Abuse of Official Power
Misuse of presidential and executive authority for personal or political gain.
35 entries
Tier 2, Formally Charged or InvestigatedAttempting to End Birthright Citizenship by Executive Order: A Direct Challenge to the 14th Amendment Blocked by Every Court That Reviewed It2025–2026
On January 20, 2025, his first day back in office, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14160, titled "Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship." The order directed federal agencies to deny U.S. citizenship to children born in the United States if both parents were not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents.…
Tier 3, Documented Through Primary Evidence2025 Mass Deportation Operations: Rescission of Protected Areas Policy, Courthouse and Church Arrests, and Detention of U.S. Citizens2025–2026
On January 20, 2025, Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Benjamin Huffman rescinded the Biden administration's 2021 Guidelines for Enforcement Actions in or Near Protected Areas. The rescinded policy had designated schools, hospitals, houses of worship, courthouses, domestic violence shelters, food pantries, playgrounds, and…
Tier 3, Documented Through Primary Evidence2025 Tariff War: Unilateral Trade Escalation Triggering Retaliation, Agricultural Collapse, and Consumer Price Increases2025–2026
Beginning in January 2025, the Trump administration enacted a series of tariff actions that raised the overall average effective U.S. tariff rate from 2.5 percent to approximately 47 percent by April 2025, the highest level in over a century. The tariffs were imposed unilaterally by executive action, bypassing congressional approval, and…
Tier 3, Documented Through Primary EvidenceThe Raffensperger Call: Trump's Hour-Long Pressure Campaign to Overturn the Georgia Election Results2021
On January 2, 2021, President Donald Trump placed an hour-long phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, in which Trump pressured Raffensperger to alter the certified results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. The call was recorded by Raffensperger's office and published by The…
Tier 3, Documented Through Primary EvidenceDOJ Weaponization: Attempted Installation of Jeffrey Clark to Overturn 2020 Election2020–2021
Following Attorney General William Barr's resignation on December 14, 2020, Donald Trump escalated his pressure campaign against the Department of Justice by attempting to use the department's leadership and official letterhead to advance false claims of election fraud and induce state legislatures to appoint alternative slates of…
Tier 3, Documented Through Primary EvidenceSchedule F: The Executive Order Designed to Strip Civil Service Protections from Tens of Thousands of Federal Workers and Enable a Political Purge of the Bureaucracy2020–2026
On October 21, 2020, less than two weeks before the 2020 presidential election, President Trump signed Executive Order 13957, creating a new employment classification called "Schedule F." The order directed the Office of Personnel Management to identify federal employees in "positions of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making,…
Tier 3, Documented Through Primary EvidenceLafayette Square: Use of Federal Force Against Peaceful Protesters for Presidential Photo Opportunity2020–2021
On the evening of June 1, 2020, federal law enforcement officers used chemical irritants, rubber bullets, and physical force to disperse a crowd of protesters gathered in Lafayette Square, directly across from the White House. The protesters had assembled as part of nationwide demonstrations following the killing of George Floyd by…
Tier 3, Documented Through Primary EvidenceInterference with the United States Postal Service: DeJoy Appointment, Mail Sorting Machine Removal, and Suppression of Mail-In Voting Infrastructure Before the 2020 Election2020
In the months before the November 2020 presidential election, the Trump administration took a series of actions that degraded the operational capacity of the United States Postal Service during a period when millions of Americans were expected to vote by mail due to the COVID-19 pandemic. These actions were accompanied by explicit public…
Tier 3, Documented Through Primary EvidencePoliticization of the COVID-19 Response: Trump Threatened to Withhold Vaccines from States with Critical Governors and Made the Pandemic a Partisan Weapon2020–2021
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, President Donald Trump used the federal government's control over medical supplies and vaccine distribution as leverage against state governors who criticized his administration's response, transforming a public health emergency into a partisan confrontation. The pattern included threatening to withhold…
Tier 5, Interpretive and Normative AssessmentUsing the State of the Union for Partisan Spectacle: The Rush Limbaugh Medal of Freedom and the Erosion of Bipartisan Ceremony in 20202020
On February 4, 2020, President Donald Trump delivered his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress. The evening was marked by several departures from the traditional bipartisan character of the event, turning what had been a constitutional ceremony into a venue for partisan confrontation.
