the case for
impeachment
Congress should have opened an impeachment investigation into Trump’s violations of the Emoluments Clauses and into his unlawful, corrupt campaign practices on Day 1 of Trump’s second administration. They did not, and the United States and our democracy have paid the price. Those were the first but not the last offenses against our country that Trump has committed since taking office, and for which he should be impeached and removed.
Each offense listed here stands as a stark and dangerous assault on our democracy and the rule of law. Taken together, they demonstrate that Trump is intentionally dismantling our democratic institutions in order to consolidate his own power, silence his opponents, shield himself and his cronies from accountability, and usher in an authoritarian regime. This is precisely what our founders feared a corrupt, power-abusing executive might do, and it is why the United States Constitution imposes upon Congress an obligation to impeach and remove corrupt, abusive executives.
Unless and until Congress takes its constitutional impeachment obligations seriously, Trump will continue to entrench his corrupt interests, usurp authority committed by the Constitution to the other co-equal government branches, and abuse his power to the detriment of our democracy and the people of our country.
Congress can impeach and remove Trump from office for any one of the following acts. It should impeach and remove Trump for all of them.
Table of Contents
Committing treason by levying war against the United States, individual states, and their people
Abusing the power of his office to unlawfully maintain political power
Unconstitutionally and systemically violating the First Amendment
Defying court orders, threatening judges, and unconstitutionally usurping judicial authority
Engaging in unlawful extortion to co-opt law firms, the media, and private industry
Engaging in corruption for his own and his close associates’ personal enrichment
Engaging in unlawful, corrupt practices during the 2024 presidential campaign
The paragraphs below are previews of the detailed summaries in our full report. We encourage you to read our full report, linked below, to learn about the full factual context and legal reasoning underpinning our call for the impeachment and removal of Donald Trump from public office.
1. Committing Illegal War and Humanitarian Crimes
In the Middle East, Latin America, and the Caribbean, Trump is abusing his role as commander of the U.S. military to commit and threaten to commit atrocities that violate U.S. and international law. He has usurped Congress’ power to declare war in both Iran and Venezuela. In Iran, he targeted civilian infrastructure and threatened to wipe out the country’s entire civilization in a war that has caused a cascade of violence throughout the Middle East, with catastrophic consequences for civilian lives, U.S. military personnel, and regional stability. He also has embarked on a campaign of atrocities in the waters of Latin America and the Caribbean, ordering the bombing of dozens of boats and the murder of their civilian crews. Trump also planned war crimes in Iran and Palestine, threatening to commit genocide of the Iranian people and threatening to unlawfully displace Palestinians from Gaza.
2. Unconstitutionally usurping Congress’s power to declare war.
The War Powers Clause of the Constitution, U.S. Const. art. I, sec. 8, cl. 11, grants Congress the sole power to declare war. By starting illegal and unconstitutional wars with Iran and Venezuela without the authorization by Congress, Trump acted in direct violation of the War Powers Clause of the Constitution. Trump jeopardized, and continues to jeopardize, American lives and interests with his usurpation of congressional war powers.
3. Committing treason by levying war against the United States, individual states, and their people
Trump is committing treason—and commanding U.S. military forces to commit treason—by mobilizing U.S. troops against civilians throughout the United States, to instill fear in the civilian population, quell lawful political dissent, politicize our military, and usurp local and state authority. Through his acts he has “lev[ied] War against [the United States],” qualifying his acts as treason under Article III, section 3, clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution.
4. Committing treason and abusing his power by inciting violence, including murder, in minnesota and covering up the execution of minnesota civilians by ice agents
Trump has targeted Minneapolis and Minnesota as part of his campaign to punish, defund, and inflict state-sponsored violence on cities and states that elect Democrats or contain immigrant-rich communities. He militarized and weaponized federal law enforcement, particularly U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to punish the opposition party, disrupt local communities, instill fear in the civilian population, and quell lawful political dissent. Federal agents have executed and shot people in the streets. Trump and his administration are encouraging, condoning, and covering up these murders, protecting the shooters, and spreading dangerous misinformation about the crimes and victims, who include Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti.
5. Calling for the execution of Members of Congress
On November 20, 2025, Trump called for the execution of Democratic lawmakers—all of whom served in the military or intelligence—because they released a short video that accurately stated to current members of the military and intelligence communities:
“Like us, you all swore an oath to protect and defend this Constitution. Right now, the threats to our Constitution aren’t just coming from abroad, but from right here at home. Our laws are clear: You can refuse illegal orders; you must refuse illegal orders. No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution.”
Trump accused the lawmakers of sedition and treason on social media and reposted a third party’s post calling for them to be hanged. Trump is wholly aware that his threats place these politicians’ lives at risk, incite violence by his followers, and undermine our democracy, which cannot survive where dissent is punishable by death.
