Wall Street investors crowding out families seeking to buy homes

One aims to prevent “large institutional investors” from buying “single-family homes” but tasks the Treasury Department with determining the definitions for those two phrases. Since 2008, the number of single-family homes owned by large corporations and leased for rent has ballooned. Institutional investors began buying foreclosed properties and renting them out. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that before 2011 an investor owning more than 1000 single family properties was virtually unheard of, but in 2022 there were 32 investors who owned more than 1000 single family properties with 450,000 homes in total. This is only about three percent of the national market, but tends to be concentrated in densely populated areas. The Executive Order calls for narrow exceptions for build-to-rent homes, a model which many large institutional investors like American Homes 4 Rent and Invitation Homes have pivoted towards in the last couple of years.

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Military Contractors

The first Executive Order signed this year was “Prioritizing the Warfighter in Defense Contracting” which authorizes the Defense Department to restrict stock buy-backs and dividend payouts for defense contractors deemed as under-performing on their contracts. Since there aren’t provisions in existing defense contracts authorizing this kind of limitation or the negotiation period specified in the order it may be difficult to enforce, but new contracts may include language in accordance with this Executive Order. The government can, however, use existing tools such as withholding payments and leverage over invoicing and approvals.

Defense Production

Trump has also signed two orders pertaining to the Defense Production Act (DPA). One invokes the DPA to prioritize the domestic production and allocation of elemental phosphorus and glyphosate-based herbicides due to their uses in military devices, semiconductors used in defense technologies such as smoke devices and radar systems, and lithium-ion batteries, as well as agriculture. The other delegates authority to act independently under the Defense Production Act to the Secretary of Energy and the Secretary of Commerce during a national energy emergency, like the one he declared on the day he took office in 2025 which was extended in January of this year. Typically, these secretaries would need presidential approval for actions relating to the Defense Production Act.

Arms Transfer

The “America first arms transfer strategy” order seeks to enhance defense production capacity and boost the United States defense industrial base with the development of a sales catalogue and ideally, expanded arms sales and transfers. In calling for accountability and transparency, the order makes no mention of transparency to the American public or auditing accuracy, and instead focuses on transparency for the industry and its buyers.

Coal Energy for Military Facilities

Trump signed an Executive Order instructing the Defense Secretary to promote “clean coal” with more coal-fired energy production facilities to serve military installations and facilities. Clean coal refers to plants that use carbon capture technology and other methods to reduce harmful emissions like CO2 and other pollutants known to cause acid rain. It doesn’t address other forms of pollution such as those that occur during the mining process and has been reported to increase the cost of coal plant operations by 56% according to a report by BloombergNEF, making it the most expensive power source in the country by a significant margin.

Oil Blockade of Cuba, Venezuelan oil proceeds

In January, Trump established an oil blockade of Cuba by Executive Order in response to their support of Russia, China, Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah, placing tariffs on any country that provides oil to Cuba either directly or indirectly. This blockade has brought existing struggles and challenges for Cubans to “a different level” according to Patrick Poomann, Havana bureau chief for CNN. Power is unreliable island-wide, safe water is in short supply and food shortages and crop failures have begun.

After establishing designated Treasury accounts to hold funds collected from the sale of seized Venezuelan oil, Trump signed an Executive Order declaring a national emergency due to attempts by private parties to sue for access to the funds held in these accounts.

Immunity for the new Board of Peace

Another order signed in January attempts to give the Board of Peace designation as an international organization. The goal is to make the board exempt from most lawsuits, taxation and property searches. But the International Organizations Immunities Act only grants the president authority to provide these privileges to international organizations “pursuant to any treaty or under the authority of any Act of Congress authorizing such participation or making an appropriation for such participation.” Trump’s Board of Peace is not the result of a treaty, which would require ratification by the Senate, and it hasn’t been authorized by any congressional statute. Further, since the Board of Peace designates Trump by name to serve as its chairman even after the end of his term as president, as a private citizen, the exemptions afforded to international organizations may not apply.

Trump shifted money to avoid the political embarrassment that would be caused by the collapse of airport security screening through the actions of disgruntled agents and the disruption to air travel that would ensue. But it’s legally dubious.

The money the White House is tapping into to pay people like Transportation Safety Administration airport screeners and Coast Guard members was approved by Congress, but not through regular appropriations. DHS is using a pot of $10 billion dollars set aside in last year’s massive budget reconciliation bill – the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) – to cover payroll for more than 100,000 employees, the same bill that reserved $75 billion in multi-year operating funds for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Accessing that money to pay DHS employees, however, is legally dubious. The funds are made available in Section 90007 of the OBBBA until September 2029, but specifically for supporting DHS’s work “to safeguard the borders of the United States.” TSA agents working security lines in U.S. airports for domestic flights are not safeguarding the border, for example. Similarly for FEMA and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), parts of DHS substantially focused on domestic security.

Government watchdog groups and other appropriations experts argue that tapping into that $10 billion runs afoul of the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits federal employees from moving funds from a purpose given in law to a purpose not given for the money in law. The law gives teeth to Congress’s “power of the purse” under the Constitution. Former Senate Budget Committee and Office of Management and Budget staffer Bobby Kogan thought using this section of the law for other purposes was a clear ADA violation.

The Trump Administration made a similar violation during the government shutdown last October by using research and development funds for military personnel pay.

The trouble with the ADA is that it relies on agency heads to report violations to the President and the Comptroller General at the Government Accountability Office (GAO), an arm of Congress currently controlled by the Republican majorities of the House and Senate. In this case, the president directed the violation and Republicans in Congress do not want GAO to challenge it. Although violating the Antideficiency Act carries with it criminal penalties, no one has ever been prosecuted under it. Unlike the current situation, most violations have been by mistake.

Legal or not, the OBBA funds will run dry at the end of this week based on the rate at which DHS is spending it down.

Congress is moving forward to end the DHS funding lapse. The Senate began the process of budget reconciliation on funding for DHS for the remainder of the fiscal year and beyond this week. Because it allows for expedited consideration of spending and revenue bills, reconciliation will allow the Senate to overcome the 60-vote threshold holding back this funding in the regular appropriations process, which Democrats have leveraged for more than two months over their concerns about immigration enforcement agencies within DHS.

As the name implies, budget reconciliation requires the House and Senate to agree on which programs will be funded and at what level. That hasn’t happened yet, as some House Republicans want to fund immigration enforcement at a higher level than the Senate and include other items like funding for the Iran war.

Nevertheless, the unchecked ability of the executive branch to use money appropriated by Congress for other purposes violates the bedrock principle of the separation of the power of the purse from the power of the sword, which dates back to the English Civil War and Glorious Revolution of the 17th century. The Constitution grants Congress the power to determine how federal funds will be spent as a check on the presidency. What we’re experiencing now is a Congress and Executive Branch that does not care to check the President to the harm of the government’s democratic structure.

Using the reconciliation process still undermines congressional power in this case. The framework the Senate approved would extend funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection for more than three years. Regular appropriations bills generally apply only to one fiscal year. They also carry with them language requiring agencies perform certain oversight-related duties or prohibitions on using funds for specific purposes. ICE and CBP will get a blank check through the next Congress, which, if Democrats retake the majorities, will have to live with it.

The red line: Elections must be decided by the count of all the votes

There’s a red line after which we’re not living in a democracy anymore: Elections must be decided by the count of all the votes. Sometimes it’s not clear how to count a ballot (think “hanging chads” from the 2000 election), so disputes routinely get resolved by courts, which apply the law as written. That’s normal. After court rulings, the votes determine the winner. That’s democracy.

Yet after the 2020 presidential election some local officials refused to certify vote totals and then on January 6, 2021, most Republicans in Congress voted to toss out state-certified vote totals in order to throw the election to Trump. That had never happened before. It failed. We came very close to crossing that red line.

At least crossing the red line would be obvious.

But there are far more ways the election could be subverted that aren’t as glaringly obvious.

Tipping the balance by changing elections laws and procedures

This first section isn’t the most exciting, but it is the most likely: Changing election laws and procedures is legal and has an impact on who votes.

Although we no longer have poll taxes, literacy tests, and race and gender-based disenfranchisement, politicians still use gerrymandering, ID requirements, polling place convenience, and the availability of mail-in voting to sway elections in their favor. (By the way, around 3% of the voting age population still isn’t allowed to vote in the midterms: citizens residing in Puerto Rico, D.C., and other U.S. territories have no voting representation in Congress, and most citizens with felony convictions cannot vote. Who do you think that benefits?)

Redrawing congressional district maps

After President Trump suggested Texas redraw its maps for a partisan advantage last year, California (+5D), Missouri (+1R), North Carolina (+1R), Ohio (+2R), and Texas (+5R) all redrew their congressional district maps for an overall likely gain of 4 House of Representatives seats for Republicans. (Florida, Maryland, and Virginia have also taken steps to do so.)

Proof of citizenship for voting and ID

Republicans have also passed the SAVE Act in the House which would require proof of citizenship to register to vote in the name of preventing mass non-citizen voting, a conspiracy theory easily disproved by the fact that in a decade of fearmongering no mass voter fraud has been prosecuted either by Trump or by any Republican state attorney general. (Well, except for this Republican who voted illegally nine times and these other Republicans convicted of election fraud.)

What the bill would do is make registering to vote harder for anyone who doesn’t already have a passport or whose name doesn’t match their birth certificate, like most married women. The law would also go into effect immediately and require most states to make significant changes to their election administration procedures just months before the 2026 election, creating an opportunity for mass confusion.

Trump has demanded the Senate pass the bill but it’s been stalled without any votes from Democrats to reach the 60-vote Senate filibuster threshold, and it will probably remain that way. Last year Trump issued an executive order to do this, and it was blocked in court, pending appeal.

Speaking of ID, state lawmakers in Kansas recently revoked the drivers licenses of trans people, and since Kansas requires ID to cast a vote, you can see where that might be going (disenfranchising voters Republicans don’t want).

Limiting mail-in voting

Republicans also want to curb mail-in voting, an option that they claim is insecure and benefits Democrats. Nearly 1 in 3 voters voted by mail in 2024: Since 2000 Oregon has run its presidential election voting entirely by mail, and a handful of other states now also allow anyone to vote by mail, including red-state Utah which votes entirely by mail. (As with non-citizen voting, Republicans have not been able to find any mass mail-in voting fraud to prosecute either.)

In a new March 31 executive order, Trump directed USPS, the postal service, to develop plans to require voters to register with the federal government prior to mailing a ballot and to reject mailed ballots that don’t conform to new USPS tracking requirements. USPS could finalize those rules as late as August, creating new chaos for state officials just months before the election. But the order will be challenged, and likely blocked, because no law gives the president or USPS this power.

In last year’s proof-of-citizenship executive order as well as in proposed legislation and a lawsuit brought by the Republican National Committee in Mississippi that’s now before the Supreme Court, Republicans want to prohibit states from counting ballots postmarked by election day if they arrive after election day. USPS plans a double-whammy on that one: 1) It plans to delay postmarking, meaning a ballot mailed on or even before election day may not be postmarked until after election day. 2) It plans to lengthen mail delivery by routing local mail through further-away hubs, making it uncertain how far in advance a ballot would need to be mailed for it to be counted.

Last year’s executive order (the same one again) also required changing requirements for electronic voting systems under the guise of security and withholding grants to states that don’t comply with some of these updated rules. Courts will probably prevent any of that from being enforced before the midterms.

(Do Democrats want to expand mail-in voting for their own partisan advantage? Probably! But making voting easier is a good thing for everyone.)

Republicans have also proposed to prohibit ranked-choice voting and ballot harvesting.

Manipulating polling place availability, like their location, open hours, and capacity, is also expected. The long lines are intentional.

No one of these measures would likely turn an election, but taken together and they are happening together, they add up.

