Trump is committing treason—and commanding U.S. military forces to commit treason—by mobilizing U.S. troops against civilians throughout the United States, in an effort 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, § 3, cl. 1 of the U.S. Constitution. These acts of treason and clear abuses of power include the following:

• In defiance of the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago, in October 2025 Trump sent Texas national guard troops into Chicago and announced plans to federalize Illinois’ own national guard for use against Illinois civilians. Hundreds of troops are now staging in the city, adding to the already significant presence of ICE and other federal agents who have been conducting violent “immigration” raids throughout the city and detaining protesters, citizens, lawfully present immigrants, and children. Reports indicate that the Pentagon spent weeks planning the military invasion of Chicago. 

• Trump attempted to deploy National Guard troops in Portland, Oregon, in defiance of the state of Oregon and the city of Portland; his plans were temporarily blocked by a federal district court judge on October 4, 2025.

• Less than one week before he deployed troops in Chicago and attempted to deploy troops to Portland, Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth spoke to a mandatory gathering of all top U.S. military officials, in which they outlined a plan to engage in warfare against U.S. cities without abiding by constitutional or international humanitarian law constraints. Hegseth informed these military officials that the U.S. military must “unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy,” and denigrated internationally recognized humanitarian rules of warfare: “We also don’t fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement, just common sense, maximum lethality and authority for warfighters.” Immediately thereafter, Trump made it clear that he is prepared to attack U.S. cities, and equated civilians within his target cities—all of which are run by Democrats—to foreign enemies. He announced that he plans to use “dangerous cities as training grounds for our military,” and told the gathering that “we’re under invasion from within. No different than a foreign enemy but more difficult in many ways because they don’t wear uniforms.” Trump also threatened to punish any officer who did not endorse his position, telling them at the outset: “If you don’t like what I’m saying, you can leave the room—of course, there goes your rank, there goes your future.” Through these speeches, Trump and Hegseth amplified and expanded on their illegal war against the several states; that in this war, the military would not be required to adhere to international humanitarian law to protect civilian life; that the military should view the residents of U.S. cities as “foreign enemies”; and that enemies should be “intimidate[d], demoralize[d], hunt[ed] and kill[ed].”

• On August 11, 2025, Trump placed the District of Columbia police under federal control and deployed more than 2,300 National Guard troops throughout Washington D.C., purportedly to respond to crime in the city and break up encampments where unhoused people live. Two weeks later, the majority of these troops began carrying weapons. Trump has also deployed armed, masked ICE and other federal agents to the city and set up checkpoints. ICE has arrested thousands of D.C. residents, half of whom have never been accused of any non-immigration crime. D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb opposes the occupation of his city, defining it as “unprecedented, unnecessary, and unlawful.” D.C.’s violent crime rate was already at a 30-year low at the start of the occupation. And regardless of the statistics, the move is unlawful and abuses the authority that the federal government may exercise over the city. Federal troops are prohibited from engaging in civilian law enforcement except in narrow emergency circumstances inapplicable here. This move has undermined local home rule, is terrorizing D.C. residents, and places civilian law enforcement at the mercy of federal troops. D.C. remains under armed occupation by U.S. National Guard troops and federal agents.

• Under a June 7, 2025 memorandum, Trump unlawfully authorized the mobilization of 2,000 National Guard troops to respond to civilian protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s violent and disruptive raids in Los Angeles. Thousands of troops were deployed to California without the consent of the Governor of California, and the plainly unlawful memorandum authorizes the mobilization of additional troops elsewhere in the country without the consent of the governor of any state in which these troops are sent. Although Trump asserts that he has the authority to mobilize these troops pursuant to 10 U.S.C. § 12406, he does not; this law authorizes the federation of the National Guard only in extremely limited circumstances that have not occurred here and requires prior consent of the relevant state governor, which Trump did not obtain. Indeed, the troops were mobilized in Los Angeles in direct defiance of the Governor of California. As California Governor Newsom correctly said in response to the order: “Trump is sending 2,000 National Guard troops into LA County—not to meet an unmet need, but to manufacture a crisis. He’s hoping for chaos so he can justify more crackdowns, more fear, more control.” The mobilization of troops against civilian protesters violates protesters’ freedom of assembly and speech, usurps state and local authority to enforce local laws, and undermines our democracy. On September 2, 2025, a federal judge ruled after a three-day trial that this deployment was unlawful for violating the Posse Comitatus Act, a federal law which bars the military from enforcing domestic laws without explicit permission from Congress.

• Trump has threatened to mobilize military forces in other Democratic-led cities whose local and state governments have been critical of Trump or ICE—in other words, has threatened to abuse U.S. military power to occupy with armed troops any community that opposes him. He declared on August 26, 2025 that he has “the right to do anything he wants to do” when it comes to deploying National Guard troops in U.S. cities, in defiance of the Constitution and U.S. law. He has named Memphis and Baltimore as future targets.

On November 20, 2025, Trump called for the execution of Democratic lawmakers, all of whom are currently serving in the U.S. Senate or the U.S. House of Representatives and who previously served in the military or in intelligence on behalf of the United States, 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 then called for their execution over these words. In one post, he wrote: “It’s called SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL. Each one of these traitors to our County should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL. Their words cannot be allowed to stand – We won’t have a Country anymore!!! An example MUST BE SET. President DJT.” In another, he wrote: “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” And he reposted a third party’s post: “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD!”

It is a flagrant and dangerous abuse of power for Trump to call for the execution of Members of Congress. Impeachable in any context, Trump’s call for the execution of his political rivals is particularly dangerous in the current political climate, which Trump has fostered, in which lawmakers and judges have faced political violence and threats for opposing Trump’s policies. 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.

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. Specifically, he is carrying out or participating in the following schemes:

• Trump is coordinating with the Governor of Texas and with Republicans in the Texas state legislature to carry out an unlawful gerrymandering of the state’s congressional districts in order to silence voters of color and secure additional Republican seats during the 2026 midterms. The Trump Administration has actively pressuredTexas Republicans to redraw its congressional districting maps, and the Department of Justice has baselessly alleged that the previous map is illegal. Trump also has opened the door to the use and abuse the resources of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to track down Texas legislators who have fled the state in order to protect their constituents from the eleventh-hour unlawful redistricting scheme, an unprecedented weaponization of federal law enforcement to quell dissent in a state political dispute. The involvement of Trump and his senior officials in partisan redistricting efforts also violates the Hatch Act, which limits political activities of federal employees.

• On August 7, 2025, Trump announced on Truth Social that he was directing the Department of Commerce to conduct a mid-decade census that excludes undocumented U.S. residents, in a clear bid to unconstitutionally manipulate our country’s congressional districts. This continues Trump’s previous attempt in his first administration to inject a citizenship question into the census, which was thwarted by a Supreme Court ruling. Such a census would upend more than 225 years of census-taking practices and violate the U.S. Constitution. The Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution requires that “Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State.” (Emphasis added.). Article I, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution requires Congress to conduct a census every ten years in order to determine representation in Congress; and while federal law authorizes the Department of Commerce to conduct mid-decade censuses, it is prohibited from using a mid-decade census “for apportionment of Representatives in Congress among the several States” or for “prescribing congressional districts.” The proposed mid-decade census would insert citizenship questions or requirements that would both undermine accurate and complete data collection and frighten or burden even U.S. citizens or documented residents—a particularly salient fear, given that the Trump Administration and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement are using data from previously protected databases to raid homes, schools, workplaces, and courtrooms in immigrant communities. An inaccurate count will dilute the voice of minority voters and take from these communities vital federal funding for infrastructure, education, housing, and other essential services. Trump’s plans to bend the census to his whims violate the U.S. Constitution, statutory authority, and longstanding tradition and convention.