Tier 3, Documented Through Primary EvidencePolitical Interference with CDC and FDA During COVID-19: Edited Scientific Reports and Hydroxychloroquine Pressure2020
Throughout 2020, the Trump administration exerted political pressure on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration in ways that undermined the scientific independence of both agencies during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tier 3, Documented Through Primary EvidencePolitical Interference with Weather Forecasting: NOAA Pressure, Commerce Department Directives, and Scientific Integrity Violations2019–2020
In September 2019, a dispute over President Donald Trump's false claim that Hurricane Dorian threatened Alabama escalated into a documented case of political interference with federal scientific agencies. While the altered forecast map incident is documented in FALSE-006 as a falsehood, this entry addresses the broader pattern of…
Tier 2, Formally Charged or InvestigatedFirst Impeachment: Abuse of Power and Obstruction of Congress Over Ukraine Pressure Campaign2019–2020
On December 18, 2019, the United States House of Representatives impeached President Donald J. Trump on two articles: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Both charges arose from Trump's efforts to pressure Ukraine to announce investigations into his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, while withholding approximately…
Tier 3, Documented Through Primary EvidenceUkraine Pressure Campaign: The July 25, 2019 Phone Call with President Zelensky2019
On July 25, 2019, President Donald Trump placed a phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The White House released a memorandum of the call on September 25, 2019, after a whistleblower complaint and congressional demands for transparency. The memorandum, which the White House noted was "not a verbatim transcript" but was…
Tier 1, Adjudicated and Legally ResolvedIllegal Withholding of Ukraine Military Aid: GAO Finding of Impoundment Control Act Violation2019–2020
On January 16, 2020, the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan congressional watchdog agency, issued a formal legal decision finding that the Office of Management and Budget had violated the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 by withholding $214 million in congressionally appropriated security assistance to Ukraine without…
Tier 3, Documented Through Primary EvidenceRetaliatory Firings: Removal of Lt. Col. Vindman, Ambassador Yovanovitch, and Other Impeachment Witnesses2019–2020
In the months surrounding the first impeachment of Donald Trump, the administration removed multiple government officials who had testified or cooperated with the congressional inquiry into the Ukraine pressure campaign. The removals occurred before, during, and immediately after the impeachment proceedings, and were characterized by…
Tier 1, Adjudicated and Legally ResolvedDiverting $3.6 Billion in Military Construction Funds to Build the Border Wall After Congress Refused Funding2019–2020
On February 15, 2019, President Donald Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border of the United States, invoking powers under the National Emergencies Act and 10 U.S.C. Section 2808 to redirect military construction funds to build a border wall that Congress had explicitly refused to fully fund. The declaration came after…
Tier 3, Documented Through Primary EvidenceUsing the Military as a Political Prop: The Pre-Midterm Border Deployment That Cost Hundreds of Millions and Ended After Election Day2018–2019
On October 26, 2018, nine days before the November 6 midterm elections, President Donald Trump ordered the deployment of active-duty U.S. military troops to the U.S.-Mexico border in response to a caravan of Central American migrants traveling through Mexico. Secretary of Defense James Mattis signed the deployment authorization the same…
Tier 3, Documented Through Primary EvidenceAttacks on Federal Reserve Independence: Threatening to Fire Jerome Powell and Using Political Pressure to Influence Monetary Policy2018–2026
Beginning in 2018 and escalating through his second term, Donald Trump conducted an unprecedented public campaign to undermine the independence of the Federal Reserve and to pressure its chair, Jerome Powell, into lowering interest rates for political benefit. This campaign included public insults, threats of removal, and ultimately the…
Tier 3, Documented Through Primary EvidenceUse of the State Department for Personal and Political Purposes: Pompeo's RNC Speech from Jerusalem, Giuliani's Shadow Diplomacy, and the Recall of Ambassador Yovanovitch2018–2020
During the Trump administration, the U.S. State Department was used in ways that blurred the line between official diplomacy and personal political activity. Three interconnected episodes illustrate this pattern: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's partisan speech at the Republican National Convention delivered from Jerusalem during an…
Tier 3, Documented Through Primary EvidenceAbuse of Security Clearances: Overruling Intelligence Officials to Grant Clearances to Kushner and Ivanka Trump, and Revoking Brennan's Clearance in Apparent Retaliation2018–2019
During his first term, President Donald Trump intervened in the security clearance process to grant access to family members over the objections of career intelligence and security officials, and separately revoked the security clearance of a former CIA director who had publicly criticized him. These actions raised concerns about the use…
Tier 3, Documented Through Primary EvidenceDisbanding the Pandemic Preparedness Team: Trump Eliminated the NSC Directorate for Global Health Security Before COVID-192018–2020
In the spring of 2018, the Trump administration disbanded the National Security Council's Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense, the White House unit responsible for coordinating the federal government's response to pandemics and biological threats. The directorate had been established in 2016 by the Obama administration…
Tier 3, Documented Through Primary EvidenceTampering with the 2020 Census: Shortened Counting Timelines, Political Pressure, and the Documented Undercounting of Black, Hispanic, and Native American Communities2018–2022