Voter roll purges

Republicans have also sought to ramp up voter roll purges, that is, un-registering voters who may not be eligible to vote. Voter roll purges by state officials are normal because people move out of state or die, and a bipartisan interstate organization named ERIC has helped states manage voter rolls effectively since 2012.

Indiscriminate purges right before an election could prevent eligible voters from voting. For example, Georgia aggressively purges voter rolls, disproportionately de-registering Black people.

Last year DOJ began demanding that states turn over voter registration lists to cross-reference with immigration databases to force states to purge immigrants from rolls. Some states have complied with DOJ, but courts have blocked those demands where states didn’t. So in the March 31 executive order, DHS is directed instead to provide lists of citizens to states, presumably so that red states would have new fodder for their own enforcement.

The Trump Administration and Republican states have already begun doing it, and an investigation found that the lists were wrong at least 81% of the time: First, many immigrants go on to become citizens and become eligible to vote before they registered. Second, a name on one list might match the name of a voter, but it might not be the same person. So an eligible voter may be taken off the rolls, or an immigrant might be deported for something they didn’t do. That’s the problem ERIC was designed to solve. (Although some part of the list was correct, it doesn’t appear that anyone on the list actually voted illegally.)

Refusing to certify election results

Here’s one way that’s not legal: After the 2020 presidential election and 2022 midterms, a handful of local elections officials simply refused to certify the result. While state laws do require that officials tally votes and then certify the count, local officials can gum up the system by delaying or refusing to do so until state officials or courts can intervene. But if those state officials and higher courts are friendly to Trump and gullible to conspiracy theories, then they might not.

Sham candidates and dark money

Then there’s the money behind elections. In 2024, “300 billionaires and their immediate family members donated more than $3 billion — 19 percent of all contributions” to political campaigns and related entities, overwhelmingly in support of Republicans. The money typically goes to advertising to swing voters. Which billionaires will show up to sway this year’s elections won’t be known until reporting deadlines after the election, if ever. It’s all legal.

In Nebraska, the Democratic candidate for Senate might actually be a Republican, filing at the last minute to siphon votes from the candidate Democrats are expected to vote for. Down-ballot, in 2020 a sham candidate swung the election of a state official in Florida from Democrat to Republican. And you probably remember Republican representative-turned-felon George Santos who fabricated his life story and was expelled from Congress. Trump commuted his sentence last year.

Seizing election equipment and sham investigations

The conspiracy theory that foreign nations hacked electronic elections equipment still has adherents even though it hadn’t gone well in court. In 2023, Fox News agreed to pay a voting equipment maker nearly $1 billion over lies it told constantly about the 2020 election and Trump advisor Sidney Powell pleaded guilty to unlawfully accessing secure elections machines in Georgia. You might remember back in 2020 Trump fired his own cybersecurity director for saying the election was the most secure in U.S. history.

Now, in January, the FBI seized elections materials from Fulton County, Georgia in what seems to be a continuation of that conspiracy theory, and in March a Republican sheriff running for governor seized 650,000 ballots cast in California in 2025. Trump recently commented that he should have seized ballot boxes during the 2020 election. In March, DOJ subpoenaed Arizona for records from state Republicans’ own sham audit of 2020 election results. They’re looking for anything to keep the lies alive. Now Trump supporters are talking about an executive order to take over elections based on the same conspiracy theory of foreign control of voting machines. It’s not legally possible, and Trump said he won’t.

But DOJ or local officials could seize more voting equipment — equipment meant for or used in the midterms — as a part of a misguided or sham investigation, disrupting the election.

A standing army and a pardon for the mobs (unlikely)

You might be thinking about whether Trump will send ICE’s 22,000 officers to polling places to arrest, or scare away, would-be voters under an immigration pretense. DHS had said ICE won’t, but in his confirmation hearing new DHS Secretary Mullin wouldn’t rule out immigration enforcement at polling locations. There’s also the National Guard (though Democratic governors would challenge their deployment) and other federal agents to wonder about (though what their pretense might be is anyone’s guess). There are nearly 100,000 polling places across the country, so intimidation nation-wide wouldn’t be possible, but targeting polling locations in the (currently) 18 toss-up districts could shift the needle just enough for a few more Republican wins.

White supremacist militias, like the ones that were on the front lines of the January 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol, could pick up the slack. Trump pardoned the violent January 6, 2021 rioters, and they may expect him to do the same if they mobilize again.

I don’t think these are likely to happen, though.

A wartime rally

Between 2011 and 2013, Trump predicted in various statements that then-President Barack Obama would “start a war with Iran” to get re-elected or for other political reasons. He didn’t, but Trump did. I leave the inference up to you. (So far polling indicates the new Iran war has hurt Trump, though.)

Congress has the final say

Finally, after the election, the House and Senate could simply decline to seat elected legislators. The Constitution gives the House and Senate the final say in whether a legislator-elect meets the Constitutional qualifications for office (age, citizenship, residency) and was “duly” elected. It has been extraordinarily rare, but the House and Senate have prevented legislators-elect from taking office, leaving the seat vacant. Although there are complex procedures around this, to “exclude” someone from taking office the other elected legislators ultimately only need a majority vote — and a Supreme Court willing to allow it.

Whichever party holds the most seats in each chamber could vote to hold the other party’s open seats vacant, but since that party would already have majority control over the chamber, taking away a seat from the minority party might not actually confer any new power, which makes this whole hypothetical extremely unlikely. Could the rules be abused to flip which party holds a majority? Anything is possible, I guess. (This is sort of similar to Congress’s role in having the final say in certifying the presidential election, but the Constitutional provisions and procedures are completely different.)

Trump need not order election interference

Trump himself was criminally charged in Georgia state court in 2022 for his role in the submission of a fraudulent slate of presidential electors to Congress for certification on January 6, 2021 and for making false statements about illegal voting in a call with Georgia’s top elections official, until a replacement prosecutor dropped the charges in 2025 (not because of the charges’ merits but because he “lacks the resources” to continue and other “difficult” logistics). A federal investigation also alleged that Trump sought to ignore true vote counts, manufactured fraudulent slates of presidential electors, and used the January 6 riot to obstruct the congressional certification of the presidential election, but this too was dropped after Trump’s re-election because DOJ prosecutors cannot prosecute their boss.

But as you can see from the long list of ways that elections can be manipulated, it doesn’t require an order from the top. Local and state elections officials, legislators in Congress, friendly judges, and mobs have all stepped forward on their own before to support Trump and might do so to support other candidates this fall.

IEEPA Tariffs

In February, the Supreme Court struck down some of President Trump’s tariff policies, ruling that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) did not provide the president with the authority to impose sweeping tariffs. Chief Justice Roberts wrote that “no president has read IEEPA to confer such power.” He went on to describe a violation of the “major questions” doctrine, which states that if Congress intended to delegate significant decisions it would have written so clearly. (We predicted this in an article we published last July.)

After the decision, President Trump signed a new Executive Order, ending the affected tariff actions described in nine previous orders which had cited IEEPA. Refunds of more than $166 billion may be issued to companies that paid the tariffs. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has said that a refund process could be ready by mid-to-late April.

(The rest of Trump’s tariff policies remain in place, as well as a new 10% tariff questionably under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which can only remain in place for 150 days, expiring on July 24 without Congressional approval. Several states have sued the federal government, asking the U.S. Court of International Trade to block the implementation of the new tariffs, arguing that the statute is out of date and was written to overcome currency exchange rate challenges that no longer exist. They also allege that the tariffs are not being applied per the statute’s requirements, with no facts to justify the 80 pages of product exceptions. According to the statute, the tariffs must be applied broadly and uniformly, but it does allow for exceptions to meet the needs of the U.S. economy.)

The National Guard

Trump attempted to deploy National Guard troops in three states against the governors’ wishes, with a stated goal of curtailing violent crime. The National Guard is generally under state control, and can only be federalized in certain situations: an invasion from a foreign nation, rebellion against the U.S. government, or when federal laws can’t be enforced using regular forces. The Posse Comitatus Act prevents military troops from engaging in domestic law enforcement.

In Illinois v. Trump, the plaintiffs alleged that the move to federalize the National Guard (both Illinois and Texas troops were called up) was politically motivated and unconstitutional. They cited the Posse Comitatus Act, as well as the Tenth Amendment which protects state sovereignty, and the APA. A District Court blocked the federalization of troops. The ruling was upheld by the Seventh Circuit Court, and ultimately the Supreme Court. The Administration tried to argue in front of the Supreme Court that only the president can determine if conditions have been met to federalize the troops, but SCOTUS held that the government had not shown sufficient authority to deploy the National Guard in Illinois. Cases in Oregon and California were affected by the Supreme Court ruling, and the cases were dismissed and stayed respectively.

Birthright Citizenship

Trump’s day-one Executive Order calling for the end of birthright citizenship was immediately challenged. Several judges issued preliminary injunctions, halting its implementation. They ruled that the order was unconstitutional, violating the Fourteenth Amendment which states “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” Defense of the Executive Order hinges on the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” which the Administration argues does not apply to children born in the U.S. to undocumented immigrants. The phrase has historically been interpreted as an exception for the children of foreign diplomats. Last Summer, the Supreme Court responded to a request to stay a preliminary injunction, ruling that lower courts couldn’t issue nationwide rulings. The decision notably did not rule on whether the order was unconstitutional, but it also didn’t rule out other types of court orders with national implications such as class-action suits or suits brought by states. The First and Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeals both upheld the lower courts’ rulings. In December, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Barbara v Trump and determine whether the Executive Order violates the U.S. Constitution. Oral arguments were heard on April 1 with a ruling expected this summer. A ruling in favor of the Administration would upend a centuries-long understanding of citizenship in the U.S., but judicial experts think the Administration will lose.

“Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections”

In March of last year, Trump signed this Executive Order with wide implications for the way elections are run in the U.S. It directed the Election Assistance Commission to require a “show your papers” policy before approving voter registration forms to prevent non-citizens from registering and tie federal funding to the stipulation that states comply, sought to alter voting machine guidelines, allow DOGE to review state voter registration files to compel states to purge non-citizens from voter rolls, and limit mail-in ballots. Each of these provisions has been blocked in a slew of cases, each of which the government has filed to appeal. Most recently, a federal judge for the District Court of D.C. blocked agencies from requesting citizenship status when distributing voter registration forms. Each of the rulings cite the separation of powers, the states’ broad authority to run elections, and a lack of presidential authority. Voter registration forms themselves require attestation of citizenship and non-citizen voting is not a common issue despite political rhetoric asserting otherwise, as is the case with fraud by mail-in ballot. The proposed changes would, however, make it more difficult for citizens to register and vote, and provide an advantage to Republican candidates whose voters are less likely to use a mail-in ballot. The Supreme Court recently heard arguments for Watson v Republican National Committee, which will determine whether mail-in ballots have to be received rather than post-marked by election day. The conservative majority seemed skeptical that the post-mark rule should continue. If they rule this way, it could overturn laws in 29 states, impacting large rural areas and military members abroad.

“Protecting the American People Against Invasion”

This order in part sought to ensure that “sanctuary jurisdictions,” or jurisdictions which do not assist in federal immigration enforcement beyond the minimum legal requirements, wouldn’t receive federal funding. The State of New York is a recipient of funds from the Transit Security Grant Program (TSGP) for the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA). When that grant funding was cut off for New York, the state sued in State of New York v. Noem alleging that it was cut due to their sanctuary policies. The suit accused the Administration of violating the APA, and the district judge ruled in the state’s favor, finding that withholding the funding due to New York’s sanctuary policies was arbitrary and capricious, and requiring the government to reinstate the TSGP funds.

Illinois and San Francisco County have filed similar complaints due to funding cuts stemming from sanctuary policies, which have thus far resulted in temporary blocks, still pending appeal.