Trump, via close subordinates and agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has kidnapped, detained, and removed, without any due process, thousands of people who peacefully live in our country. These people have been stolen from the streets of their communities, moved from state to state to evade court oversight, held without access to attorneys and family, and, in some cases, removed from the country and imprisoned in dangerous conditions in foreign countries in defiance of court orders. In carrying out this breathtaking and illegal assault on immigrants—including refugees, students, and other lawful visa-holders—Trump has undermined the First Amendment, abused his power to seek retribution against people who hold views with which he does not agree, unconstitutionally defied court orders and usurped judicial authority, unconstitutionally impeded local and state authority, and targeted individuals on the basis of their religious, ethnic, or racial identities. And he is now threatening to expand this scheme of kidnapping disfavored people and sending them to foreign prisons to include U.S. citizens. Examples of individuals who are being persecuted and wrongly imprisoned include:

• Guatemalan child refugees: The Trump Administration unlawfully attempted to expel and remove from the country hundreds of Guatemalan child refugees who crossed into the United States alone and who are under the care of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement. With almost no warning on August 31, 2025, the Trump Administration and ICE bypassed procedures, picked up children from shelters, and loaded them onto planes, as a judge convened a weekend hearing to block their removal. Indeed, a government attorney admitted that one plane may have taken off, and turned around only because the hearing convened. Some of the children had active immigration cases pending; all were denied sufficient notice, due process, and the special protections afforded to children under U.S. immigration law. Absent the temporary court order, the children would have been returned to Guatemala to face the abuse and violence from which they fled.

• Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia: A father of three who has lived in the United States since fleeing gang violence as a teenager, Mr. Abrego Garcia holds a “withholding of removal” status to prevent his removal to El Salvador because of the high likelihood that he would face persecution upon his return. But on March 12, 2025, he was stopped by ICE agents, arrested in front of his five-year-old son, and, with no warrant and no lawful basis, taken into custody, moved across multiple state lines, and flown to El Salvador where he was immediately imprisoned in a maximum security prison known for its rampant human rights abuses and disappearances of prisoners. His imprisonment was funded by the Trump Administration, which is paying millions of taxpayer dollars to El Salvador to imprison immigrants removed from the United States. Like others held in El Salvador following their removal from the United States by the Trump Administration, Mr. Abrego Garcia had not been charged with any crime in either country. Despite multiple court orders, including a court order of the United States Supreme Court, the Trump Administration defiantly refused to facilitate his return for more than two months. When he was finally returned to the United States, he was immediately imprisoned in Tennessee to face hastily orchestrated charges that his attorneys categorize as the government’s “latest act of contempt.” After a federal court ordered his release, Mr. Abrego Garcia was arrested while attending an immigration check-in, and the Trump Administration is now trying to deport him to Uganda, a country with which he has no connection.

• Rümeysa Öztürk: A Fulbright scholar with a master’s degree from Columbia University and current PhD candidate at Tufts University, Ms. Ozturk was illegally and baselessly stripped of her student visa, kidnapped by masked ICE agents, taken across multiple state lines in order to evade court oversight, and ultimately taken to a private prison in Louisiana, where she is still being held in detention more than a thousand miles from her community and her attorneys. Her sole offense was co-authoring an op-ed in a student newspaper, asking the university to abide by undergraduate student Senate resolutions that sought to hold Israel accountable for international law violations against Palestine.

• Mahmoud Khalil: A recent recipient of a master’s degree from Columbia University, a lawful permanent resident of the United States, and a soon-to-be father, Mr. Khalil was imprisoned for 104 days from March 8, 2025 until he was released on bail on June 20, 2025. ICE officials arrested him in his apartment building in New York without a warrant and removed him to Louisiana, where he is being held in a private prison over a thousand miles from his attorneys, family, and community. The U.S. State Department revoked his visa and is seeking to deport him. He has not been charged with any criminal offense. He was arrested because he helped lead pro-Palestine protests at Columbia University when he was a student there. Mr. Khalil is Palestinian with Algerian citizenship.

• Venezuelan migrants: Senior Trump officials were involved in smuggling Venezuelan migrants out of the United States via planes that took off in secret and in order to evade court oversight. The migrants were taken to El Salvador in shackles and immediately taken to a maximum security prison, where they remain in detention without access to attorneys and other basic human rights and are likely being subjected to forced labor. The United States has entered into an agreement to pay El Salvador to imprison migrants. Although Trump and senior Trump officials claim that these individuals are members of a Venezuelan gang, they have not presented any evidence to support these claims.

• Immigrants Held in Djibouti: Senior Trump officials flew eight immigrants out of the country without due process and in direct violation of a court order. The Trump Administration intended to leave them in South Sudan, which holds a U.S. State Department travel advisory due to threat of “crime, kidnapping, and armed conflict,” but when blocked by the court opted instead to reroute the flight to Djibouti, where the immigrants are being imprisoned in inhumane conditions—a single room in a converted shipping container on a U.S. military base, under ICE guard and facing illness and threats of terrorist attacks.

• Immigrants imprisoned in Eswatini: Five immigrants, all of whom were convicted of a crime in the United States, serviced their sentence, and have been living peacefully in the United States for several years, were removed without warning to Eswatini where they are being illegally imprisoned in a maximum security prison despite having served their sentence and being accused of no additional crime in either the United States or Eswatini. None of the men have any connection to Eswatini, and all are being deprived of access to their counsel and other basic human rights.

These examples have, to date, received the most public and judicial attention, but they represent a tiny fraction of the hundreds, if not thousands of people disfavored by Trump, whom Trump and his subordinates have illegally removed from the country and placed in concentration camps and other forms of cruel and unusual punishment on foreign soil and whose ongoing detention is being paid for by U.S. taxpayers. And given Trump’s plan to expand this scheme to include U.S. citizens, they will represent an even tinier fraction of all those who risk being disappeared to foreign countries, tortured in foreign prisons, and placed out of reach of U.S. rights, courts, and due process.

Trump 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, trial, 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 are disavowing responsibility for the prisoners, their wellbeing, or their rights, even as the U.S. government pays foreign governments to keep the migrants confined. Trump and his senior officials are using the foreign imprisonment that they orchestrated and funded as an excuse to defy court orders and return the migrants to U.S. soil. And Trump is preparing to expand this scheme to imprison U.S. citizens in foreign concentration camps. Trump, senior officials within his administration, and agents of ICE and other federal agencies have:

• Paid El Salvador $6 million to accept and imprison more than 230 mostly Venezuelan men who sought refuge in the United States in a notorious and overcrowded maximum security prison known as Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT), where prisoners are denied basic human rights, including education, recreation, and visitors, and subjected to forced labor. Senior Trump officials were involved in smuggling Venezuelan migrants out of the United States via planes that took off in secret and in order to evade court oversight. Although Trump and senior Trump officials claim that these individuals are members of a Venezuelan gang, they did not presented any evidence to support these claims, nor does membership in a gang warrant removal to a foreign country or being subject to human rights violations.

• Forcibly and unlawfully removed Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to CECOT, in violation of a court order prohibiting Mr. Abrego Garcia’s removal to El Salvador, a country he fled as a child to escape persecution by El Salvadorian gangs. Since he was unlawfully smuggled out of the country, Mr. Abrego Garcia was imprisoned in El Salvador, subject to human rights abuses, and denied access to attorneys and visitors. Senior Trump officials refused to facilitate his return for months, in defiance of multiple court orders, forcing him to remain in unlawful detention under abusive, inhumane conditions for more than two months.

• Arrested, shackled, and forcibly removed more than 100 migrants to Panama because their countries of origin would not accept them. The migrants were stripped of their passports, many had their phones taken away, barred from seeing lawyers, and locked as prisoners in a hotel in Panama. They were then removed to a camp in a remote jungle of Panama, where they were denied access to their attorneys or visitors.

• Arrested and deported hundreds of migrants to Panama and Costa Rica, where they are being held without access to attorneys, their families, or any of the rights to which they are entitled as migrants seeking refuge in the United States.

• Announced plans to expand this scheme to include the removal of U.S. citizens to foreign prisons; specifically, by telling Salvadoran President Bukele that “[t]he homegrowns are next, the homegrowns. You’ve got to build about five more places.”

• Imprisoned eight immigrants in inhumane conditions on a U.S. military base in Djibouti after attempting to unlawfully remove them to South Sudan in direct violation of a court order.