6. Abusing the power of his office to unlawfully maintain political power.
Trump is attempting to subvert our elections, steal the 2026 midterms and subsequent federal elections, and retain his party’s control of Congress through illicit and unlawful means. These include unlawfully interfering with redistricting to maintain his party’s control of Congress, directing federal officers to violate the Hatch Act and other ethics laws by using taxpayer money to fund blatantly partisan messaging, engaging in voter intimidation and suppression, and attempting to illegally seize control over the 2026 election, including by gaining access to and control over sensitive voter data and voting equipment and by orchestrating voter roll purges.
7. Illegally kidnapping, detaining, and removing U.S. residents.
Trump, directly and via senior officials within his administration, has orchestrated and ordered the kidnapping, detention and removal of hundreds of thousands of people, without due process. Federal agents have taken people from their homes, cars, workplaces, and communities, moved them from state to state to evade court oversight, and held them without access to attorneys and family in abusive and inhumane conditions of confinement, in some cases in defiance of court orders. And thousands have been smuggled out of the country, again often in evasion or defiance of court orders, including to countries that pose danger to the victims’ safety and to countries with which they have no connection. His victims include U.S. citizens, lawful visa-holders, children, and hundreds of thousands of people who live peacefully in our country and have no criminal record.
Most of the hundreds of thousands of people who have been unlawfully kidnapped, imprisoned, or removed from the country have been caught up in racist and politically motivated unconstitutional immigration sweeps that Trump has ordered across the country. Trump also has targeted students, activists, protesters, and bystanders to punish them for exercising their First Amendment rights to dissent against the Trump administration or its international allies; and immigrants who have contested illegal deportation orders.
In addition to these impeachable abuses of power, Trump also has implemented an unlawful, unconstitutional, and costly scheme to smuggle people out of the United States and keep them in foreign prisons and concentration camps without due process, access to the courts, or access to any of the rights to which they are entitled. Once smuggled out of the country, senior Trump officials have disavowed responsibility for the prisoners, even as the U.S. government pays foreign governments to keep the migrants confined. Trump and senior officials acting at his direction are using the foreign imprisonment that they orchestrated and funded as an excuse to defy court orders to return these individuals to U.S. soil. Trump is preparing to expand this scheme to imprison U.S. citizens in foreign concentration camps.
8. Unconstitutionally and systemically violating the First Amendment
Trump has systematically abused his power to stop people from, and punish people for, exercising the freedom of speech, assembly, and press. These rights are enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; they are amongst our most sacred and important rights, necessary for a functional democracy. Our democracy cannot survive if speech is suppressed, if people are denied access to a robust and independent press, or if people are afraid to take positions counter to those expressed by a ruling party, all of which is occurring as the intended result of Trump’s lawless conduct.
9. Unconstitutionally usurping Congress’s powers
Trump repeatedly has usurped or attempted to usurp the authority and powers granted to Congress by the Constitution. This includes: creating positions of authority in and over federal agencies; blocking the distribution of trillions of dollars in funds appropriated by Congress; spending money appropriated by Congress for other purposes; accepting money and assets from wealthy donors and foreign governments and maintaining sole control over those assets; destroying and rebuilding the White House at significant cost; renaming centers and boards; creating an international body that he personally—not the United States President—controls; and dismantling several congressionally-mandated departments and agencies.
10. Defying court orders, threatening judges, and unconstitutionally usurping judicial authority
Trump and his administration have repeatedly refused to comply with court orders and have evaded court oversight, each time in order to continue trampling on our civil rights and carrying out abuses of power. Trump has violated the U.S. Constitution and trampled on the powers afforded to the Judiciary Branch by the Founders in order to check abuses of power from the other branches of government. Furthermore, Trump has subjected judges who rule against him to abusive tirades and public denouncement, posing a serious risk to the safety of judges and their ability to impartially uphold our laws and our rights. All of this undermines the rule of law in our country.
11. Abusing investigatory and prosecutorial powers
Trump is politicizing and weaponizing the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the regulatory powers of federal agencies to target individuals and entities he perceives as political enemies and to shield himself and his allies from legitimate investigations and prosecutions. As a result, corruption under Trump's administration is flourishing; dissenting voices are being persecuted; and the rule of law is failing, because it can only function if the system of justice operates impartially and fairly.
12. Abusing his power to remove nonpartisan civil servants, punish perceived adversaries, and reshape federal agencies.
Trump, via his close subordinates and agents, has abused the power of his office to seek retribution against perceived adversaries, including hundreds of nonpartisan career public servants within the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) who were merely carrying out their duties. FBI agents, DOJ attorneys, and all federal employees are expected to carry out their duties impartially, regardless of the wealth, power, or status of the individuals they prosecute, and have been persecuted for diligently doing their jobs and using their constitutionally protected right to free speech under the First Amendment.