The order also instructed DHS to expand the use of expedited removal beyond border enforcement, which was challenged in Make the Road New York et al v Kristi Noem. Plaintiffs argued that the new rule violates the Fifth Amendment right to due process and the APA. A district judge blocked the implementation of the new rule. The Administration has appealed from district court to circuit court, the next higher level of the federal court system.

“Unleashing American Energy”

The Executive Order “Unleashing American Energy” rescinded several orders Biden had signed on renewable energy, promoted energy production on federal lands, and sought to eliminate what it referred to as the electric vehicle (EV) mandate by directing the Federal Highway Administration to suspend the National Election Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program. Several legal challenges are awaiting court rulings, but State of Washington v. Department of Transport et al resulted in the district court requiring the government to restore NEVI, finding that the funding freeze violated the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) because suspension of the program was arbitrary and capricious, meaning baseless and without an apparent motive (you’ll notice a pattern of rulings including this phrase below).

“Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”

This order in part required federal agencies to revise grant conditions to exclude any organizations which depicted or affirmed transgender and non-binary identities. It threatened grant funding for non-profit organizations which the government viewed as promoting “gender ideology” even if they met other criteria. A group of non-profits in Rhode Island received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), but their missions to affirm transgender and nonbinary identities would violate the new criteria. They sued the NEA in Rhode Island Latino Arts v. National Endowment for the Arts claiming that the ban violated the Administrative Procedures Act for exceeding statutory limitations and being arbitrary and capricious, and the First Amendment by imposing viewpoint-based discrimination against artistic speech. The district judge ruled in favor of the Rhode Island Latino Arts on the First Amendment and APA claims. The NEA wasn’t allowed to condition its grant funding on whether organizations “promote gender ideology.”

Pursuant to the same executive order, the Department of Health and Human Services removed health-related data from public websites. A suit was filed on behalf of doctors and scientists who rely on those datasets, arguing that the new HHS Guidance was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedures Act. The judge ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and required that HHS restore the health-information webpages and datasets.

More than 10 cases challenge the legality of this executive order or its implementation. These are just a couple examples.

Targeting Law Firms

Last year, Trump signed executive orders targeting several of the country’s most prominent law firms including Perkins Coie, Paul Weiss, Jenner & Block, Susman Godfrey, and WilmerHale for taking cases (or hiring people who took cases) unfavorable to the President, such as cases relating to Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The orders sought to bar the lawyers from government buildings, suspend their security credentials, and terminate any contracts they had with the U.S. government. Trump alleged that the firms posed a threat to national security and accused them all of anti-white racism and partisan lawfare. Paul Weiss acquiesced to the orders by pledging pro bono legal work on cases or issues Trump cares about, but others sued. The suits were successful, with district judges consistently ruling that the executive orders served as retaliatory sanctions for firms exercising their constitutional rights. The Administration initially sought to appeal the decisions, but within a 24-hour period had moved to drop the appeal and then pick it back up again. The appeals have been consolidated under Zaid v. Executive Office of The President.

“Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities”

This Executive Order called for the closure of the Department of Education and faced several court challenges, many of which it overcame. However, the order resulted in a $6 billion funding freeze of Department of Education programs while they were reviewed for consistency with the administration’s policies. When the freeze was announced, 24 states and the District of Columbia filed State of California v McMahon, claiming that it would impact summer school, after school programs, as well as adult education programs. It alleged that the Department of Education violated the APA, the Separation of Powers, and Presentment Clause. The case was withdrawn, however, after the Administration agreed to release the frozen funds.

The Department of Education continues to operate, though with a drastic reduction of staff. It has moved to delegate some of its programs to other parts of the government through interagency agreements, most recently including a transfer of its federal student loan debt to the Treasury Department. The department can’t be disbanded without direct action from Congress, which actually increased its budget for fiscal year 2026.

“Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy”

With this order, Trump called for the elimination of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) and six other federal agencies, resulting in the termination of most of FMCS’s staff. This agency reviews labor disputes by providing conflict resolution services for workers and employers nationwide. In April 2025 a group of unions filed American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO v Goldstein alleging arbitrary and capricious violations of the Administrative Procedure Act among other statutes. The district judge ruled in the plaintiff’s favor, requiring the government to reverse the reduction in force at FMCS. However, the agency currently lists 60 mediators on its website, while an anonymous FMCS employee cited almost 200 employees in 2024.

Another lawsuit on behalf of FMCS and three other agencies, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA), and the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (ISICH) was also successful but is pending appeal.

“Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism”

As a result of this call for a joint task force on combating antisemitism, the government sent a letter to Harvard with a list of demands in order to maintain federal funding, which Harvard refused. Harvard sued the administration in President and Fellows of Harvard College v. US Department of Health and Human Services. The district court ruled against the funding freeze, stating that the Administration had “used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities.” It found that the attempt to condition federal funding on changes to campus policies violated the First Amendment, Title VI procedural requirements, and the APA.

Another case filed by Harvard faculty received a similar ruling, but is currently pending appeal.

Another case was filed by the American Association of University Professors, American Association of University Professors v. Rubio, alleging an “ideological-deportation policy” against noncitizen students and faculty who participated in pro-Palestinian protests. The Administration had been targeting protesters for deportation, claiming their actions were antisemetic. The district judge ultimately held that the Administration violated the First Amendment and the APA by being arbitrary and capricious, and that further deportation efforts in this context could be immediately challenged in court.

“Imposing Sanctions on the International Criminal Court”

An Executive Order placing sanctions in the International Criminal Court (ICC) for its designation of war crimes committed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to punish anyone who did business with the ICC. In Rona v Trump, the plaintiffs were U.S. lawyers who advised and interacted with the ICC. The district judge ruled that the lawyers’ activities were speech-based activities for which they could not be sanctioned, permanently blocking the order from being enforced, but only against these lawyers.

Another case, Smith v. Trump, was filed by two human rights advocates who have advised the ICC. Their case also cites First Amendment violations, but goes further to claim that regulations put in place by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control violated the APA. A preliminary injunction was issued by the district court to prevent the government from imposing penalties on the plaintiffs, but the case remains ongoing.

Other Health Actions

HHS attempted to withhold Title X grant funding to 16 Family Planning and Reproductive Health organizations on the premise that they were in violation of civil rights laws and an Executive Order “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Open Borders” due to public statements on their websites about diversity, equity, and inclusion, and concerns that some members might provide care to undocumented immigrants. National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association v Kennedy alleged that the withholding of the grant funding was arbitrary and capricious and because they weren’t given proper notice or the opportunity for corrective action. The case was eventually withdrawn, after the Administration restored the Title X grants.

The National Institute of Health issued guidance which would impose a 15% reimbursement rate for indirect costs of medical research across the board, instead of the previous practice of institutions negotiating the reimbursement rate individually. Commonwealth of Massachusetts v National Institutes of Health was filed on behalf of 22 states, arguing that the policy violates the APA as an arbitrary and capricious change as well as Congress’s appropriations of NIH funding. A district court ruled against the policy implementation, which was later upheld by the First Circuit Court of Appeals.

ICE is a new agency by federal standards, created at the same time as DHS in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. It represented the recognition by Congress that the previous immigration-related bureaucracy had been a weak link in domestic security, as some of the hijackers had overstayed tourist visas to prepare for the attack. Although one component of the agency has a counterterrorism role, ICE’s most significant post-9/11 contribution is as a federal agency with the specific mission of removing people violating immigration laws.

Billions of additional funding, however, isn’t enough to explain how ICE has become a mass-deportation force. ICE agents are using legal authorities granted to federal immigration enforcement officers from all the way back in the Clinton Administration, just at much greater scale and pace. This post will explain how the agency became a behemoth through the combination of policy changes and bureaucratic redesign at risk of turning into a national secret police.

ICE’s post-9/11 origins

Congress created ICE in the 2002 Homeland Security Act, the legislation that combined 22 existing agencies under a single new cabinet department. The legislation took the 36,000 employees of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and split them among three new agencies. ICE was assigned enforcing immigration laws and deportation as its primary role. The act created a separate Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) that combined the missions of securing U.S. borders and monitoring the flow of imports and exports. A third agency, the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), was launched to manage the processing of applications for permanent residency, naturalization, and asylum. Unlike the other two agencies, it has no policing powers.

INS itself had experienced a complicated bureaucratic lifespan. It was created by executive order in 1933 as a merger of two separate bureaus within the newly-established Department of Labor. It was then shifted to the Department of Justice in 1940 out of concern about foreign subversion at the start of World War II. Designed initially to unify the bureaucratic processes of immigration application and naturalization, it took on more enforcement duties. INS managed border security and immigration law enforcement in the interior of the nation. It was responsible for the mass deportation effort during the 1950s unfortunately named “Operation Wetback,” a systemic removal of Mexican farm laborers in the American Southwest.

Enforcement authority from the 1990s

A surge in southern border crossings during the 1990s strained INS and by 1996, the agency estimated that 5 million people were living in the country without legal status and that the number of unauthorized immigrants was growing at a rate of 275,000 annually. In response to this volume, mostly from Mexico, Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA). Among its changes to deportation policies, the law granted immigration officers new powers to designate someone for “expedited removal,” or immediate deportation without review by an immigration court.

Expedited removal originally applied to those arriving at a port of entry without valid entry documents like a passport, who gave false information, or lied about being an American citizen. If an immigration officer determined someone presenting themselves at a border fit such criteria, IIRIRA granted them the authority to detain and quickly deport. Expedited removal subsequently was expanded during the Bush Administration to include migrants arriving by sea and those apprehended within 100 miles of a border within 14 days of entering the country. (The 100-mile-wide border zone is larger than you might expect. It covers most of the United States by population.)

Congress also steadily increased the INS budget in the late 1990s to curtail unauthorized border crossings. U.S. Border Patrol, INS’s enforcement unit, saw its budget increase from $452 million in FY 1995 to $1.06 billion in FY 2000. The INS workforce grew from 21,000 in FY 1995 to 32,100 in FY 2000. Along with the money came new mandates and regulations that the agency struggled to implement in the time granted.

Public perception of the agency, meanwhile, continued to erode. The public perceived most undocumented migrants coming over the Mexican border, even though INS noted that more than 40% of undocumented migrants had arrived at ports of entry with legal visas that they overstayed. Private militias started patrolling the Southwest to draw attention to the issue. Recognition that the agency was struggling in its current form grew by decade’s end and proposals called for splitting the enforcement and immigration service functions apart into separate offices.

Post-9/11 changes

The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks upended the existing federal response to a host of immigration-related issues. All 19 hijackers had received visas between 1997 and the attacks and they had entered the country 33 times. Three of them who entered multiple times violated federal law, but were not caught. Many commented at the time that the porous overland borders constituted an additional national security threat.

Congress and the Bush Administration explored consolidating various agencies and programs under a single cabinet department to better respond to threats to the American public. House Republicans introduced Bush’s plan creating the Department of Homeland Security in June 2002. It brought the functions of INS out of DOJ and into the new department and followed through with previous ideas about INS reorganization. Congress passed the bill in November 2002.

The law gave the Bush Administration leeway to organize DHS components over the next 60 days. It created ICE by grouping all interior enforcement functions into one office, which included managing the detention of those it arrests. It also combined the Border Patrol and Customs Bureau from the Treasury Department into a single border-focused entity. ICE and CBP went into operation in March 2003 with budgets of $3.3 billion and $1.52 billion, respectively.

The system of courts that hear immigration-related cases remained part of the Department of Justice. As Congress poured more money into both ICE and CBP over the next several decades, funding for immigration courts proved inadequate for the growing caseloads. In FY 2024, the nation’s 725 immigration judges averaged nearly 5,000 cases assigned. The overburdened system created even more incentive for ICE agents to utilize expedited removal.