• Enabled the imprisonment of five immigrants in a maximum security prison in Eswatini, where they have been denied access to their attorneys and subject to inhumane conditions. None of the immigrants are from or have any connection to Eswatini. Though all these men were convicted of a crime in the United States, all served their time and were released between 2-13 years ago. None have been accused of any new crimes in either the United States or Eswatini.

These schemes violate the U.S. Constitution and international human rights laws. The clear violations, and the risk that these violations could be expanded to target not just American citizens but specifically those who engage in constitutionally protected speech to dissent against Trump, were laid out in a unanimous three-judge ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Mr. Abrego Garcia’s case, written by the Honorable Judge Harvie Wilkinson:

“The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done. This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.”

Judge Wilkinson further warned:

“If today the Executive claims the right to deport without due process and in disregard of court orders, what assurances will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home? And what assurance shall there be that the Executive will not train its broad discretionary powers upon its political enemies? The threat, even if not the actuality, would always be present, and the Executive’s obligation to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed’ would lose its meaning.”

Trump’s removal of anyone—whether migrant or U.S. citizens—to a foreign concentration camp for imprisonment in order to subject these individuals to cruel and unusual punishment, due process violations, civil rights abuses, and human rights violations without consequence or oversight is an unequivocal assault on the rule of law and on the foundation of our democracy.

Trump has systematically abused his power to stop people from, and punish people for, exercising the freedom of speech, assembly, and press. These are amongst the most sacred and important rights afforded to the people by the Constitution, and are necessary components of a functional democracy. Our democracy cannot survive if oppositional political 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 now occurring as a result of Trump’s lawless conduct. Trump should be impeached and removed for, individually and through his senior officials, abusing his power in an effort to silence people, protests, and the press.

For example, Trump and his senior officials:

Violated and chilled freedom of speech

• Threatened to prosecuteindividuals who burn an American flag by charging such individuals with ancillary crimes such as incitement, violent crimes, hate crimes, civil rights violations, and other property crimes. His threat violates the First Amendment and well established Supreme Court precedent, including Texas v. Johnson, which includes flag burning as a form of political expression protected by the First Amendment; and demonstrates Trump’s willingness to weaponize law enforcement in order to falsely and selectively prosecute and silence his opponents.

• Suspended 144 employeesfrom the Environmental Protection Agency in July 2025 and approximately 30 employeesat the Federal Emergency Management Agency in August 2025 in retaliation for writing letters to Congress raising concerns about the Trump Administration’s handling of those agencies.

• Unlawfully arrested, detained, and canceled the visas or permanent residency statuses of individuals who protested Israel’s war against Palestine or U.S. foreign policies with regard to Israel and Palestine.

• Arrested and threatened to arrest elected officials who oppose Trump’s policies, including California Governor Gavin Newsom; California Senator Alex Padilla; Newark Mayor Ras Baraka; Representative LaMonica McIver; and New York City Comptroller Brad Lander.

• Stripped universities of millions of dollars in government grants because these universities refused to repress their own students’ freedom of speech and assembly and allegedly utilized admission practices disfavored by the Trump Administration. One federal judge—rejecting Trump’s punitive freeze on Harvard’s research grants—found that the attack amounted to “retaliation, unconstitutional conditions, and unconstitutional coercion.”

• Stripped federal funds from any organization that did not adopt the government’s position on gender and sexual orientation, which has undermined the ability of nonpartisan, non-profit organizations that protect children from abuse to extend protections to LGBTQ children.

• Censored and limited public access to the arts, educational services, and information about U.S. and world history by purging government websites of important information and U.S. history; ordering the Smithsonian to change its exhibits; took over the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; ended federal support to public libraries and archives throughout the country; and censored books and other educational materials at public schools on military bases.

• Subjected or threatened to subject law firms to punishing sanctions via executive orders and invasive investigations in retaliation for these firms or firm employees for engaging in core First Amendment protected speech and association, specifically their hiring practices and representation of clients or issues disfavored by Trump; and used these executive orders, investigations, or the threat thereof to extort nearly $ 1 billion in free legal fees for his chosen legal causes from these firms and coerce them into changing their hiring and pro bono representation practices.

• With FCC Commissioner Chairman Brendan Carr, abused his power to orchestrate the censorship of Jimmy Kimmel and the indefinite suspension of Kimmel’s late night television program by threatening federal action against ABC affiliates that aired his program and using as leverage the fact that Nexstar, a company that holds multiple ABC affiliates, needs FCC approval to complete a $6.2 billion acquisition. Trump and Carr demanded censorship of Kimmel because he criticized Trump and his supporters’ response to the Charlie Kirk killing. Trump and Carr publicly celebrated Kimmel’s suspension and ABC and Disney’s capitulation to their abuse of power and Trump immediately called for NBC to cancel two additional late night hosts who have been critical of Trump, in a demonstration of his plans to continue abusing the power of his office to silence his critics. 

• Designated“Antifa” a terrorist organization, despite the fact that experts have defined antifa as being anti-fascist, anti-white supremacy ideology, movement, or subculture and not an organization—it has no leader, centralized structure, membership, headquarters, and it has never been connected to a terrorist attack in the United States. Trump’s order requires and authorizes federal law enforcement and other agencies to target anyone they brand as being “antifa,” being associated with “antifa,” or who provide funds to people or organizations who ascribe to the “antifa” ideology. Trump is abusing the terrorist organization designation in order to carry out unconstitutional investigations and prosecutions of people based on their personal ideologies, speech, and association, and to target his political and ideological opponents. 

Violated and chilled freedom of assembly

• Mobilized National Guard troops and U.S. Marines against non-violent civilian protesters in California without authorization by and over the express objections of the Governor of California, and authorized the mobilization of National Guard troops elsewhere in the country in order to chill and quell civilians who would exercise their freedom of speech and assembly to protest against the Immigration and Custom Enforcement’s violent and disruptive practices.

• Via bulletins issued by the Department of Homeland Security, instructed local law enforcement that protesters’ nonviolent behavior and dress—including riding bicycles, wearing masks, carrying cameras, or livestreaming protests—should be viewed as “threatening” or precursors to violence, and that protesters should be viewed as “an adversary.”

• Unlawfully arrested Bajun Mavalwalla II, a U.S. army veteran who served in Afghanistan, for protesting against ICE in Spokane, Washington. Mavalwalla was arrested more than one month after participating in the protest and charged with “conspiracy to impede or injure officers.” He was indicted just two days after Richard Barker, acting U.S. attorney for eastern Washington state and a career public servant, resigned his position. Professor Robert Change at the University of California, Irvine, decried the indictment as selective prosecutive that will have a “chilling effect on free speech.” Mr. Mavalwalla faces up to six years in prison.

Violated and chilled freedom of the press

• Limited White House and Department of Defense press access of certain journalists and media companies—including the Associated Press—for reporting news he disfavors, while providing special access to partisan media companies that openly support Trump and his policies. This includes Trump’s banishment of a Wall Street Journal reporter from Air Force One for a Scotland trip in July 2025 because the Wall Street Journal published a story about Trump’s involvement in Jeffrey Epstein’s birthday book in 2023.  

• Repeatedly attacked the press on his own social media accounts for their viewpoints or reporting. For example, Trump threatened CNN with prosecution for its critical coverage of strikes on Iran and for reporting on an app that provides warnings for immigration raids. He also suggested the Federal Communications Commission should revoke ABC and NBC News’ broadcasting licenses, accusing them of posing a “threat to our democracy” for covering news in a manner he disfavored.

• Brought meritless suits against major media companies for covering news in a manner he disfavors. For example, he brought a baseless  defamation suit against the Wall Street Journal for its July 2025 coverage of Trump’s relationship with Epstein. He also sued Paramount and CBS News in a lawsuit widely regardless as baseless, but obtained a settlement while the government controlled Paramount’s pending merger deal with Skydance, which the FCC approved shortly after the case settled. As part of the merger the former leader of a right-wing policy think tank will be appointed as an “ombudsman” at CBS to review complaints about its news coverage despite having no experience in overseeing news.

• Dismantled the Voice of America and other news media sources funded by the U.S. Agency for Global Media.