13. engaging in Unlawful extortion to co-opt law firms, the media, and private industry
Throughout his presidency, Trump has used unlawful threats and baseless investigations against individuals and companies to pressure increasingly monopolized industries into taking actions that the government could not lawfully compel, much of which is intended to personally benefit Trump and his allies or to silence critics of the Trump administration. This includes creating an increasingly docile or outright sycophantic media; directing powerful law firms to do his bidding and ensuring that they will not oppose him; and pressuring AI companies to abandon bare minimum standards of safety when working with the U.S. military.
14. Engaging in corruption for his own and his close associates’ personal enrichment.
Throughout his presidency, Trump has engaged in highly corrupt practices—including explicit bribery schemes—to obtain personal and political favors. These include using the power of his office to enrich himself, his family, and his close associates, soliciting personal gifts, donations, and other benefits in bribery or extortion schemes, and supporting or facilitating his subordinates in abusing government resources for personal benefit. By even a conservative measure, Trump’s corrupt conduct has netted billions of dollars to him and his family since January 2025.
The Founders feared that an executive could abuse the significant power and authority of his office for corrupt ends. Their fears were well-placed. Trump has created a multi-tiered system that favors people, businesses, and even foreign governments who are best positioned to enrich him and his allies, at the expense of the United States’ own security, wealth, wellbeing, and rule of law. Any one of these schemes warrants impeachment and removal. Together, they demonstrate clearly impeachable abuses of power that put our country at risk for Trump’s personal benefit.
15. Co-opting and dismantling independent government oversight of businesses, government institutions, and law enforcement.
Trump has dismantled anti-corruption and government oversight institutions, safeguards, and frameworks across multiple government agencies. The purpose and result has been to shield corporations and entire industries from regulations intended to protect consumers and the public, open unprecedented opportunities for corruption by government officials, and block oversight of federal and local law enforcement even as U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) officers and other law enforcement officers, acting on orders given by Trump and his senior associates, arrest and engage in brutality against immigrants, academics, protesters, and Trump’s political opponents.
As part of these efforts to dismantle government oversight, Trump is terminating government officials in order to undermine agency oversight capabilities, preventing the investigation and prosecution of corruption and corporate malfeasance at home and abroad, and preventing the oversight of law enforcement, including ICE officials and other law enforcement officials who are carrying out his campaigns against immigrants, protesters, academics, and political opponents.
16. Imposing unlawful tariffs
Trump imposed harmful and illegal tariffs on countries across the world, which usurped tax powers explicitly reserved to Congress pursuant to Article I, section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, abuses his limited emergency powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), and violates multiple trade agreements. The tariffs constitute an unlawful tax and have undermined the United States economy, led to retaliatory tariffs from trade partners, had devastating effects on stock and bond markets, and crippled the economic security of Americans and American businesses. Moreover, Trump is using and is positioned to use illegal tariffs to corruptly benefit his own and his allies’ financial interests and entrench his political power. The Supreme Court blocked these unlawful tariffs, but Trump has vowed to continue to abuse other sources of power to reenact them.
17. Receiving foreign and domestic emoluments
The Domestic and Foreign Emoluments Clauses of the Constitution prohibit the president from profiting from the United States, individual states, or foreign governments U.S. Const., art. I, sec. 9, cl. 8; and art. II, sec. 1, cl. 7. The Founders understood these clauses to provide a critical safeguard against corruption. Trump has refused to relinquish his ownership stake in his companies. He already has or is assured to receive substantial payment and benefit from foreign governments, including Saudi Arabia, from the United States, and from the several states.
18. Unconstitutionally usurping local and state authority
Trump has attempted to unconstitutionally commandeer local and state authority to carry out his mass deportation plans by threatening state and local officials with criminal prosecution if they decline to be co-opted by federal immigration authorities. Trump also is abusing the power of the U.S. military to punish Democratic-led cities and states, bypass local and state governments, oppress protesters, and support ICE’s assault on immigrant communities.
19. Abusing the emergency power
The President’s power to declare an emergency affords Trump access to powers and authority not normally afforded to the President. He has abused this power by falsely declaring national emergencies to bypass the rule of law, further his own agenda, and confer privileges on favored business sectors from which he receives personal benefits.
20. Abusing the pardon power.
Trump has abused the pardon power, undermined due process of law, and cost the American people more than $100 million in restitution that his pardoned allies will no longer have to pay back to victims and U.S. taxpayers. Trump pardoned and/or commuted sentences for: more than 1,500 January 6 co-insurrectionists, dozens of Trump allies who may have faced criminal charges for attempting to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss, and individuals who either committed crimes in support of Trump’s preferred policies or who bribed him with donations.