ICE’s budget grew consistently during the rest of the George W. Bush Administration, reaching $6 billion in FY 2009. Congress during the Obama Administration focused more on increasing funding for CBP, but the first Trump and Biden Administrations began to ratchet ICE budgets upward again. In the last fiscal year of Biden’s term, ICE received $9.6 billion in funding.

The funding bill passed via reconciliation in 2025 (to avoid a Senate filibuster) added an additional $75 billion to ICE’s budget authority over four years on top of its annual appropriation in funding for DHS, essentially tripling its funding. This money is being tapped to keep the agency operating during the lapse in funding for DHS that began this February.

ICE and CBP were given enough funding by last year’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act to continue operations essentially indefinitely in the wake of a shutdown, leaving the rest of DHS as the only leverage Democrats have left.

What do Democrats want?

Democrats’ leadership in Congress released a list of demands 10 days before DHS funding was set to expire, including:

• Requiring a judicial warrant to enter private property (as the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment already requires)

• Verification of non-citizenship before detention and banning racial profiling and profiling based on job, language, and accent

• Prohibiting immigration enforcement officers from wearing masks and requiring them to wear ID and body-worn cameras

• Prohibiting arrests at hospitals, schools, daycares, churches, polling places, and courts

• Allowing states to investigate potential crimes committed by DHS and to sue DHS over detention conditions, and requiring state coordination for large-scale operations

• Safeguards including immediate access to attorneys for detainees, allowing states to sue DHS for violations, and unlimited congressional access to ICE facilities

• Prohibit tracking and databases of individuals engaged in activities protected by the First Amendment

• Codification and enforcement of a use of force policy

Doesn’t the Constitution already require some of that?

Some of these demands include rights that should be covered under the Constitution but are not being upheld: Judicial warrants are required by the Fourth Amendment to force entry or engage in search or seizure in any place with a reasonable assumption of privacy such as one’s home. But ICE officers have been trained to use administrative warrants in place of a judicial warrant for this purpose. Administrative warrants do provide authority to make arrests, but don’t provide authority to engage in a search protected by the Fourth Amendment, including forced entry into someone’s home.

Racial profiling violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment but the Supreme Court, via its shadow docket, stayed a lower court decision which barred federal officers from detaining people based on skin color, speaking Spanish, or working low-wage jobs.

And due process under the Fourteenth Fifth Amendment requires that undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens alike receive the opportunity to challenge their detention, but detainees are often not given sufficient access to an attorney for such a challenge.

Where Policy Change Meets Public Safety

ICE already has a use of force policy which states that they may only use deadly force when they have a “reasonable belief that the subject of such force poses an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury.” DHS quickly released statements after the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti claiming that they posed such a threat, despite video footage of both events contradicting those claims. The department has known since March of last year that use of force against civilians soared, but has done little to address or identify the cause of the increase.The Department has also failed to cooperate with independent investigators in Minnesota, calling into question whether use of deadly force is being properly investigated and addressed.

DHS cites an increase in threats to agents as a reason why they must remain masked and unidentified. ICE officers do carry badges, and are legally required to identify themselves when it’s practical and safe to do so, at their discretion. Agents have been doxxed and fear potentially violent retaliation for carrying out their orders. But cases of masked imposters are also on the rise, which creates an environment of uncertainty in how to respond when stopped by someone claiming to be with ICE.

There was a bill on the table to fund DHS including for the purchase of body-worn cameras, but it did not include a mandate for every agent to use them.

The Response

While Republicans have demonstrated some willingness to concede the use of bodycams, most of the other demands appear to be non-starters. The White House countered the Democrats’ demands, but did not publish the details. Democrats called the counterproposal “insufficient and incomplete” on February 10.

Senate Democrats sent a new proposal to Republicans on February 17 but similarly have not revealed the details. Days before, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer reiterated their demands on CNN’s State of the Union in three main objectives: no roving patrols, accountability to local governments and a code of conduct, and agent identification with masks off. He compared the Democrats’ demands to police departments across the country, asserting that ICE should be held to the same standards as other law enforcement officers.

The Outlook

Negotiations continued behind the scenes during last week’s recess, and Congress is scheduled to reconvene on February 23. Both parties appear to have their heels dug in on the issue, and it’s unclear how long either side will be willing to hold out, especially if TSA operations at airports become restricted (the Trump Administration opted to pause TSA’s Pre-Check, something seemingly not required by a shutdown, but reversed that decision hours later) or FEMA underperforms in a potential disaster. A proposal was made before the shutdown to find a way to fund DHS’s other agencies, but it gained little traction because doing so would have stripped both sides of any leverage.

As a result, funding for these DHS agencies could be held up indefinitely while ICE and CBP continue on.

The U.S. attack on Venezuela and seizure of the country’s president Nicolás Maduro and his wife earlier this year, and the overt threats to take over Greenland, plunged American foreign policy back into the force-based era that predated the current international legal order the U.S. largely built after World War II.

As with the strikes on civilian vessels leaving Venezuela suspected of transporting illegal drugs, the Trump Administration justified the attack on Venezuelan territory as an act of national self defense against “narco-terrorism,” a term with no definition or standing in American law. It also claims the operation, for which special forces units trained for months, was a law enforcement action rather than a military strike.

The Administration also considers itself unbound by domestic law or constitutional limits on its power to wage war. It violated the War Powers Resolution by informing Congress only after the attack had begun. Secretary of State/National Security Advisor Marco Rubio didn’t even alert his former colleagues on the Senate Intelligence and Foreign Relations Committees of the possibility of direct action.

Pulling a legal justification from the 1980s

The White House seemingly relied on a 1989 internal opinion written by would-be Trump Attorney General William Barr, when he was with the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department, to justify the arrest and rendition of Maduro. Barr had concluded the president has an “inherent constitutional authority” to send the FBI to arrest individuals breaking U.S. law “even if those actions contravene international law.” Barr was writing to justify the American arrest of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega after a military invasion of the country in 1989. State Department lawyers at the time disagreed, stating such arrests violated other nations’ territorial integrity.

In that case, the George H.W. Bush Administration had stronger grounds to claim the action was being taken in self-defense and in accordance with the UN Charter. General Noriega had overthrown a popularly-elected government with a military coup, which then requested American assistance in exile. The general persuaded the Panamanian legislature to declare open conflict with the U.S., which still maintained a military presence in the country to help secure the Panama Canal. Noriega’s forces shot and killed one American military officer and wounded another, then threatened to attack the 35,000 American civilians living in Panama City. Venezuela’s Maduro, meanwhile, had not made any hostile acts toward the United States, even though the Trump Administration characterizes its alleged support for drug running as such.

Trump gets a slush fund

Trump himself undermined the national security justifications for the Venezuela attack by asserting the U.S. would regain control of the country’s long-nationalized petroleum reserves which are considered the largest in the world. On January 9, Trump issued an executive order declaring the risk of any court or creditor attempt to seize the reserves would constitute a national emergency and therefore impermissible. Revenue from Venezuelan oil sales will be deposited in foreign government deposit funds at the U.S. Treasury, which foreign governments use to make payments to the U.S. Government. The administration would decide how much of the money would return to Venezuela. But it was reported on January 14 that some of the $500 million received in the first sale of Venezuelan oil was deposited in an account in Qatar, essentially a slush fund.

Taking Greenland for military bases we already have

Meanwhile, Trump has fixated once again on acquiring the Danish territory of Greenland. He posted on social media, after speaking with the foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland, that anything less than American control would be “unacceptable.” His rhetoric led Denmark and Sweden to deploy military forces to Greenland.

Through a 1951 treaty that built off Danish-American military cooperation during World War II, the U.S. has very broad access to Greenland for self defense already. An update of the agreement allows the U.S. to build military installations on Greenland, as Trump wishes to do for missile defense, simply by asking Copenhagen. U.S. Space Force currently operates a ballistic missile early warning station at an air base the US constructed in the early 1950s. Denmark granted some self-rule rights to the territory in 2009, but that agreement did not include military affairs. All six of its political parties support its independence at some point in the future.

Trump first fixated on Greenland in his first term, when he became interested in adding it to American territory because of its large size. Given the unbridled personalist turn to his foreign policy, now turned to action in the Caribbean, he may decide to act without consideration of the dire consequences of doing so.

Somalia

Trump’s first military target was Somalia in February, where he launched a still-ongoing campaign against Islamic State (IS) operatives. We have deployed more than 130 strikes on Somali soil since Trump re-took office (more than Bush, Obama, and Biden combined) killing between 115 and 292 people, mostly militants.

Iraq

In March, the U.S. launched air strikes in Iraq in cooperation with Iraqi Intelligence and Security Forces, killing the second-highest ranking leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Yemen

From March to May, the U.S. launched hundreds of strikes against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen in response to their targeting of Israel and commercial ships in the Red Sea. The operation killed hundreds of civilians and injured hundreds more. It ended with a ceasefire brokered by Oman between the U.S. and Yemen’s Houthis.

These were the strikes that Defense Secretary Hegseth sent sensitive information about in not one, but two unsecure Signal group chats. An Inspector General investigation found that Hegseth’s leak “created a risk to operational security” which could have resulted in “potential harm to U.S. pilots.” Still, Hegseth claims the report exonerates him, and no disciplinary actions have been reported.

Iran

On June 22, the U.S. deployed air and submarine missiles against three target locations in Iran with the intent of destabilizing their nuclear program. The attack followed several days of Israeli strikes targeting Iranian nuclear sites as well. Early reporting contradicted President Trump’s statement that Iran’s nuclear capabilities were “completely and fully obliterated”, estimating that their nuclear program was only set back a couple of months. The Pentagon eventually determined that the nuclear program was set back by up to two years.

International Waters

Since September the U.S. military has sustained a campaign of strikes on small boats in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean, off the coasts of Venezuela, Columbia, and Mexico. More than 100 people, whom the Trump administration claimed without evidence were drug traffickers, were killed while the U.S. deployed a large armada in the Caribbean. Speculation of war crimes surfaced after reports that the first strike in September included a “second tap” to kill survivors in the water.

Syria

The U.S. launched Operation Hawkeye Strike to avenge the death of three U.S. citizens in a terrorist attack in Syria by an IS gunman. The ongoing retaliatory operation began on December 19 and included 11 missions last year. The total death toll is unclear, but the U.S. Central Command has said nearly 25 IS members have been killed or captured.

Nigeria

With the support and guidance of the Nigerian government, the U.S. launched a strike in northwest Nigeria on Christmas Day, delivering what President Trump sardonically called a “Christmas present” to members of Lakurawa, an alleged Islamic State-backed group (though IS has not claimed affiliation). Trump claims the strikes were a response to Christian persecution, but Nigeria’s Foreign Minister has said the joint operation had “nothing to do with a particular religion.” In reality, most of the people suffering under Lakurawa control are Muslim.

Venezuela

In December, following the strikes on boats in international waters, the U.S. began to seize oil tankers and announced a blockade on tankers going in and out of Venezuela. Then the CIA struck a docking area in Venezuela, which the Administration claimed was being used by drug cartels. It was the first known U.S. attack on Venezuelan soil, producing no reported casualties, and a precursor to the large-scale attack that followed on January 3.

Reports last March indicated that Trump was inviting guests to dine with him at Mar-a-Lago for anyone who could cough up a few million dollars in political donations. In May he attended a fundraiser hosted by MAGA Inc., a pro-Trump super PAC which spent more than $400 million on his 2024 campaign. The cost per-plate at the fundraiser was $1.5 million. This super PAC raised almost $200 million after election day through June 30–raising eyebrows since it’s a single-candidate super PAC in support of Trump, given that he is barred under the Constitution from running for president again in 2028.

Later the same month, Trump held a dinner at his D.C.-area golf club for the top 225 holders of his memecoin, a cryptocurrency, which launched in 2025. He promoted the dinner on his social media platform and the memcoin website, encouraging people to “Join the Trump Community.” In the first week after the dinner was announced, the memecoin had raked in more than $1 million in trading fees. More on that next.