Trump has usurped or attempted to usurp authority and powers granted to Congress by the Constitution in several significant ways. He has:

• Created a position of authority in and over federal agencies and installed Musk in that position, in violation of the Advice and Consent Clause of the U.S. Constitution. 

• Defied both Congress and the Judiciary by blocking the distribution of trillions of dollars in funds that have been appropriated by Congress under Congress’s exclusive constitutional authority, under the Taxing Clause and the Appropriations Clause of the U.S. Constitution, U.S. Const. art. 1, sec. 8, cl. 1 and art. 1, sec. 9, cl. 7.

On June 21, 2025, Trump preemptively attacked the Islamic Republic of Iran without prior congressional authorization and without any imminent threat to the United States from Iran at that time. Congressional leaders were not appropriately briefed or notified of the attack plans until after the attacks were complete, despite foreign leaders being given advance notice of the planned U.S. military action. Trump’s unilateral, unprovoked use of force against Iran serves to escalate conflicts in the already volatile Middle East region, impacting not only American civilians in the region but U.S. military personnel, equipment, and bases. Iran has threatened that if the United States intervened, it would attack some of the 40,000 U.S. soldiers in the region with ballistic missiles, drones, and other weapons.

Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution grants Congress the sole power to declare war: “[The Congress shall have the Power…] To declare War….” In starting this illegal and unconstitutional war with Iran without the consent of Congress, Trump acted in direct violation of the War Powers Clause of the Constitution. Trump has jeopardized, and continues to jeopardize, American lives and interests with his usurpation of congressional war powers.

Trump and his administration have refused to comply with court orders, including by refusing to release $2 billion in congressionally appropriated foreign aid payments after being ordered to do so twice by a U.S. District Court and by the U.S. Supreme Court. In defying this and other court orders, 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. Trump and his administration have:

• Refused to release $2 billion in foreign aid, in defiance of multiple court orders.

• Refused to adhere to court orders that prohibits the Office of Management and Budget from implementing a freeze on all federal assistance.

• Unlawfully deported 261 Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador for immediate imprisonment, in open defiance of a court order, and demanded the judge’s impeachment solely because Trump disagrees with the judge’s ruling.

• Deported a doctor and medical school professor with a valid work visa, in defiance of a court order or in disregard of court proceedings and knowledge of an imminent court order.

• Refused to adhere to a court order requiring U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Charles Ezell to testify in person on March 13, 2025, in a lawsuit challenging Ezell and OPM’s termination of thousands of employees.

Trump also poses a serious risk to the safety of judges and their ability to impartially uphold our laws and our rights. He has subjected judges who rule against him to abusive tirades, calling them “crazed,” “rogue,” “deranged,” “a troublemaker and agitator,” “corrupt,” and “mean and nasty,” among other insults that undermine respect for judicial authority.  He also has demanded, without basis, the impeachment of judges who rule against him. The results have been predictable: In 2025, roughly a third of the federal judiciary has been flooded with threats, with data showing that these threats spike each time Trump uses abusive rhetoric against judges.

Trump is politicizing and weaponizing the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, 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. He has:

• Forced through a baseless indictment of former FBI director James B. Comey, whom Trump has targeted for retribution because Comey refused to pledge loyalty to Trump in 2017 and because the FBI initiated an investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. To obtain this indictment, Trump fired a federal prosecutor who refused to prosecute Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James without basis and publicly indicated that he planned to nominate Lindsey Halligan, a member of his personal legal team with no prosecutorial experience, to the role. Comey’s indictment is a barebones document signed by Halligan, and came despite the fact that prosecutors in Halligan’s office, after a two month investigation, determined the evidence to be insufficient to support either criminal charges or a conviction. 

• Publicly ordered his attorney general, Pam Bondi, to act “NOW!!!” and “act fast” to prosecute political adversaries and others against whom he has long sought retribution, including former FBI director James B. Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Senator Adam Schiff.

• Through top DOJ officials ordered more than half a dozen U.S. Attorney’ offices to investigate a philanthropic group funded by George Soros, a wealthy Democratic donor whom Trump has previously demanded be imprisoned because he supports pro-democracy causes. The DOJ memo, which laid out potentially charges against Soros, indicated that Trump hadordered the DOJ to target specific people and organizations. 

• Through Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, abused access to confidential access to mortgage documents to launch politically motivated mortgage fraud investigations into Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook and two prominent Democrats, California Senator Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James, all of whom Trump views as political rivals and powerful voices of opposition.

• Through Attorney General Pam Bondi, launched a baseless and politically motivated grand jury probe into the Obama Administration’s handling of the investigation into Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election, following comments by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard accusing Obama and his national security team of creating a false intelligence community assessment. Trump himself has alleged that Obama rigged the 2016 election and committed treason. In fact, Russia’s interference in the 2016 election to support Trump’s candidacy has been thoroughly and carefully documented by multiple government agencies that, at the time, were non-partisan and credible, including the FBI, the DOJ in an investigation led by Republican Special Counsel Robert Mueller, a Republican-led Senate Committee, academics, and other reputable sources. The grand jury probe is an abuse of an important function of the government’s prosecutorial powers, intended to persecute Trump’s political rival and elevate Trump’s baseless denials of his foreign ally’s interference in U.S. elections.

• Subjected Jack Smith to a politically motivated investigation by the Office of Special Counsel because Smith, in his former role as special counsel, investigated Donald Trump for his unlawful possession of highly classified documents and for Trump’s attempts to subvert the results of the 2020 election.

• Through Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, ordered the criminal investigation and prosecution of city officials for refusing to cooperate with ICE or to otherwise aid the federal government’s anti-immigration policies.

• Fired, demoted, or pushed out nonpartisan career public servants of the Department of Justice and FBI and is compiling data on FBI agents in retribution for their work to investigate and prosecute cases stemming from the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol and on the prosecution of Trump himself.

• Fired Maureen Comey, senior trial counsel and a career civil servant with the U.S. Department of Justice, who prosecuted Jeffrey Epstein and is the daughter of former FBI director James Comey, without cause.

• Fired or pushed out nonpartisan career public servants for associating with individuals viewed by the Trump administration as being “enemies” of Trump or his senior officials; for refusing to pledge loyalty to agency leaders; or without cause.

• Forced prosecutors to dismiss pending prosecutions related to the January 6, 2021 insurrection, subjected prosecutors to investigation for prosecuting these cases, and pardoned all insurrectionists who have thus far been convicted or pleaded guilty for crimes stemming from their involvement in the assault on the Capitol.

• Entered into a corrupt quid pro quo agreement with New York City Mayor Eric Adams by arranging for the DOJ to dismiss a criminal case against Adams in return for Adams using city resources to enforce Trump’s anti-immigration agenda; and placed on leave, pending investigation, DOJ officials who worked on the case.

• Fired hundreds of government officials tasked with government and corporate oversight, including high-ranking officials in the Department of Justice and the FBI.

• Created a “Weaponization Group” in the Department of Justice to investigate local and federal officers who, in carrying out their duties in a nonpartisan manner, investigated or prosecuted January 6 insurrectionists, Trump, or his allies. The group is being led by Ed Martin and advised by Jared Wise, an ex-FBI agent and January 6 insurrectionist who was granted clemency by Trump for his role in the insurrection.

• Arrested government officials who oppose his anti-immigration policies, including California Senator Alex Padilla, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, Representative LaMonica McIver (against whom the Department of Justice is pressing charges), and New York City Comptroller Brad Lander; and threatened to arrest other government officials, including California Governor Gavin Newsom.

• Fired 15 immigration judges without cause in July, adding to the more than 100 immigration judges who have been fired or voluntarily left under pressure from the Trump Administration; prohibiting immigration judges from speaking directly with members of Congress; and assigning 600 military attorneys to serve as immigration judges who will push through Trump’s mass deportation schemes and speed up his militarization of civilian agencies and functions.