The Trump administration took a series of actions regarding the 2020 census that career officials warned would compromise its accuracy, that federal courts partially blocked, and that ultimately resulted in a documented undercount of Black, Hispanic, and Native American communities. The actions included an attempt to add a citizenship…
Tier 4, Credibly Reported Through Investigative JournalismConditioning Disaster Relief on Political Loyalty: Delayed Aid to California, Puerto Rico, and Other States That Opposed Trump2017–2025
Multiple reports from former White House officials, investigative journalists, and government records indicate that President Donald Trump conditioned or delayed federal disaster relief based on whether the affected areas were politically supportive of him, rather than on the severity of the disaster or the needs of the affected…
Tier 3, Documented Through Primary EvidenceControversial Pardons: Pattern of Clemency for Political Allies and January 6 Defendants2017–2025
Over the course of his two terms, Donald Trump's use of the presidential clemency power followed a documented pattern of benefiting political allies, individuals convicted in investigations connected to his own conduct, and participants in the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack. Legal analysts and former Justice Department officials noted…
Tier 4, Credibly Reported Through Investigative JournalismAlleged Pardon Offer to Julian Assange: Conditioning Clemency on Denying Russian Involvement in DNC Email Hack2017–2020
In February 2020, during a London extradition hearing, lawyers for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange alleged that the Trump administration had offered Assange a presidential pardon in exchange for publicly stating that Russia was not the source of the hacked Democratic National Committee emails published by WikiLeaks during the 2016…
Tier 3, Documented Through Primary EvidenceRefusal to Implement Russia Sanctions Passed by Congress with Veto-Proof Majorities (CAATSA)2017–2019
On August 2, 2017, President Trump reluctantly signed the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) into law. The legislation, which imposed mandatory sanctions on Russia, Iran, and North Korea, had passed the Senate by a vote of 98 to 2 and the House by a vote of 419 to 3, margins that would have easily overridden…
Tier 3, Documented Through Primary EvidenceBlocking the FBI Headquarters Relocation to Protect the Trump Hotel from Competition: A Federal Building Decision Shaped by Personal Financial Interest2017–2023
In July 2017, the General Services Administration canceled a long-planned relocation of FBI headquarters from its aging J. Edgar Hoover Building on Pennsylvania Avenue in downtown Washington, D.C., to a new suburban campus. The decision reversed more than a decade of planning and approximately $20 million in site preparation. The…
Tier 3, Documented Through Primary EvidenceThreats to Withdraw from NATO and Encouragement of Russian Aggression Against Allied Nations2017–2024
Throughout his presidency and his 2024 campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly questioned the United States' commitment to NATO's mutual defense obligations under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which provides that an attack on one member state is considered an attack on all.
Tier 3, Documented Through Primary EvidencePoliticization of the Census and Redistricting: The Citizenship Question and the Hofeller Files2017–2019
In 2018, the Trump administration announced its intention to add a citizenship question to the 2020 decennial census. The administration's stated rationale was that citizenship data was needed to better enforce the Voting Rights Act. This justification was later undermined by documentary evidence showing that the true purpose of the…
Tier 2, Formally Charged or InvestigatedHatch Act Violations: White House RNC Convention and Kellyanne Conway2017–2020
The Hatch Act of 1939 prohibits federal employees from engaging in partisan political activity while on duty, using their official authority or influence to affect an election, or using government resources for political purposes. During the Trump administration, the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), a nonpartisan federal agency charged…
Tier 3, Documented Through Primary EvidenceWeaponization of the Department of Justice: Demands to Investigate Political Opponents, Obamagate, and Pressure on Attorneys General2017–2026
Throughout his first and second terms, Donald Trump publicly and repeatedly demanded that the Department of Justice investigate, prosecute, and punish his political opponents. These demands were made in public statements, social media posts, and press conferences, creating a documented record of presidential pressure on the nation's law…
Tier 3, Documented Through Primary EvidenceSoliciting Foreign Campaign Assistance: 'Russia, If You're Listening,' the Ukraine Pressure Campaign, and the Public Request to China2016–2020
On three documented occasions between 2016 and 2019, Donald Trump publicly solicited foreign governments to investigate or obtain information damaging to his domestic political opponents. These incidents were captured on video, confirmed by contemporaneous reporting, and, in the case of the Ukraine matter, resulted in Trump's first…
Tier 3, Documented Through Primary EvidencePoliticization of the Federal Judiciary: Rushed Barrett Confirmation, Personal Attacks on Judges, and Efforts to Undermine Judicial Independence2016–2026
Donald Trump has engaged in a pattern of actions and public statements that undermine the independence of the federal judiciary, including personal attacks on judges who ruled against him, the reversal of Senate precedent to rush a Supreme Court confirmation in the weeks before an election, and public commentary suggesting that judicial…
Tier 5, Interpretive and Normative AssessmentErosion of Church-State Separation: Bible Photo Op, 'Chosen One' Declaration, and Transactional Alliance with Christian Nationalism2016–2024
Throughout his political career, Donald Trump cultivated a relationship with evangelical Christian leaders and the Christian nationalist movement that blurred the constitutional boundary between church and state. This relationship was characterized by an explicit exchange: Trump promised policy outcomes favorable to the religious right…