Crypto Profits

While Trump encouraged consumers to purchase his memecoin, his DOJ disbanded the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team and stopped enforcing some regulations for the industry. Trump proposed a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Digital Asset Stockpile for bitcoin in an executive order, and suggested on Truth Social that it should also hold ether, XRP, solana and cardano. A CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) report found in July that 19 White House officials could profit from the reserve plan if they didn’t divest.

The Trump Organization brought in more than $800 million in the first half of 2025, more than 90% of which came from crypto ventures. More than $450 million came from World Liberty Financial (WLF), a crypto firm founded in part by Trump’s family members which pays 75% of its revenue from token sales to a Trump Organization entity.

Profits for the Trump Organization directly benefit the president. When Trump first took office in 2017, he placed the Trump Organization into a revocable trust (The Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust) instead of the typical blind trust like recent presidents. He has claimed repeatedly that he does not have controlling authority over the trust, despite contradictory filings. According to business filings made to the British government last summer, Trump is described as a “person with significant control”, specifically someone with “the right to exercise, or actually exercises, significant influence or control over the activities of the trust.”

Product and Self Promotion

Trump has consistently promoted products that financially benefit him over the years. His 2025 financial disclosures revealed at least $10 million from royalty payments for things like guitars, coffee table books, bibles, sneakers and watches. In June last year he promoted his new fragrances on Truth Social, and Trump wines have been stocked at the Coast Guard Exchanges. None of this self-dealing is illegal, since the President is exempt from a 1989 law prohibiting federal employees from using their office for private gain, but ethical concerns remain.

And it’s not just Trump; members of his administration have participated in brand promotion, sometimes including their own products and ventures. FBI Director Kash Patel advertises his foundation on his FBI website biography. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick has encouraged Americans to buy Tesla stock which his financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald encouraged at the same time. Patel and Lutnick aren’t exempt from the aforementioned law. Still, it doesn’t appear that any meaningful investigations or consequences have come, despite at least one complaint filed with the Office of Government Ethics.

The White House released a list of 37 donors for the construction of the reconstructed White House East Wing ballroom. The list includes individuals and corporations. Many companies such as Lockheed Martin and Booz Allen Hamilton hold government contracts including with the Defense Department. Google agreed to pay $22 million towards the ballroom as part of a legal settlement. Palantir has been awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts this year, as have Amazon and Microsoft. Coinbase, another donor, is seeking government approval to offer blockchain-based stocks. These companies appear to be engaging in a pay-to-play by investing in the East Wing replacement.

Pardons for Sale

Justice Sotomayor wrote in her dissent to the Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in Trump v. United States: “Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune, immune, immune.” The decision states that a president can’t be held criminally liable for official actions as president. So as Trump pardons his donors, he’s not obligated to keep it a secret.

Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, known as CZ, received a pardon from Trump in October after Binance received a $2 billion investment from the Trump Family’s cryptocurrency venture World Liberty Financial (WLF) in May. When asked about the pardon, Trump said he didn’t know anything about CZ and that he pardoned him because Trump was told that CZ was the victim of government weaponization. CZ pleaded guilty for failing to combat money laundering on his crypto exchange in 2023. He was sentenced to four months in jail and released in September 2024, meaning he had served his full sentence more than a year before receiving the pardon.

Trevor Milton was pardoned after donating nearly $2 million to Trump’s re-election campaign. Trump said that he pardoned Minton because it was “highly recommended by many people” and asserted that Minton was only prosecuted because he had supported Trump in the past. He had been convicted of fraud for lying to investors about his electric vehicle start-up Nikola.

Paul Walczak was pardoned after his mother attended a MAGA Inc. fundraiser in May last year. He had pleaded guilty in 2024 for tax crimes related to his nursing home. Rather than paying federal income taxes collected from his employees, he kept more than $10 million and used it for his own expenses including the purchase of a yacht.

Dropped Investigations

The Trump Administration has dropped or paused enforcement actions against 165 corporations last year, including a third of all targeted investigations against technology corporations, an industry which has provided vast financial support for the President. Here are just a few examples:

Elon Musk spent hundreds of millions in the 2024 election and became head of the Trump Administration’s DOGE team. The Administration then dropped or paused more than 40 agency investigations into Musk’s businesses, including SpaceX, Tesla, and Neuralink.

In May, after Trump-aligned WLF invested billions into CZ’s Binance, the SEC almost immediately dropped its case against the company, months before the founder was pardoned.

Cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun was charged in 2023 with selling unregistered crypto securities. After Trump won the 2024 election, Sun bought $30 million of WLF tokens, and when Trump took office the SEC paused its enforcement action against him.

Coinbase gave $1 million to the Trump inauguration fund and the SEC dropped an enforcement action against them as well after Trump took office.

Foreign Influence

In May last year, a United Arab Emirates (U.A.E) senior government official announced a $2 billion investment into WLF. Soon after, the U.S. signed an agreement with the U.A.E. to provide American-made A.I. chips.

That same month, the White House accepted a luxury plane from the Qatari government with the intention of retrofitting it to serve as Air Force One while Trump is still in office. Then, the President signed an agreement to generate an economic exchange worth at least $1.2 trillion.

Trump traveled to the capital of Saudi Arabia in April and May, and in September a new Trump-branded building was announced in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia’s second largest city.

A break on tariffs against Switzerland from 39% to 15% came one week after Trump met with Swiss business leaders, accepting gifts (that is, in his official capacity) such as a gold-plated desk clock and an engraved gold bar. Negotiations with Swiss President Karin Keller fell flat, but after meeting with Swiss business executives Trump announced a deal in the works to lower tariffs. It still has to be approved by the Swiss parliament and put up for a referendum.

Conditions in Detention

Average daily populations at ICE detention facilities have reached a record point, with more than 60,000 people detained across the country– approximately 70% of those detained have no criminal record. Many facilities are operating over capacity limits, leading to inhumane, overcrowded conditions. Since Trump took office, at least 27 people have died in ICE custody, making it the deadliest year for detainees since 2004 – even surpassing COVID years. (Only 15 of these deaths are reported on ICE’s website, while the others can be found in their news releases. Congress requires ICE to report deaths in custody within 90 days. The last death listed on the report at the time of publishing is from September 22.)

Detainees have reported medical neglect, rotten food, or a lack of food. A report by Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff uncovered reports of medical neglect and poor conditions in detention centers nationwide. According to the report, detainees are being denied medical care for extended periods. People with asthma are being denied inhalers, diabetics are being denied glucose monitoring or insulin, reports of chest pain are ignored. One man suffered stroke-like symptoms, including partial paralysis. He was hospitalized for days and when he was returned to the detention center, officers accused him of faking his affliction and denied his access to the walker the doctor had prescribed for him. Food servings are reportedly too small, and the food itself has been linked to illness in detention centers. DHS has insisted that these claims are false, but they are consistent with complaints nationwide, and aligned with a history of medical neglect in ICE facilities.

Reduced Oversight

Trump moved in March to eliminate internal watchdogs at ICE’s parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversee immigration enforcement efforts, a decision which was reversed in May after a court challenge by civil rights groups. However, staffing was reduced to skeleton crew levels with around 20 employees in the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties office, which previously employed around 140 people to handle complaints from across the country.

Raids

ICE raids are taking place across the nation as masked agents push to meet their daily arrest quota of 3,000 immigrants. LA County voted on October 14 to declare a state of emergency to provide aid to residents who have suffered financial consequences from immigration raids due to the arrest of family members or fear of arrest if they leave their homes.

Some raids have led to the death of immigrants. A Honduran man in Virginia was fleeing ICE agents when he was struck by a car on the highway and killed. Others have been killed while attempting to evade ICE in Chicago and Los Angeles. Many raids are producing traumatizing experiences for U.S. citizens, including children, as ICE descends on cities like Chicago and Charlotte, NC for coordinated militarized operations.

Reports indicate that of the more than 600 people detained in Chicago during ICE’s Midway Blitz, only 16 had criminal records. There are also reports of at least 170 U.S. citizens, including veterans, being swept up in raids and detained by ICE temporarily.

Recruit Screening

Some ICE recruits have started training before their drug tests or background checks have come back. One man was dismissed from training because he had previously been charged with robbery and battery, a charge which would have typically prevented his admission into the training academy. Other recruits were dismissed after admitting they never submitted for drug testing or fingerprinting, raising concerns among Department of Homeland Security officials that some recruits could be slipping through the cracks by keeping quiet.

“NSPM 7” creates vague categories for political violence (but not right-wing political violence)

In late September, the Trump Administration issued a new National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM 7), a type of document that typically aligns policy between national security and federal law enforcement agencies and aren’t always immediately made public. NSPM 7 directs the national Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), created after the September 11, 2001 attacks, to focus investigations into political violence, domestic terrorism, and support for terrorist activity by those holding a wide and vague set of ideals. The broad sets of ideas listed include “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity,” and “hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.” It makes no mention, however, of right-wing or white-supremacist violence, which independent and government analyses blame for between 75% and 80% of domestic terror deaths since 2001.

The White House has taken specific aim at “antifa,” an umbrella term for antifascist activism that is not actually an organization or ideological movement. Activists self-identifying as “antifa” were active in confronting pro-Trump and white supremacist protestors during his first term, notably during the “Unite the Right” attack on Charlottesville in 2017. Shortly before issuing NSPM 7, President Trump issued an Executive Order declaring “Antifa” to be a “domestic terrorist organization”. NSPM 7 further grants the Attorney General the ability to recommend that other groups engaging in activities that fit the definition of domestic terrorism in the U.S. Code be designated a “domestic terrorist organization,” too. There’s just one complication: no law defines a “domestic terrorist organization,” so the designation has no significance.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller was the main driver behind developing the new security memo in the weeks after the murder of Trump political ally Charlie Kirk. Miller described the directive as part of an “all-of-government effort to dismantle left-wing terrorism, to dismantle antifa, to dismantle the organizations that have been carrying out these acts of political violence and terrorism.”

Extremism is not against the law — crimes are against the law

Miller’s all out effort, however, has no standing in law nor the Constitution. Although the USA PATRIOT Act defines “domestic terrorism” as “activities involving acts dangerous to human life” that appear to have the intention of affecting public opinion or changing government policy or conduct, there is no specific provision outlawing domestic terrorism. The FBI and DHS do not initiate what they call investigations of “domestic violent extremism” until a credible threat of actual violent actions emerges because, as the FBI and DHS wrote jointly in 2023, “the mere advocacy of political or social positions, political activism, use of strong rhetoric, or generalized philosophic embrace of violent tactics does not constitute violent extremism and is constitutionally protected” by the First Amendment.

The memo elides those protections, however, by calling for the investigation of “campaigns” by groups seeking “radicalization” of audiences that the Administration, without evidence, claims drives violent incidents. Civil Libertarians warn that the broad categorizations of ideas connected to “radicalization” could make mainstream civic organizations like immigration support groups, labor unions, and racial justice campaigns a target. “Campaigns,” moreover, could include social media and online group discussions, which may be monitored by federal agents.

Grafting international terrorism law onto domestic law enforcement

Many criminal law concepts in the memo come from laws dealing with international terrorism. Because foreign terrorist organizations have no constitutional protections, federal law allows for the State Department to declare foreign groups to be terrorist organizations – as the Trump Administration has with several drug cartels in a loose application of law. Federal law also criminalizes material or financial support for international terrorist groups’ efforts to commit violence, even if the actions themselves do not constitute a violent act, like translating the writings of Islamic extremist groups.

If the standards of providing material support for international terrorism were to be grafted onto what the memo defines as domestic terrorism, an enormous range of everyday activity could be criminalized. Allowing someone accused of being a member of Antifa (even though one can’t be a member of an organization which does not exist) to stay in one’s home or share a meal would constitute material support, as would printing materials or contributing money.