• Corruptly misused the FBI, DOJ, and other government agencies and, with the assistance of these agencies, has placed improper pressure on elected officials to conceal the Epstein files from the public. Specifically:

  • After years of purporting to support the release of the Epstein files held by the DOJ, Trump changed his public position after DOJ officials informed him that his name appears in the files; ultimately, as of November 2025, the DOJ has maintained its refusal to release new documents from the Epstein case.

  • Instead of ordering the DOJ to release documents within its own control, Trump instead ordered the DOJ to move the court to unseal grand jury transcripts and exhibits in the Epstein case, a highly irregular and baseless motion that would have undermined the sacred and longstanding secrecy of grand jury proceedings. The court denied the motion, and called out the government’s attempt at misdirection, noting that the Government holds a “substantial investigative trove concerning the Epstein case” that it had “so far, withheld . . . from the public,” that “[t]he Government’s complete information trove would better inform the public about the Epstein case,” and that “[t]he information contained in the Epstein grand jury transcript pales in comparison to the Epstein investigation information and materials in the hands of the Department of Justice.”

  • While still refusing to release the Epstein files to the public and claiming them to be a “hoax,” Trump has directed that Attorney General Bondi conduct politically-driven investigations into Epstein’s connection to people he identifies as political enemies and opponents, including Bill Clinton; in fulfillment of Trump’s directive, Bondi assigned the Manhattan U.S. Attorney to lead the partisan probe. 

  • Trump engaged the most senior officials of the DOJ and FBI—including Attorney General Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, and FBI Director Kash Patel, in his efforts to pressure Representative Lauren Boebert and Representative Nancy Mace to drop their support for congressional efforts to secure the release of the Epstein files.

Through these and other acts, Trump has blocked federal agencies from carrying out investigations into his allies or preferred business concerns; and has tasked the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and other agencies with targeting people who oppose him and his policies. His termination and investigation of government employees have cleared the Department of Justice, the FBI, and other agencies of nonpartisan career public servants, and have sent a strong signal that independence and impartiality will not be tolerated under the Trump regime.

The Department of Justice and other government agencies are supposed to wield their considerable power to enforce the law in an independent, fair, and impartial manner. Trump instead is abusing these powers to attack and silence those the opposition and protect his allies and business interests. Under orders from Trump and his senior officials, Justice Department lawyers have repeatedly misled and lied to courts, violated court orders, and attacked judges. Without government credibility in the courtroom, the rule of law cannot survive.  Further, the necessary skepticism with which the judiciary must now approach Department of Justice and other Trump Administration lawyers and officials means that every case involving the federal government  requiressignificantly more judicial scrutiny and oversight and, as a result, justice is inevitably delayed.  That delay is not incidental, but part of a strategic pattern used by the Trump Administration to facilitate its continued unlawful actions in the face of and in defiance of court orders and oversight. 

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 and the Federal Bureau of Investigation 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 they are now being persecuted for diligently doing their jobs and using their constitutionally protected right to free speech under the First Amendment.

• Suspending approximately 30 employees at the Federal Emergency Management Agency on August 26, 2025, as retaliation for writing a letter to Congress warning that the Trump Administration was obstructing FEMA’s mission to provide critical support during disasters in the service of uninformed cost-cutting. The letter has 34 public signatories and 155 signatories who did not reveal their names for fear of retaliation.

• Suspending 144 employees from the Environmental Protection Agency in July 2025 as retaliation for signing a letter to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and Congress accusing the Trump Administration of politicizing the EPA.

• Allowing retaliation against Charles Borges, the whistleblower who filed a complaint alleging that individuals associated with the Department of Government Efficiency mishandled Americans’ sensitive information. The retaliatory actions taken against Borges under Trump’s authority led to Borges’s involuntary resignation on August 29, 2025.

• Subjected Jack Smith to a politically motivated investigation by the Office of Special Counsel because Smith, in his former role as special counsel, investigated Donald Trump for his unlawful possession of highly classified documents and for Trump’s attempts to subvert the results of the 2020 election.

• Unlawfully firing federal law enforcement and attorneys involved in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Trump and the prosecution of Trump for violations of federal law; 

• Unlawfully firing federal law enforcement and attorneys involved in investigating and prosecuting Trump’s January 6 co-insurrectionists;

• Unlawfully investigating attorneys who were involved in the prosecution of Eric Adams;

• Persecuting retired General Mark A. Milley, who served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2019 to 2023 under both Trump and Biden, including by revoking his security clearance and security detail and ordering the Department of Defense to investigate him; 

• Stripping former public officials of security details despite these individuals facing credible foreign or domestic threats, including former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci, and other former officials who served in Trump’s own administration.

The persecution of these officials undermines the independence of the DOJ, the FBI, and other federal agencies, and the agencies’ ability to protect the American people from abuse, corruption, and crimes committed by people with power or influence.

Throughout his presidency, Trump has engaged in highly corrupt practices—including explicit bribery schemes—to obtain personal and political favors. He has used his power and position to enrich himself, his family, and his close associates, including by:

• manipulating the stock market with tariff threats;

• advertising cryptocurrencies to facilitate bribery payments from foreign investors and others;

• profiting from branded products and services;

• soliciting lucrative television and film opportunities for his family members;

• using public funds to enhance his personal properties and facilitate personal travel; and

• hosting private meetings, dinners, and exclusive experiences related to his office for his personal financial benefit.

Trump also has solicited personal gifts, donations, and other benefits in bribery or extortion schemes, including:

• a $400 million luxury plane from Qatar;

• nearly $1 billion in promised law firm funds towards his preferred “pro bono” causes, obtained by subjecting or threatening to subject these law firms to punishing sanctions; and

• multi-million dollar settlements for baseless lawsuits filed against media companies, including a settlement obtained from Paramount so that the FCC would approve a sought-after merger.

Trump has supported or facilitated his subordinates in abusing government resources for personal benefit. This includes:

• allowing cabinet members to hold power despite unprecedented conflicts of interest;

• failing to adopt any formal ethics guidelines for top political appointees and rolling back existing protections; and

• allowing Elon Musk, while Musk held a powerful position within his administration, to enrich himself and his companies, including by promoting Tesla vehicles sales in front of the White House and allowing the State Department to purchase $400 million in armored Tesla Cybertrucks. 

Trump has repeatedly undermined the rule of law to favor himself and his associates, including by granting pardons or dismissing criminal charges against political allies, donors, or business associates.

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.

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 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 has:

Terminated government officials in order to undermine agency oversight capabilities.
Trump has abused his power to fire officials from key government positions and curtailed federal agencies’ ability to carry out their missions. His acts will prevent independent government oversight of his own businesses and those of his benefactors, including billionaire Elon Musk, who, with Trump’s encouragement and complicity, gave $288 million in contributions to his own super PACs to support Trump’s 2024 campaign; promoted a massive disinformation campaign on X, a/k/a Twitter, which Musk owns; and engaged in an unlawful million-dollar “lottery” scheme to bribe voters to vote for Trump. Specifically, Trump:

• Fired Lisa Cook from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve on August 25, 2025. In justifying the firing, which statutorily must be “for cause,” Trump alleged that Cook may have committed mortgage fraud, though Cook has not been charged or convicted of any crime. The firing undermines the independence of the U.S. central bank, potentially giving Trump a path to control interest rates, inject additional uncertainty and risk into global markets, and further manipulate the global financial system to advance his, his family’s, and his associates’ personal financial interests.

• the unlawful termination of more than 17 duly appointed inspectors general of U.S. agencies, who served as nonpartisan public servants charged with preventing government waste, fraud, and abuse. Many were terminated after or while their agencies carried out investigations into Musk-owned companies. 

• Appointed Musk—whose businesses have 100 contracts worth $15.4 billion across 17 federal agencies—to lead the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Though Congress did not create DOGE or confirm Musk to any official office, DOGE has authorized or advised the termination of thousands of federal employees, frozen trillions of dollars in federal grant funds, limited agency activities, and unlawfully accessed private data held by federal agencies, including private taxpayer information. 

• Fired the National Labor Relation Board’s (NLRB) General Counsel and one Democratic NLRB Board Member, leaving the NLRB without quorum or authority to adjudicate cases. The NLRB was pursuing 24 investigations into Musk-owned companies and had filed a case against Musk’s SpaceX.