21. Abusing his power to undermine public health and safety.
Trump, directly and through senior officials in his administration, is dismantling America’s public health infrastructure and decimating our public health protections, expertise, research, data, and safeguards. He is endangering the health and safety of American residents, putting millions of lives in danger, and sabotaging the place that the United States once held as a leader in scientific and medical advancements.
“Life and liberty” are fundamental American values, prioritized in the Declaration of Independence and secured by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. Congress, under the power allotted to it by the Commerce Clause, has passed countless laws to ensure the common defense against injury and disease, and for decades, federally funded institutions have propelled medical advancements and disseminated vital public health information. Trump, DOGE, and the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have decimated these institutions and undermined their mission and credibility, to the detriment of America’s public health. By allowing and encouraging arbitrary and unreasonable actions to fire professionals, cut funding, change scientifically approved health guidelines, and spread misinformation, Trump has failed to faithfully execute his responsibilities as President and uphold the Constitution and duly passed laws of this nation.
22. Abusing his power in order to deprive the American public of accurate political, historic, scientific, and medical information.
Trump has abused the power of his office in order to suppress the public’s access to accurate information and to proliferate disinformation that benefits him, his allies, and his interests. He is censoring and distorting information that is shared with the public, and undermining federal institutions tasked with collecting and disseminating essential data and information—data that in turn is used to make critical policy decisions that impact our public safety, health, education, economy, and foreign policies. Trump has defunded and criticized these institutions, fired federal officials that produce results he doesn’t like, and hired officials who are loyal to him and not to their agencies’ missions.
A democracy cannot function if citizens do not have access to accurate information. Disinformation deprives policymakers of the ability and responsibility to make policy choices that benefit the public, deprives voters of the ability to make informed decisions, and fosters distrust of the government and the data it produces.
To the detriment of our democracy, Trump has distorted facts, punished factfinders, undermined democratic institutions, and limited the public’s access to crucial information about key areas of society.
23. Unlawfully aggregating and disseminating private data, in violation of individual privacy and liberty rights.
Through the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE), Trump unlawfully consolidated sensitive, non-anonymized personal data about people who live in the United States, both citizens and non-citizens, and that information has been disseminated to political allies. The information has been culled from essential data systems across federal agencies, including the Department of Treasury, Social Security Administration, Department of Health and Human Services, and Department of Education, all of which hold detailed personal information—including medical, financial, and identifying data—about individuals in the United States, all of whom have reasonable expectations that this data will be kept confidential and used only for the purpose for which individuals shared their sensitive information.
This plan to aggregate and disseminate personal information violates the Privacy Act of 1974; the reasonable expectation of privacy long recognized in the Fourth Amendment; and the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The collapse of information silos puts people’s personal information and identities at risk for abuse by government agencies and private companies and leaves people vulnerable to being unlawfully surveilled. It will chill freedom of expression, prevent people from accessing important government services, allow for the weaponization of data against political opponents, and cost people their autonomy. It also exposes individuals and information systems to exponentially more damaging cyberattacks from foreign nations, terrorists, and cybercriminals.
24. Depriving citizens of their birthright citizenship
Birthright citizenship has been enshrined in our Constitution for more than 150 years in the Fourteenth Amendment, unequivocally and without exception conferring citizenship on “All persons born or naturalized in the United States.” In lawless defiance of the Constitution, Trump issued an executive order purporting to strip U.S.-born citizens of their citizenship because of their parents’ immigration status. The order has been stayed, but it does not absolve Trump of his abuse of power or Congress of its responsibility to hold Trump accountable for his dangerous and unlawful attack on U.S. citizens’ basic right to their own nationality.
25. Blocking efforts to secure U.S. elections
The United States is facing unprecedented threats of foreign and domestic interference in U.S. elections, from entities that have the resources, tools, and capacity to hack our election systems and the emails of high-level officials, and to spread disinformation and propaganda via social media platforms. Despite these known risks, Trump has disbanded law enforcement taskforces that counter foreign influence, ordered federal agencies to stop work on critical election security work, pardoned individuals who have unlawfully interfered with elections, and launched a multiprong effort to harass local election officials.
26. Engaging in unlawful, corrupt practices during the 2024 presidential campaign.
Trump must be investigated for unlawful, unconstitutional, or corrupt practices that occurred during his 2024 re-election campaign. Trump offered explicit quid pro quos for campaign contributions, concealed legal services payments, unlawfully coordinated with super PACs, and facilitated an illegal vote-buying scheme by Elon Musk. Furthermore, Trump used racist, dehumanizing language, threatened violence against political opponents, and spread dangerous disinformation that put federal workers in danger.
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