The memo exploits some ambiguity in the criminal code. Through the 2001 PATRIOT Act, 18 U.S.C § 2332b(g)(5)(B) lists 51 “federal crimes of terrorism,” that may apply to domestic terrorist situations. Most of these offenses, however, are very specific, like hijacking an airplane or using a weapon of mass destruction – not, for instance, a mass shooting or driving a car into a crowd that may also have terroristic intent. Prosecutors could apply other sections of the criminal code related to the destruction of federal property and the use of bombs. Congress did not expressly authorize, however, federal prosecutors to apply such charges to Americans committing crimes against other Americans and whether Congress should codify specific domestic terrorism law is up for debate.

It’s already started

Federal prosecutors already have started to implement the new policies. Last month, two men were indicted in federal court for domestic terrorism-related charges for participating in a protest at an Immigration and Customs and Enforcement installation that turned violent in north Texas. Prosecutors charged them with “providing material support” to terrorists, under 18 U.S.C. § 2339A for attempting to seize weapons from the ICE facility in Alvarado for use by the Antifa “cell” the government argues to which they belong. (The indictments include no evidence that cell actually exists.) The men also were charged with attempted murder of an Alvarado police officer responding to the incident.

Existing terrorism law was rarely used because crime is already illegal

Although most terrorism-related federal charges have been brought against defendants since 9/11 under this section, only a handful involved domestic crimes. Furthermore, these previous cases involved planning mass violence or arson attacks.

In addition to criminal charges, prosecutors also may seek longer prison sentences for domestic terrorists. In the wake of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Congress directed the U.S. Sentencing Commission to add stiffer penalties for crimes committed with “terroristic intent,” defined as the “calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct.” But prosecutors rarely do so. As mentioned above, the First Amendment protects Americans’ political speech and assembly rights essentially to the point of violence being committed. Convincing judges that specific actions meet this broad standard, especially the planning or support of the crimes of others or plots that are abandoned, is difficult for prosecutors.

Notably, prosecutors chose not to charge defendants in cases related to the January 6, 2021 insurrection with domestic terrorism because enhanced sentences risked plea deals and penalties were inconsistently applied. Assaulting a federal officer is not among the crimes defined as “terrorism,” but “depredation” of federal property – like breaking a window in the Capitol – is. Applying “terroristic intent” too broadly also risks political backlash from those closer ideologically to defendants, as was evident with the embrace of January 6 defendants by Republicans in Congress.

Other avenues, like federal hate crime law, offer better prosecutorial avenues for demonstrating intent that lead to enhanced sentences, as in the case of lone actors like white supremacist mass shooter Dylann Roof.

If the courts accept the legal reasoning of NSPM 7, people providing any kind of aid to a disfavored group declared a “domestic terrorist organization” by administration fiat would face the stiffer sentencing guidelines laid down in 1995. Charities and philanthropies supporting disfavored groups could have their assets frozen and staff jailed. Organizations working in coalition with such groups also would face prosecution.

Little is known about the targets of these attacks, and public announcements by Venezuelans were addressed and deleted quickly by the Venezuelan government, cutting electricity to one town where sympathetic posts were circulating after the first strike. Interviews with Venezuelans in coastal villages have produced reports that some of the people killed were fishermen, laborers, and bus drivers in addition to low-level criminals and one local crime boss.Two people survived one of the attacks in the Pacific and were detained and deported back to their home countries, Ecuador and Columbia. Mexico is conducting a search and rescue operation for a third survivor in the Pacific.

On October 23, President Trump spoke of a potential expansion of the attacks onto land in Venezuela. He said “The land is going to be next… we may go to Congress and tell them about it, but I can’t imagine they’d have any problem with it.” At the same press conference, a reporter asked why he wouldn’t ask Congress for a declaration of war, and he said “I don’t think we’re going, necessarily, to ask for a declaration of war. I think we’re just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country. OK. We’re going to kill them. They’re going to be, like, dead.” Venezuela called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on October 10, where they expressed concern for an armed attack against their country and requested the U.N. Security Council investigate the strikes to determine their legality. However, the Security Council isn’t able to take action due to the U.S.’s veto power.

Military strikes on foreign civilians would be a war crime if the U.S. were at war.

On October 2 Trump sent a notice to Congress informing it of an “armed conflict” with unspecified drug cartels. It suggested that the U.S. would be participating in a sustained conflict with cartels which the administration has labeled terrorist organizations. However, no evidence has been shared that the military targets were in fact connected to an organized terrorist organization.

U.S. Military presence in the Caribbean

The U.S. has built up a wide array of military assets in the Caribbean including ships, planes, and drones. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the movement of a major aircraft carrier and its strike group from the Mediterranean Sea to the U.S. Southern Command to bolster the growing number of combat vessels in the area, where thousands of troops were already deployed. F-35 fighter jets have also been deployed, and U.S. heavy bomber planes have flown up to the coast of Venezuela as part of training exercises.

International Response

On October 31 the United Nations Human Rights chief called for an investigation and stated that she believes the attacks “violate international human rights law” and “must halt.” Experts appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council previously said that “the use of lethal force in international waters without proper legal basis violates international law of the sea and amounts to extrajudicial executions.” Even if the boats are transporting drugs, “These moves are an extremely dangerous escalation with grave implications for peace and security in the Caribbean region.”

Venezuela’s defense minister said in September that the attacks amounted to a “non-declared war,” prompting Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro to call militias into active duty. The Venezuelan military is working to train local militias made up of volunteers, largely older citizens from poor communities, which some political analysts in Venezuela view as a human shield. In response to the aircraft carrier being called to the Caribbean, Maduro accused the U.S. again of “fabricating a new war.” Trump, among other world leaders, doesn’t recognize Maduro as a legitimate leader after questionable results from the 2024 election. But the Trump administration goes further to claim Maduro heads a drug-trafficking ring, despite Venezuela’s minor role in the drug trade.

Some analysts have speculated that the military campaign is more about forcing a regime change in Venezuela and asserting U.S. influence over the world’s largest oil reserves than combating drug trafficking. This tracks with a pattern of actions the U.S. has taken over the years to unseat President Maduro including efforts to infiltrate his inner circle beginning in 2024.

Columbian President Gustavo Petro accused the U.S. of murdering at least one fisherman, posting on social media that “U.S. government officials have committed a murder and violated our sovereignty in territorial waters.” Trump responded by further cutting aid to Columbia’s counternarcotics programs and announcing new tariffs on Colombian goods.

Domestic Response and Messaging

The day after Trump confirmed that the CIA had been authorized to conduct covert operations in Venezuela, Admiral Alvin Holsey announced his retirement from his position overseeing operations in U.S. Southern Command in December. The retirement comes a year into his post, which would typically last three to four years. The exact reason for his retirement is unclear, though social media posts by Holsey and Hegseth afterwards appeared to demonstrate an apparent mutual respect.

The administration has repeatedly insisted that it is within its legal authority to perform these attacks. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said “If people want to stop seeing drug boats blow up, stop sending drugs to the United States.” Hegseth has compared the initiative to the war on terror, posting on social media “Just as Al Qaeda waged war on our homeland, these cartels are waging war on our border and our people.”

On October 8, the Senate voted down a war powers resolution which would have required Trump to consult Congress before continuing military strikes in the area. It was a largely symbolic move, since the White House indicated that Trump would veto the legislation. The vote took place mostly along party lines, with two Republicans voting in favor of the resolution and one Democrat voting against it. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth briefed lawmakers on November 5 on their legal justification for the aggression, which quelled some Republican complaints about a lack of transparency, while still leaving Democrats unhappy about being left in the dark. A bipartisan group of legislators is planning another vote to require congressional approval to engage in further hostilities, but administration officials have been lobbying Republicans to vote no again.

Trump claimed to change the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War, but the Executive Order only revives the department’s former name as a nickname, since the President cannot officially change the name without Congressional approval. Still, “defense.gov” now routes to “war.gov,” and Hegseth updated signs around his office since the order authorizes him to refer to himself as Secretary of War. Critics complain of the cost required to update emblems and signage both domestic and abroad – millions of dollars – as well as the message it would send to the American public and foreign leaders, while proponents claim the change would be more reflective of the department’s mission and capabilities.

Foreign Affairs and Immigration

President Trump has ordered new tariffs on India due to their trade relationship with Russia, Brazil for convicting their former President Jair Bolsonaro of attempting a coup after losing the 2022 election, modified tariffs on Japan and China, and signed broad changes to his reciprocal tariff plan which an appeals court has ruled is illegal.

Another order gives the Secretary of State the authority to designate foreign countries as State Sponsors of Wrongful Detention if the Administration determines they’ve detained an American wrongfully, or are complicit in wrongful detention of “third country nationals in which cases the United States has a national interest.” This designation would result in sanctions, travel restrictions to or from those countries, and/or aid and export restrictions. Administration officials have stated anonymously that China, Afghanistan, Iran, and Russia could all face penalties under the new designation.

With an order signed on September 19, Trump established a new Gold Card fast-track for immigrant visas for those who can pay fees starting at $1 million if a person is paying for themself. Alternatively, if a corporation donates on a person’s behalf the fee is $2 million. The fee, referred to in the order as a “gift,” would be made to the Department of Commerce as proof of eligibility for the Gold Card program. The department would then use those funds “to promote commerce and American industry.”

On September 29 Trump defined “any armed attack” on Qatar as a threat to the U.S. and instructed the Secretary of Defense (we will continue to use the defense department’s legal name) and the Director of National Intelligence to create a contingency plan for a coordinated diplomatic, economic, and military response to such threats. This followed several weeks after Israel’s September 9 airstrike targeting Hamas leadership in Qatar’s capital.

Science and Tech

Trump intends to increase commercial space activities such as launch and port experiences within the next few years by instructing the Secretary of Transportation to reform the regulatory process for launch and reentry permits to eliminate obstacles such as environmental or safety reviews.

On August 7, Trump signed an Executive Order to overhaul government oversight for grants awarded to the scientific community. Under this Executive Order, agency heads are required to designate an appointee to create a process for reviewing new grant applications to ensure they align with the Administration’s definition of national interests and priorities. It also permits the termination of grants “for convenience”, inciting fear among science advocates that the administration is creating a work-around for court orders to continue grant funding for the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health.

Federal Design

A new initiative aims to modernize the aesthetic design and usability of government websites and services by establishing the America by Design initiative. But the Trump Administration already fired the technologists who were actually improving the design and usability of government websites.

In addition, Federal buildings undergoing renovations or rebuilds must now adhere to a traditional architectural design, meaning “Gothic, Romanesque, Second Empire, Pueblo Revival, Spanish Colonial, and other Mediterranean styles of architecture historically rooted in various regions of America.” This order also requires that exceptions to this style must be run by the President for approval.

Healthcare

One Executive Order moves to strengthen the stockpile of pharmaceuticals in the U.S. by instructing the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to facilitate the acquisition and domestic production of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) for a list of critical drugs determined by HHS.

At the end of September, Trump directed the Administration’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission to coordinate with relevant agencies to develop a strategy for using artificial intelligence to improve pediatric cancer diagnosis, treatment, cures, and prevention.

Regulations

On August 13, Trump revoked an Executive Order signed by Biden which created the White House Competition Council for enforcement of anti-trust laws. The original order instructed several agency heads to take on anti-trust initiatives such as limiting non-compete clauses, promoting net neutrality, and supporting the right-to-repair.

Another order seeks to ensure that banks can’t discriminate based on political affiliation or religion. It references Operation Choke Point, an Obama-era program that discouraged banks from doing business within specific “high-risk” industries such as payday lending and gun retailers. The initiative ended in 2017 but the Biden administration has been accused of an Operation Choke Point 2.0 due to its regulations around crypto and digital assets. The House and Senate have held separate hearings to determine if the previous administration engaged in an anti-crypto conspiracy. Skeptics argue that banks have been hesitant to provide services to crypto-oriented businesses because of the risk of fraud and money laundering associated with cryptocurrency.