• Ceased operations of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Program, which enforces equal employment laws for federal contractors and was investigating Musk-owned Tesla. 

• Fired two Democratic, Senate-confirmed commissioners of the bipartisan Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), leaving it without quorum. The EEOC is charged with protecting employees from unlawful and discriminatory hiring practices; it sued Tesla for racial harassment and retaliation in 2023—a lawsuit the DOJ has now moved to dismiss. 

• Suspended all investigative work and other critical operations by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), fired employees, and gave DOGE access to its sensitive data. CFPB is tasked with protecting consumers from unfair and deceptive practices from banks and other financial service providers. Had it not been shuttered, it would have regulated Musk-controlled X’s planned mobile payments services, and continued to supervise the auto lending industry, including Tesla. 

• Laid off or bought out between 4 and 10% of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration employees, including 3 of the 7 experts in an office that oversees the safety of autonomous vehicles; it has 3 active investigations into Tesla. 

• Fired the Director of the Office of Government Ethics without cause.

• Fired the ethics advisor to the Attorney General without cause.

• Terminated a member of the Merits Systems Protection Board, leaving the board without quorum to conduct its business.

Prevented the investigation and prosecution of corruption and corporate malfeasance at home and abroad. Trump:

• Ordered the Department of Justice to stop investigating violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prohibits U.S. corporations and individuals from bribing foreign government officials to obtain a business advantage. The stop order will allow businesses controlled by Trump, his family, and his allies to bribe foreign governments without oversight or consequence. 

• Closed down the Department of Justice’s National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team.

• Narrowed enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act and disbanded the Department of Justice’s Task Force KleptoCapture, which was focused on seizing the assets of Russian oligarchs.

• Disbanded the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force, which was created for identifying and combatting foreign interference in U.S. elections and government institutions.

• Scaled back anti-money-laundering rules to allow shell companies to hide the identities of their beneficial owners.

• Thwarted or dropped investigations into corporate malfeasance, including more than forty investigations and oversight matters involving Elon Musk; a Clean Air Act case against a Louisiana rubber factory; consumer protection actions against financial service companies; and lawsuits against cryptocurrency firms and their executives.

Prevented 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. Trump:

• Dismantled three watchdog agencies tasked with oversight of the Department of Homeland Security.

• Deleted a federal police misconduct database.

• Dismissed oversight agreements with police departments that were put into place because the departments committed civil rights violations.

Trump’s action imposing harmful tariffs on countries across the world usurps powers explicitly reserved to Congress pursuant to U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, abuses his limited power under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), and violates multiple trade agreements. The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals recently affirmed a decision by the Court of International Trade setting aside most of these tariffs. The tariffs 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. The United States faces significant risk of recession even as other Trump policies undermine consumer and labor protections.

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. First, Trump already has exempted certain industries and electronics from his broad tariffs and remains positioned to abuse his power to grant exemptions or set punitive tariffs that benefit his and his allies’ financial interests. Second, Trump’s abrupt imposition of tariffs and equally abrupt pause on these tariffs may have been part of market manipulation or insider trader schemes that benefited government officials and external allies who improperly used their advanced knowledge of Trump’s orders for improper financial gain.

The Domestic and Foreign Emoluments Clauses of the Constitution prohibits the president from profiting from the United States, individual states, or foreign governments (U.S. Constitution, 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, including real estate holdings and golf resorts; the Trump Media & Technology Group, which owns Truth Social; and World Liberty Financial. He already has or is assured to receive substantial payment and benefit from foreign governments, from the United States, and from the several states; and he has enabled Musk to do the same. One of these benefits includes a 13-year-old luxury jet, worth between $300 and $400 million, which has been gifted to him by the Qatari royal family. The jet—which has been owned and used by the Qatari royal family—poses significant risks to U.S. national security.

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. In a blatant disregard to the power reserved to the states under the Tenth Amendment, Trump via his then-Acting Deputy Attorney General issued a memorandum asserting the authority to require state and local actors to comply with the Executive Branch’s anti-immigration enforcement commands, and the authority to prosecute state and local officials who do not do the federal government’s bidding. The threat of even a baseless, unlawful prosecution may chill state and local officials and undermine their ability to determine how best to service their communities.

Trump also is abusing the power of the U.S. military to punish Democratic-led cities, bypass local and state governments, oppress protesters, and support ICE’s assault on immigrant communities. He deployed National Guard troops in Los Angeles and Washington D.C., armed the troops deployed in D.C., and flooded both cities with masked, armed federal agents. Trump is threatening to carry out similar partisan military occupations of other cities whose elected officials oppose Trump and his policies.

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 in order to bypass the rule of law, further his own agenda, and confer privileges on favored business sectors. He has:

• Declared a national emergency to justify deployment of troops at the U.S. border. In this declaration, Trump targets undocumented immigrants, dangerously and falsely calling efforts by vulnerable people to seek sanctuary in our country an “invasion” tantamount to an “attack” on “America’s sovereignty.” Immigration is neither, and there is no basis for either a national emergency or troop deployment within our borders. 

• Improperly declared a national energy emergency to protect and benefit fossil fuel companies and to block the renewable energy sector.

• Unlawfully invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport Venezuelans from the United States to El Salvador for immediate imprisonment.

• Unlawfully invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) so that he could illegally and unilaterally impose tariffs on countries from around the world, a power solely afforded to Congress.

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 more than 1,500 January 6 co-insurrectionists, commuted the sentences of 14 additional co-insurrectionists, and ordered the Department of Justice to drop cases against all remaining January 6 defendants. He has absolved even those 400 insurrectionists who were charged with committing violent crimes against law enforcement. After inciting the insurrection, Trump has now blocked our country’s efforts to hold his fellow insurrectionists accountable and in so doing further protects himself from investigation and repercussions of his own role in the insurrection. 

• Trump pardoned 23 anti-abortion protesters, signaling that he will undermine any and all lawful efforts to hold anti-choice protesters accountable for violent assaults on doctors, medical professionals, patients, and medical clinics that provide reproductive health care; and undermine states’ rights to protect reproductive health care, the medical professionals who provide it, and the individuals who need it.

• Trump pardoned individuals who provided Trump with financial and other incentives to obtain a pardon, including Paul Walczak, an executive who pleaded guilty to tax crimes and was pardoned only after his mother contributed at least $1 million to a super PAC supporting Trump.

• Wealthy Republican politicians who have been found guilty of fraud, tax evasion, and other corruption crimes.

• Political supporters who have pleaded guilty or been convicted of serious felonies after fair and impartial trials.

• A leader of a nationwide crime syndicate who was serving multiple life sentences related to drug trafficking and violent crimes.

• Business allies who pleaded guilty to corruption schemes involving cryptocurrency

Trump, directly and through his 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.

Trump’s authorization of unlawful actions to decimate the U.S. public health system include the following:

• Authorizing his Secretary of the Department of Health and Services to dismantle the agency’s systems and undermine its mission: Trump knowingly gave his Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Robert F. Kennedy Jr., full power to “go wild” in jeopardizing public health data, hiding vital public health information from the public, dismantling the agency’s systems, firing critically important employees, and undermining the agency’s mission.

• Firing the CDC Director: On August 27, 2025, the White House terminated Dr. Susan Monarez, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since her confirmation by the U.S. Senate in late July 2025, because she clashed with Kennedy and his staff members over inaccurate and unscientific changes they wanted to make to guidance on vaccines. Following her unjustified firing, four high-ranking CDC officials resigned in protest.

• Indiscriminately firing federal public health workers: Since taking office, Trump’s HHS has attempted to cut an estimated 20,000 jobs at the agency through layoffs, early retirements, and buyouts. Nearly 10,000 of those are layoffs. This affected workers in the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Food and Drug Administration (lost 3,500 employees, 20% of the FDA workforce), and the CDC (lost 2,400 employees, 20% of the CDC workforce). The federal government lost experts who coordinated travel for overseas drug facility inspectors, food safety professionals, drug approval experts, communications staff members, public records officials, and employees who oversaw contracts related to medical research. Some workers who were arbitrarily fired had to be rehired after HHS officials realized there were “gaps in our ability to perform our duties.” Nineteen states and D.C. have sued the Trump Administration over these massive layoffs, arguing that the layoffs have impacted states’ abilities to protect public health by cutting off access to data, making it harder to access grants, and shuttering essential disease testing labs.

