract the right-wing base from the well-documented Russian hacking operation, the Trump campaign's numerous contacts with Russian nationals, and an American president's ongoing obstruction of that investigation, including the firing of FBI Director James Comey. The second is right-wing media's amplification of false election-fraud claims before, during, and after the 2020 election, which, perhaps more than any other dishonest right-wing media narrative, has driven a massive wedge between the American people. In each case, the pattern is the same: a scandal is manufactured or wildly exaggerated not because the evidence supports it, but because it serves to demonize the opposition while simultaneously tribalizing its viewers.²⁶⁶

5.9.F.I: Example: Seth Rich Conspiracy Theory

In the midst of revelations about the Russia scandal, right-wing media concocted a baseless alternative narrative to distract its audience. On May 16, 2017, Fox News published a story by reporter Malia Zimmerman claiming that murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich had been in contact with WikiLeaks before his death, suggesting he, not Russian hackers, was the source of the DNC's leaked emails. Then, the network's most-watched programs, including Fox & Friends, Lou Dobbs Tonight, and Hannity, trumpeted the claim to millions of viewers. Though Fox retracted the story, none of the programs that repeated the lie ever corrected the record. The damage was done, and the conspiracy spread across other right-wing media and online message boards, with many claiming, without a shred of evidence, that Democrats had Rich murdered. Even Russian intelligence operatives and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange eventually began amplifying the false narrative to cover their own tracks. But in reality, the Mueller Report established that Russia's military intelligence agency transmitted the stolen DNC files to WikiLeaks on July 14, 2016, four days after Rich was killed. No credible evidence has ever tied Rich to the leak. Investigators concluded his murder was most likely the result of a botched robbery. The human cost of this conspiracy, manufactured by right-wing media, fell on Rich's grieving parents, Joel and Mary Rich, who sued Fox News alleging the network had subjected them to a campaign of emotional torture by exploiting their son's death. Fox settled the case in October 2020 for an undisclosed seven-figure sum. The record is clear: Fox News manufactured a false narrative to distract its audience from a real scandal that was then amplified throughout the right-wing media ecosystem until it became a full-blown, unfounded conspiracy theory. Meanwhile, the good name of a tragically murdered young man was dragged through the mud, as his family needlessly suffered.²⁶⁷

5.9.F.II: Example: False Voter Fraud Narrative

5.10: Misleading Narrative of Mainstream Media Bias & GOP Elite Double-Standard

5.10.A: Exception to the Rule: Left-Wing Media

Though studies show that mainstream media as a whole does not tilt toward either party, some outlets make no secret of where their sympathies lie. Cable networks like MSNBC and magazines like Mother Jones openly favor Democrats and progressive causes. Yet that is where the equivalence between left-wing and right-wing media ends. Research shows that the reach, the accountability, and the rhetoric of the two ecosystems are not remotely comparable. On reach, Harvard researchers found that left-leaning outlets are bound together in the same ecosystem as center-left and center outlets, while their right-wing counterparts cluster tightly around a small core of highly partisan sources. Pew Research has found that 57% of Republicans get their news from Fox News, at least double the share who turn to any other outlet, while Democrats split their attention roughly evenly across numerous sources, ranging from left to center. On accountability, the Harvard researchers describe a "propaganda feedback loop" inside the right-wing ecosystem, in which false stories circulate and amplify through repetition without correction, while the rest of the media landscape, including its left-leaning outlets, operates under a "reality check dynamic" of competitive fact-checking, rapid retractions, and even the disciplining of reporters who get it wrong. On rhetoric, a linguistic analysis of nearly 25,000 social media users found that conservative language disproportionately invokes threat, power, certainty, and anger, while liberal language leans toward benevolence. A separate analysis of 1.8 million news headlines found that right-leaning outlets publish hyperpartisan headlines at more than double the rate of left-leaning ones. That distinction matters because outrage sells. One study found that each word attacking a political out-group increases a social media post's odds of being shared by 67%, giving an ecosystem already organized around a smaller, tighter, more partisan audience every incentive to lean into exactly that kind of language. There is, of course, left-wing media, but it is not nearly as concentrated, dishonest, or tribal as its right-wing counterpart.²⁷⁰