Labor

We reported in April about the Executive Order which instructed agencies to cease collective bargaining. A new order expands this to include additional agencies such as the International Trade Administration, NOAA, NASA, and National Weather Service, among others. This comes amid an ongoing court battle over the initial Executive Order in which a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking its enforcement until an appeals court lifted the injunction, allowing the enforcement to continue while the issue is litigated.

The Employee Retirement Income Act of 1974 (ERISA) serves to protect workers who opt into employer sponsored benefits packages by establishing transparency and vesting standards, requiring fiduciaries to act in the best interest of participants, establishing a grievance process, and giving participants the right to sue if their rights are violated. An Executive Order signed in August calls for the Department of Labor to reevaluate executive guidelines for compliance with this law to curb litigation and regulatory constraints, which would weaken the consumer protections put in place by ERISA.

On September 16, Trump agreed to create an Emergency Board to investigate and review negotiations with the Long Island Rail Road and a coalition of associated unions. The creation of the board staves off a strike that would have impacted hundreds of thousands of commuters. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) operates the Long Island Rail Road and has offered a wage increase of 9.5% over three years, which about half of the workforce has accepted, while the union coalition is demanding an increase of 16% over four years. MTA asserts that their offer is fair and the unions’ demands are unreasonable, while the unions assert that they’re just trying to maintain wage gains on par with inflation and the cost of living in New York. The board created by this Executive Order will make recommendations this month.

A freeze of federal hiring in the executive branch was signed on October 15, except for positions pertaining to national security, immigration enforcement, or public safety. Agencies are required to create hiring committees and submit an annual staffing plan which aligns with the Trump administration’s priorities. This means that hiring for ICE can continue, while hiring within other agencies and departments are put on hold.

National Guard Deployments

Two weeks after Trump declared a crime emergency in D.C., federalized the D.C. police, and deployed the National Guard, he signed an order to prepare for rapid deployment of specialized units nationwide. Since then, National Guard troops have been spotted in Memphis with support from Tennessee’s governor, as well as Chicago and Portland where legal challenges have been filed. Military officials have stated that troops in Chicago and Portland are training but “not conducting any operational activities.”

A federal judge ruled on October 9 to grant a 14-day restraining order blocking the Chicago deployment, followed on October 10 by a ruling to temporarily block deployment of National Guard from any state, including Texas, to Illinois. The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to allow the deployment through an emergency appeal. Democratic officials in Tennessee have sued to stop the deployment in Memphis, claiming that the state constitution requires the approval of state lawmakers to deploy the National Guard during “rebellion or invasion.” The case for deployment in Portland was temporarily blocked by two temporary restraining orders issued by U.S. District Judge Immergut. She determined that Trump’s claim of Portland being war-torn was “untethered to the facts”. An appeals court, as of October 20, put a hold on one of those two restraining orders, though the other remains in effect preventing deployment. One of the judges on the appeals panel said that the facts do support Trump’s decision “even if the President may exaggerate the extent of the problem on social media.”

TikTok

The TikTok ban that went into effect for less than 24 hours in January before the Trump Administration said it wouldn’t enforce the law has been delayed multiple times while the Trump Administration works out a deal between U.S. investors, ByteDance, and the Chinese government. In September, Trump extended the enforcement delay and then announced a deal which would qualify as the required divestiture to allow TikTok to remain available in the U.S. The Executive Order instructed the Attorney General to refrain from enforcing the ban until the divestment has been completed to negate its enforcement. The deal has not been publicly confirmed by ByteDance or the Chinese government, but Trump has said he will discuss it with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit at the end of October. According to Trump, the deal would involve ownership of the American TikTok algorithm by Larry Ellison (chairman of the board of Oracle, the second-richest person in the world, and a “major bankroller of Republican candidates and causes“; his son now owns media outlets Paramount and CBS), Rupert Murdoch (Fox Corporation founder), and Michael Dell (owner of Dell Technologies). The U.S. version of TikTok would be overseen by a board of directors with six of seven seats held by Americans.

Flag Burning

As Trump signed the Executive Order on flag burning, he said “if you burn a flag, you get one year in jail, no early exits.” The order, however, doesn’t establish a criminal penalty or even outlaw flag burning because Trump does not have that authority. It instructs the Department of Justice to investigate instances of flag burning to determine whether they violate open burning, disorderly conduct, or destruction of property laws. The Supreme Court ruled in 1989 (Texas v Johnson) and 1990 (United States v Eichman) that burning the American flag is an act protected under the First Amendment.

Athletics

In August Trump signed an Executive Order to establish a task force to coordinate the logistics of the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

Trump also signed an order to reestablish the Presidential Fitness Test and the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition. This council is tasked with establishing fitness programs for schools and launching public campaigns around those programs. Their goal is to combat childhood obesity and improve military readiness of American students.

Most operations of the federal government ceased Wednesday when Congress failed to pass funding for agencies for fiscal year 2026. Without an enacted appropriations law, agencies have no constitutional authority to spend money.

In the background of congressional negotiations over the FY2026 appropriations looms the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Charged with producing the President’s annual budget proposal and overseeing management of executive branch agencies, OMB also oversees federal funds in a process called apportionment. Apportionment unlocks funds over the course of the fiscal year to agencies that then allocate money to their programs, projects, and activities.

While OMB typically releases appropriated funds over the course of the fiscal year, because that’s what the law requires, Trump’s OMB has taken a different approach.

Although the Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse, not every penny it appropriates needs to be spent by the federal government. Agencies may find in the course of managing programs or projects that not all funds can or should be spent by the end of the fiscal year. As we explained last spring, the Impoundment Control Act establishes a process for rescinding unnecessary funds, which the President must formally request of Congress. Both chambers then have 45 days to approve the rescission request. President Trump proposed rescissions totalling $14.8 billion in his first term, second only to a $15.4 billion request in 1981 as the largest since 1974.

In this second term, however, the Trump Administration has gone much farther than congressionally-approved rescissions, challenging congressional power of the purse. It has frozen or cancelled what Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee estimate to be $410 billion in federal funding at the direction of OMB Director Russell Vought. OMB has made a full accounting of cuts difficult. A federal appeals court ordered OMB to restore its public spending database after it was taken off line. Nevertheless, billions of dollars in federal spending remains untraceable through limited and flawed reporting on more than 100 programs. OMB also has disrupted authorized spending through agency reorganizations and layoffs.

Vought further irked Senate appropriators in both parties in August by seeking additional rescissions without allowing Congress the full 45-day window to consider. Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins declared them to be an “attempt to undermine the law.” Nevertheless, the Supreme Court allowed the rescission of $4 billion in foreign aid four days before the end of the fiscal year.

OMB’s conduct has rattled the trust of lawmakers that agreements they reach on spending will be honored by the White House. Republican Rep. Steve Womack asked, although some Democrats’ “predisposition might be to help negotiate with Republicans on a funding mechanism, why would you do that if you know that whatever you negotiate is going to be subject to the knife pulled out by Russ Vought?” Democrats on the Appropriations Committees proposed several specific prohibitions on the Administration changing federal spending after it’s enacted. Their proposal also eliminated the “fast-track” provision of the Impoundment Control Act, creating a deadline for requests of 90 days before the expiration of funding for a program. This proposal earned the support of Brendan Buck, a former aide to Speakers Paul Ryan and John Boehner.

House Republicans, however, have thrown some support to Vought, at a high price for legislative branch independence. They inserted a provision into the as-yet-unpassed legislative branch appropriations bill restricting Congress’s Government Accountability Office (GAO) from suing OMB under the Impoundment Control Act to recover withheld funds unless Congress passes a joint resolution permitting it to do so. Effectively, it politicizes GAO enforcement of the Impoundment Control Act rather than leaving that decision as it is now in the hands of Congress’s nonpartisan institutional staff. It also would slash GAO funding in half.

As Congress tries to reach an agreement on re-opening the government, OMB has taken advantage of the situation to continue its freezes and cuts. On October 1, Vought announced the cancellation of $8 billion in grants to renewable energy projects in several states with Democratic governments (subsequent analysis revealed more than $1 billion of these grants would affect projects in states Trump won in 2024). Vought also threatened and later began mass layoffs of furloughed government workers, which OMB has no legal authority to do. And on October 3 OMB threatened to not pay furloughed government workers backpay, which is guaranteed by a law Trump himself approved after a shutdown in his first term. (Given that the Trump Administration already had planned to relieve 12% of the federal workforce of their positions, and OMB requested agencies’ plans for another round of layoffs by September 30, these threats have rung hollow with congressional Democrats. Major public sector unions are suing to block any layoffs as well.)

At this point, the shutdown is part of a broader struggle between Vought and the White House and Congress over who has ultimate control of the people’s money: its elected representatives, as written in the Constitution, or the chief executive. Attempts by English King Charles II to control both the purse and the sword led Parliament to reassert itself and depose him through the “Glorious Revolution” in 1688. Control of spending by the government’s representative body, therefore, was top of mind for the Constitution’s framers. Vought’s actions, therefore, don’t just undermine constitutional and legal norms, but centuries of understanding about the separation of powers.

What is cashless bail?

Cashless bail is a system where people who are arrested are not required to put up cash as collateral for their release from jail prior to their trial. Instead, a judge reviews the details of the case and the individual to determine whether or not they should be detained until their day in court. (In many cash bail jurisdictions, if the defendant can’t pay the full bail amount they can instead pay a percent of the balance to a bail bondsman as a non-refundable fee, which may still be unaffordable. The bondsman will pay the full bail and assume liability for the defendant.) Cashless bail is a policy which states that whether someone is held pre-trial is dependent on the individual and the crime they’re charged with, instead of their bank account or how well their family can crowd-fund. Critics claim that it releases dangerous criminals who are then free to commit more crimes or not show up for court. (Although the specifics of the policy vary by jurisdiction, most policies do not allow cashless bail options for alleged perpetrators of violent crimes. )

What states have cashless bail?

D.C. and states including Illinois, New Jersey, and New Mexico have systems that do not allow cash bail. This doesn’t mean there is no pretrial detention – just that money can’t be used as collateral for their release. Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Kentucky, and Maryland all have reduced or limited use of cash bail. California, Indiana, and New York have reforms in progress.

What is the impact of cashless bail?

A study by Brennan Center for Justice of 33 cities with bail reform policies in 2024 found that there is “no statistically significant relationship between bail reform and crime rates.” A 2018 review of the effects of bail reform in New Jersey found that there was also no marked increase in defendants failing to appear for their court dates. Trump has pointed to a 2022 study that connects temporary cashless bail policies in California during the pandemic to higher recidivism rates. But the pandemic was a time of increased crime nationwide, and a study published in February of this year points out that this initial effect diminished over time and that there could have been other contributing factors for the early increase.

What do the executive orders do?

The first directs relevant law enforcement agencies in D.C. to detain dangerous criminals pre-trial, and the Attorney General to apply pressure on D.C. authorities to eliminate cashless bail policies. D.C.’s cashless bail policy dates back to 1992. Criminal code in D.C. (§ 23–1322) already requires that a judge determine whether pretrial detention is necessary to guarantee the safety of others or the arrestee’s appearance at their trial. Violent crimes, repeated felony crimes, and flight risk are all reasons why a judge might determine it necessary to detain someone until their trial date.

The second order lays groundwork to suspend federal funding in the form of grants and contracts to states or cities that have eliminated or limited cash bail for violent or sexual crimes, as well as property crimes like vandalism. It directs the Attorney General to make a list of states and cities that have “substantially eliminated cash bail as a potential condition of pretrial release from custody for crimes that pose a clear threat to public safety and order…” and the Director of the OMB to identify federal funds which can be suspended or terminated.