• Removing all 17 members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee: On June 9, 2025, Kennedy announced that he was removing all 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP), which makes recommendations on the safety, efficacy, and clinical need of vaccines. The politically motivated removals allow the Trump Administration to circumvent the terms of the sitting ACIP members and obtain appointments he otherwise would not have been able to make until 2028. By firing the current experts and stacking ACIP with vaccine skeptics who are loyal to Kennedy and Trump instead of to the science or the public’s wellbeing, the Trump Administration has deprived the public of authoritative, data-driven guidance on vaccines and disease prevention.

• Jeopardizing billions of dollars in health research funding: Trump issued a series of executive orders prohibiting diversity, equity, and inclusion policies throughout the federal government, including at NIH, which receives billions of dollars from Congress to fund medical research at universities, hospitals, and other institutions. This has drastically curtailed funding for health equity research aimed at narrowing health gaps between racial and socioeconomic groups. NIH initially terminated at least 616 projects focused on health disparities. In other instances, lead investigators lost their grant awards because of affiliations with universities that Trump has accused of antisemitism. Loss of such funding will likely impact efforts to improve poor health in minority communities, low-income and rural areas, and among Americans with disabilities. It also significantly hinders research into, and slows medical advancements related to, widespread health conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, and dementia.

• Dismantling safeguards against foodborne illnesses: Under the Trump Administration, key food safety programs have been rolled back, putting more Americans at risk of contracting foodborne illnesses.

  • In March 2025, the U.S. Department of Agriculture eliminated two committees that advise it on food safety.

  • In April 2025, the USDA withdrew a proposed rule that would help prevent food poisoning from poultry contaminated with salmonella by requiring companies to keep levels of salmonella bacteria under a certain threshold and test for common illness-causing strains. Salmonella causes more than 1.3 million infections annually.

  • By June 2025, nearly 1 in 5 positions were vacant at the FDA’s human food inspection divisions.

  • With the layoffs of health communications specialists and added requirements to get approval for public announcements from senior officials at HHS, many agencies housed within HHS have lost their ability to urgently communicate important information directly to the public. 

• Pulling $11.4 billion in federal funding for state and local health departments: On March 25, 2025, HHS announced without warning that it would pull back $11.4 billion in congressionally-appropriated COVID-era funding to state and local public health departments and other health organizations. Though much of the funding was used for COVID-specific activities, it was also authorized for other public health needs, such as wastewater surveillance, vaccinations, infection control activities, and community health workers. State and local health partners have also had to struggle for information, grants, and other support as many of the federal employees and divisions they coordinated with have been laid off or restructured.

• Spreading health misinformation, including about disease and vaccines: The Trump Administration has repeatedly shared health misinformation in ways that jeopardize public health. During the measles outbreak in Texas, Kennedy suggested that good nutrition, vitamin A, steroids, and cod liver oil can be used to prevent and treat measles, refused to recommend that parents vaccinate their children, and refused to share with the public the long-standing and well-supported scientific consensus that the safest and best way to prevent measles is to increase the vaccination rate. In May 2025, the Trump Administration released a report on the crisis of chronic disease in children that contained citations to studies that did not exist. The report also suggested, against scientific consensus, that routine childhood vaccinations may be harmful.

• Dismantling foreign aid and public health programs that allow for global monitoring of disease: Trump’s sudden dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and ending of thousands of global health grants has upended global cooperation in public health. The U.S. provided roughly 32% of total global health funding, creating an estimated loss of $9-10 billion this year and $30-40 billion over the next 3-5 years. Though the immediate impact of such loss will be felt abroad, the breakdown of global public health infrastructure will ultimately impact Americans at home as well. U.S. funding has allowed for surveillance, monitoring, research, and awareness of diseases developing in remote corners of the world, including Ebola, mpox, measles, and bird flu. Losing collective global surveillance mechanisms allow pathogens to circulate unnoticed, making it more likely that the disease is imported to the U.S. and that microbes will have time to evolve into more contagious and deadlier forms.

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 well-functioning democracy requires that citizens 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, including:

• Economy: On August 1, 2025, Trump fired Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), an agency housed in the Department of Labor that researches and shares economic data upon which both the government (including the Federal Reserve) and the private section rely. Trump fired McEntarfer  after the BLS released a jobs report that accurately showed a three-month slowdown in hiring. Trump claimed Dr. McEntarfer had “rigged” the numbers to damage him politically. She had not. Trump terminated Ms. McEntarfer for overseeing the production of an accurate report because Trump disliked its results. The firing implicitly and explicitly exerts pressure on federal officers within data reporting agencies to alter, mask, or bury data that might be adverse to Trump’s interests for fear of retribution—circumstances that will undermine the validity and reliability of government data. Trump has also tried to influence economic data produced by private companies, calling on social media for Goldman Sachs to replace a veteran economist who produced reports warning that tariffs could cause inflation.

• ·         Population: Trump is carrying out a plan to manipulate census data by unlawfully undercounting key segments of the U.S. population by the U.S. Census Bureau, and to undermine its ability to carry out core data-collecting functions. The U.S. Census Bureau is the federal government’s largest statistical agency responsible for producing data about the American people, economy, and congressional apportionment. Trump has instructed the Commerce Department to change the way that the U.S. Census Bureau collects data in an effort to exclude immigrants from the survey and specifically acknowledged that he intends to change data collections “using the results and information gained from the Presidential Election of 2024.” Through his senior officials, Trump also has terminated at least 1,300 employees of the U.S. Census Bureau, the functioning of which is now jeopardized by insufficient recruiting and retention, including the Current Population Survey that is used for the monthly jobs report and the now-disbanded outside advisory committees of technical experts who provided essential input to the Census Bureau’s operations.

• ·         Health: In response to Trump’s numerous directives vilifying  sex and gender, diversity, equity and inclusion, and foreign aid, federal agencies began scrubbing healthcare data from their websites. Many national health surveys, indices, and dashboards going offline on January 31, 2025. Since then, some pages and data have returned under court order, while others have been altered. Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Tom Frieden has stated that the CDC website can no longer be trusted. Injecting uncertainty about the reliability of this data directly harms the health of Americans and could impair medical treatment, hinder disease tracking and surveillance, worsen health policy, and diminish public trust in healthcare.

• ·         Tax: Due to significant workforce reductions—including a 29% reduction in its Research, Applied Analytics and Statistics office that provides statistical analyses, program evaluations, and research on topics affecting tax administration—the IRS has placed on hold its Joint Statistical Research Program, which allows leading researchers to work with tax data under strict privacy protocols to answer important economic policy questions. IRS management relies on this information when making strategic decisions around tax policy and enforcement.

• ·         Climate and Environment: Trump has denied the public access to current climate and environment information, and blocked funding for critically important research in the field. He has:

  • Blocked public access to current and future versions of the National Climate Assessment, an initiative mandated by a 1990 act of Congress that historically has provided reliable, comprehensive information about climate change and its effect on the United States. He dismissed 400 volunteer authors working on the current Assessment, and on June 30, 2025, the government  website that hosts that most recent edition of the report went dark.

  • Destroyed and removed environmental data across a number of government websites. This information, like the National Climate Assessment, is used by teachers, city planners, farmers, judges, economists, scientists, and the general public to educate on climate change and its effects.

  • Dismantled a 35-year-old effort to track global climate change by removing federal employees at the U.S. Global Change Research program and cancelling a government contract with ICF International.

  • Slow-walked critical climate-related contracts, including contracts to help local communities prepare for extreme weather events, upkeep polar satellites, conduct post-hurricane flood assessment, and conduct drought forecasts.

  • Decimated the National Science Foundation’s funding for climate research at universities.

  • Cut staff and science research budgets at the Environmental Protection Agency, Center for Disease Control, Department of the Interior, Department of Agriculture, Department of Energy, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). 

• History and Facts in Schools, Museums, and Public Spaces: In a telltale sign of authoritarianism, Trump is rewriting the our country’s history to serve a radical racist ideology and his political and personal preferences.

  • On January 29, 2025, Trump issued an executive order intended to force schools and other public educational spaces to present a revisionist history of the United States. In the order, Trump claimed that K-12 schools are “imprinting anti-American, subversive, harmful, and false ideologies in our Nation’s children,” threatened to cut federal funding to schools that teach critically important facts about U.S. history (including facts about the oppression of people based on race and gender), and promoted his version of “patriotic education” online and in public spaces, in a bid to deprive children of accurate information about U.S. history where such information conflicts with his ideology.

  • In March 2025, he issued an executive order to demand the culling of accurate information from the Smithsonian and other institutions, and has implemented a review of eight Smithsonian institutions in order to ensure that their public-facing content are compliant with his ideologically-driven directives. Though he purported to restore “truth and sanity to American history,” he is doing the opposite. He falsely accused  the Smithsonian of promoting “narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive” because it displayed accurate information about the United States. He demanded that the Smithsonian and other institutions “celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions,” at the cost of accurate information. The Trump Administration has demanded that “divisive” or “ideologically driven” language should be replaced with “unifying” messages. The intent of this demand is clear; he has complained that the Smithsonian focuses too much on “how bad slavery was,” and sought to minimize government references to Black heroes like the Tuskegee Airmen and Harriet Tubman.

  • In response to Trump’s demand that DEI content be stripped from government websites, the Pentagon, Arlington Cemetery, and other institutions deleted references to Black, Native American, Latino, and female historical figures, while leaving up references to white male historical figures. Some of these references have been restored, but the government continues to minimize the ways in which people of color have shaped American history.

  • Due to Trump’s pressure, the National Museum of American History first removed references to Trump’s two impeachments from his first term, while leaving up references to other historic presidential impeachments, and then added back the references with watered-down language about his two impeachments.

  • The Trump Administration has partnered with PragerU, a conservative partisan organization whose founder has acknowledged that his content is intended to “indoctrinate” kids with right-wing ideology. It is displaying PragerU AI-generated videos that include false and biased depictions of historical figures in the Founders Museum exhibit.

  • The Trump Administration ended federal support to public libraries and archives throughout the country, substantially undermining the public’s access to educational materials that have not been curated by the government or partisan sources.

  • The Trump Administration censored books and other educational materials at public schools on military bases, banning books on a variety of subjects, including U.S. history, non-white historical leaders, and science.

On March 20, 2025, Trump released an executive order to “eliminate information silos” and called for the “consolidation of unclassified agency records.” In the months since, it has become clear that the purpose and intent of this order is to enable Trump and his allies to aggregate and exploit sensitive data about every American and every person living in the United States to further consolidate their power and their authoritarian usurpation of the U.S. government, at the expense of our democracy and the rights and liberties of the people. Through the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE)—which was run for several months by Elon Musk—and private contractor Palantir Technologies Inc., Trump is consolidating and disseminating sensitive, non-anonymized personal data about people who live in the United States, both citizen and non-citizen. 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.

In August 2025, a whistleblower complaint from the Social Security Administration’s chief data officer Charles Borges revealed that in June 2025, DOGE had created an unmonitored copy of all of SSA’s data on the American public to a vulnerable cloud server not subject to oversight, putting the personal information of over 300 million Americans at risk of being leaked or hacked.

This plan to aggregate and disseminate personal information violates the Privacy Act of 1974, meant to safeguard the personal information handled by the federal government; the reasonable expectation of privacy long recognized in the Fourth Amendment; and the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which prohibits the deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. The collapse of information silos puts people’s personal information and identities at risk from access, use, and abuse by government agencies and private companies. The result will leave people vulnerable to surveillance and tracking without knowledge or judicial oversight. 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.

Birthright citizenship has been enshrined in our Constitution for more than 150 years, 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.

On July 25, 2025, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services issued a detailed implementation plan to revoke citizenship from the American-born children of immigrants who lack permanent legal status, and of many lawful residents, including visa holders, DREAMers, and asylum-seekers. The plan will require the government to carry out intrusive review of parents’ immigration papers to gauge each newborn’s legal status but contains no instruction on what recourse a child might have if their citizenship is improperly taken from them, either due to error or malice. If implemented, children will be stripped of their citizenship, subject to deportation to foreign countries, and potentially condemned to statelessness.

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. National intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia carried out a multifaceted assault on the 2016 election to benefit Trump, and that Russia, Iran, and China continue to attempt to interfere in US elections via hacking and widespread propaganda and misinformation campaigns. And pro-Trump operatives and election officials associated with efforts to overturn the 2020 election have unlawfully breached voting systems and obtained copies of voting machine software, which they have widely shared and which can be exploited to undermine our election systems. Despite these known risks, Trump has directly or through his close allies:

• Ordered the apolitical Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to halt all election security work and fired 130 CISA cybersecurity professionals; and 

• Disbanded the FBI taskforce assigned to investigate unlawful foreign influence in U.S. elections;

• Ordered the DOJ to investigate the state criminal conviction of Tina Peters, a Trump ally who gave a man unlawful access to voting equipment in May 2021, enabling the equipment’s passwords and copies of its hard drive to be posted online.

• Launched a multiprong effort with partisan allies to harass local election officials, obtain access to voting equipment in a manner that undermines their reliability and security, and gather data on voters ahead of the 2026 elections.

Trump has repeatedly declared his intention to unlawfully and forcibly displace Palestinians from Gaza and for the United States to unlawfully occupy Palestine and financially profit from its development. Israel is preparing plans to force Gaza residents into an internment camp on the ruins of Rafah, and its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to promote forced deportation, which he presents as a U.S. project. The forcible deportation of a civilian population from an occupied territory is a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention, a treaty to which the United States has been a party for more than 75 years, and qualifies as a felony offense under the U.S. War Crimes statute.

Trump is abusing his role as commander of the U.S. military to commit atrocities against civilians in and around the waters of Latin America and the Caribbean. Trump’s rhetoric around these civilians—his extrajudicial determination that they are members of drug cartels and his designation of these cartels as terrorist organizations—does not release either Trump nor the United States from obligations under U.S. and international law.

• Trump ordered a military strike on a vessel in the Caribbean Sea, which killed 11 people. The strike was not on U.S. soil and in fact took place in international waters, in violation of international and maritime law. Even if the ship left from Venezuela carrying members of the Tren de Aragua cartel intending to carry drugs into the United States, as Trump claims, the attack would still be unlawful. Tren de Aragua is not a military force, the U.S. is not at war with Venezuela or the Tren de Aragua cartel, and the U.S. military was not under attack or acting in self-defense when it sank the ship. In carrying out this attack, Trump bypassed reasonable and lawful options, including conducting a lawful search and arrests if warranted. Instead, he abused the power of the U.S. military to intentionally kill civilians.

• Trump is deploying warships and more than 4,000 Marines and sailors to international waters around Latin America and the Caribbean, increasing the threat and likelihood that he will abuse the U.S. military to commit additional crimes against humanity.

Trump must be investigated for unlawful, unconstitutional, or corrupt practices that occurred during his 2024 re-election campaign, which include:

• Violating campaign finance laws by (1) offering tax and regulatory favors to oil and gas executives if they provide $1 billion in contributions; (2) concealing legal services payments by his campaign and related super PACs; (3) unlawfully coordinating with super PACs that supported his candidacy, including those financed by billionaires he later appointed to key administrative positions; and (4) facilitating and accepting unlawful campaign contributions from Musk, particularly via Musk’s million-dollar “lottery” scheme that paid out prizes only to individuals who would publicly support Trump;

• Using racist, xenophobic rhetoric that endangered the safety of marginalized communities;

• Threatening physical violence against political opponents, a U.S. military commander, journalists, and protesters;

• Spreading dangerous disinformation about U.S. hurricane disaster response that undermine the safety of natural disaster survivors and emergency response service providers.