Part of the Trump action plan focuses on expunging governmental and corporate policies that may have restricted AI adoption in the public and private sector. At the federal level, it recommends a White House-led review of existing rules, regulations, and administrative documents created by federal agencies that may hinder AI development and adoption for revision or repeal. Such regulations are likely to be holdovers of government action in specific economic sectors like health care and finance that may limit federal AI adoption inadvertently. Firms developing AI also will get direct say in government regulation of their creations as the action plan includes a directive to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to launch a Request for Information from the private sector on federal regulations they find burdensome.

At the same time, the Trump Administration also erected a different type of regulatory scheme tied to its political ideology. One of the EOs it released to accompany the action plan targets “woke AI” usage by the federal government. Declaring “diversity, equity, and inclusion” to be “destructive” and an “existential threat to reliable AI,” the order instructs the Office of Management and Budget to allow only the acquisition of AI systems that “do not manipulate responses in favor of ideological dogmas such as DEI,” claiming that such models trained with concepts like “transgenderism”, unconscious bias, and racial and sexual discrimination actually suppress factual information.

But AI models that are trained indiscriminately on everything are known to repeat the biases and discrimination that are found online and in the world. For example, researchers have identified systemic trends in data collection caused by the implicit racial bias of medical professionals and by home appraisers. AI models trained on such data, or on other sources like historic photographic archives, will generate outputs that mirror biases in the source material, like racially-discriminatorial mortgage underwriting. If the Administration restricts developers’ efforts to build training datasets to correct for algorithmic bias in the name of ideological neutrality, those AI systems will recapitulate many existing human biases. That might be the point.

The action plan reflects the Administration’s contradictory approach to scientific research. It takes specific interest in how federal agencies can support scientific datasets and data repositories at the scale that will be useful to learning algorithms, noting that “the AI era will require more scientific and engineering research to transform theories into industrial-scale enterprises.” At the same time, the Administration just froze all grants by the National Science Foundation until a review determines if projects align with its priorities. The action plan also instructs the National Institute of Standards and Technology to revise its AI risk management standards to eliminate “references to misinformation, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and climate change.” Critics warn these restrictions will hinder the accuracy of AI models used to predict things like natural disasters and agricultural productivity and even would impact national defense assessments and may make the technology itself much less reliable.

The action plan also draws battle lines with state governments as they explore AI regulation. States are out in front of federal action: 38 states have established AI-related regulations and all 50 state legislatures are considering legislation on the topic. The action plan directs the Office of Management and Budget to consider “a state’s AI regulatory climate when making funding decisions and limit funding if the state’s AI regulatory regimes may hinder the effectiveness of that funding or award.” This direction is similar to an effort by Sen. Ted Cruz to insert a requirement in the fiscal year 2026 appropriations package that states seeking grants from a $500 million AI infrastructure fund must adopt a 10-year moratorium on state regulation of AI. Many of Cruz’s Republican colleagues opposed the amendment and the Senate overwhelmingly voted to strip it from the bill.

The Administration’s AI plan also recommends streamlining a number of environmental regulations it claims hinder building the data centers and semiconductor manufacturing plants needed to support AI systems. It calls for new categorical exclusions within the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for data centers, without mentioning the existing process federal agencies use to determine such exclusions. It also calls for water permitting exemptions consistent with those submitted in the public comment period for the plan by a trade association that represents Google and Amazon Web Services. An EO released along with the plan provides much more detail on the rollback of environmental regulations for data center construction.

Other nations, of course, have the technological and industrial capacity to develop their own AI systems. Concern for how open source and proprietary systems developed in other countries that may not reflect domestic political values has led to countries to see AI as related to their national sovereignty. The European Union and countries like India, China, Japan are discussing policies of “AI sovereignty,” or complete control over AI inputs.

The Trump Administration’s AI policy strongly endorses American AI sovereignty as part of its foreign policy vision of competition between great powers like the U.S. and the People’s Republic of China. Vice President J.D. Vance previewed this vision for American AI sovereignty in March. Another EO accompanying the action plan, however, goes further in calling for something closer to AI hegemony. “The United States must not only lead in developing general-purpose and frontier AI capabilities, but also ensure that American AI technologies, standards, and governance models are adopted worldwide to strengthen relationships with our allies and secure our continued technological dominance,” it declares. To do so, it calls for federal action to support the export of American AI systems as full-stack packages, or sets of hardware, data, and machine learning algorithms together as a product. The action plan describes full-stack export as a form of “alliance,” noting that the “distribution and diffusion of American technology will stop our strategic rivals from making our allies dependent on foreign adversary technology.”

In sum, the Trump plan is a total repudiation of Biden Administration AI policy, which sought to balance caution with support for adoption. In October 2023, the Biden Administration issued EO 14110, vowing to protect intellectual property rights of creators and the personal data of private citizens in training AI systems. It also promised protections against discrimination and bias by AI through inherent biases in training data, labeling systems for AI-generated content, and input from organized labor on AI use in the workplace. It also positioned the Administration to counter domination of the AI marketplace by large tech firms. President Trump rescinded EO 14110 in January.

Over the last few weeks, Trump’s first-term national security advisor John Bolton and current Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook became the latest targets of DOJ investigations launched against government officials for upsetting Trump. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents searched Bolton’s home and office for classified materials, while Trump and other cabinet officials said Cook is being investigated by DOJ for mortgage fraud. Trump used the pretext of the Cook investigation to fire her.

Bolton and Cook join a long list of public officials Trump either has threatened with federal prosecution or have had investigations initiated against by DOJ. Earlier in August, Attorney General Pam Bondi created an investigatory “strike force” and instructed federal prosecutors to launch a grand jury investigation of former President Barack Obama and top officials in his administration for supposed election interference in 2016. The FBI also is investigating its former director James Comey (fired by Trump in his first term) and Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan for allegedly making false statements to Congress. Other DOJ targets include Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Trump has issued executive orders directing Bondi investigate two of his own first-term appointees, former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Chris Krebs, who he fired for not lying about the security of the 2020 election, and former Department of Homeland Security official Miles Taylor, who wrote a notorious anonymous op-ed criticizing Trump.

It’s all pretense.

Trump set this summer’s swirl of charges in place on his first day of office, issuing an executive order directing the Attorney General, Director of National Intelligence, and other agency heads to identify instances when the federal government was “weaponized” against him during the Biden Administration. DOJ established a “Weaponization Working Group” shortly thereafter. Trump named January 6 defendant-activist Ed Martin to head the working group in May after his nomination to be US Attorney for the District of Columbia failed. Martin has no prosecutorial background and had trampled established DOJ rules designed to prevent the politicization of law enforcement investigations.

The Justice Department is investigating public figures for crimes like improper custody of classified documents (which Trump himself was being prosecuted for before the 2024 election, and which was never resolved), mortgage fraud, and perjury because charging them with opposing Administration policy or criticizing the president would be unconstitutional. The Supreme Court, however, has complicated the relationship between the president and DOJ prosecutorial powers in its decision in Trump v. U.S., which granted Trump immunity from his own prosecution in the classified documents case on the finding that the president could not be held criminally liable for actions performed in office. In the majority decision, the court found that the Constitution allows the president not only to discuss potential investigations and prosecutions with Justice Department officials as part of the Executive branch, but authority over them. This finding breaks with long-standing norms within the Executive branch and the DOJ. Although the court stopped short of saying so directly in its decision, this finding also opens up potential interpretation of the decision that the president has the power to direct DOJ to prosecute specific people. “Granting the president this power would create an executive power incompatible with the guarantees of the Bill of Rights,” Protect Democracy concludes in a report on the ramifications on the case.

Attorney General Pam Bondi has shaped the department around a broad reading of Trump v. U.S., scaling back some of its compendious internal policies. Unlike her predecessors, she has not issued a memorandum outlining a “contacts policy” that restricts contacts between DOJ officials and the White House. Such memos date back to the Carter Administration, which sought to reestablish DOJ independence and objectivity after the Nixon Administration tried to use it to investigate political enemies. Administrations have followed the practice ever since. Bondi also has instructed the Weaponization Working Group to provide quarterly progress reports to the White House.

Bondi also eviscerated the department’s Public Integrity Section, which was designed to bring a level of professionalism to the prosecution of government officials. DOJ created the section in 1976 after the Watergate scandal specifically to provide expertise in cases involving criminal misconduct by officials in all three branches of the federal government. Under department guidelines, it was required to review any cases involving a sitting member of Congress. Bondi suspended that requirement and reduced its staff from 30 attorneys to five through reassignments and resignations.

After the policy change, the New Jersey U.S. Attorney’s office charged Rep. LaMonica McIver with three felonies while conducting an oversight visit of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Newark, NJ. (The FY2024 DHS Appropriations Act allows members of Congress to make unannounced visits to ICE detention facilities.) The person in charge of the office at the time was Alina Habba, Trump’s former personal attorney whom the President named “acting” head of the office. A judge ruled her installation violated the Vacancies Reform Act.

The Administration has made other personnel changes to tighten control over the department. In February, President Trump ordered the firing of all U.S. Attorneys appointed during the Biden Administration. More than 200 career civil servants across the department also have been fired.

As recently as 20 years ago, the firing of U.S. Attorneys in the middle of a presidential term was enough of an assault on Justice Department political independence to create a political scandal. Congress investigated the dismissal of only seven by President George W. Bush in 2006 in a backlash that forced Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez to resign. President Ronald Reagan’s Attorney General Edwin Meese III also resigned under suspicion he was using his office to benefit Reagan supporters involved in a kickback scheme. (The lead U.S. Attorney investigating that case was none other than Rudolph Giuliani.)

Environmental advocates opposed his appointment to lead the agency, with groups like Earthjustice and Sierra Club issuing statements calling him unqualified and a Trump loyalist. Shortly after his appointment, he announced a plan to roll back at least 31 environmental regulations including several rules and reporting requirements around greenhouse gas emissions and wastewater. So far, Zeldin’s leadership of the EPA lines up with his Congressional voting record and the Trump Administration’s priorities of deregulation, undermining research, and silencing critics.

Sweeping Deregulation

Zeldin has called for the “largest deregulatory action in the history of America” in revoking the endangerment finding, which states that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are a danger to public health and safety. It’s the foundational premise for environmental regulations around air pollution over the last 15 years. Even some lawyers in the oil and gas industry are opposed to the change, citing legal defenses that regulations provide for companies. It comes at the direction of President Trump’s day-one Executive Order Unleashing American Energy and follows a Department of Energy report written by five scientists known for being climate skeptics. The report challenges the endangerment finding, and has been widely criticized by the scientific community as being full of falsehoods. The Environmental Defense Fund and Union of Concerned Scientists have filed a lawsuit alleging that the report violated rules of the Federal Advisory Committee Act. The suit requests to block the government’s use of the report to justify the repeal of the endangerment finding. The agency is seeking public comment on this change through September 22.

Eliminating Government Research

The EPA has eliminated its Research and Development Office (ORD) and scaled back agency-wide staffing by more than 20%. The scientists at ORD conducted their own research and applied the peer-reviewed research of other scientists to make the most informed decisions around environmental regulations for public health and safety. The agency is replacing this office with an Office of Applied Science and Environmental Solutions to “prioritize research and science more than ever before” while saving the American taxpayers nearly $750 million. It’s unclear how they can prioritize research while simultaneously eliminating their research arm. The change represents a widespread loss of expertise, as well as potentially jeopardizing databases, models, and risk assessment systems ORD previously maintained.

Illegally Cutting Grants

Grant funding is also being impacted as the EPA tries to end grant programs such as $20 billion for the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and $7 billion for Solar for All. The latter was widely recognized as a means of lowering energy bills for American consumers, and recipients across the country are in the planning phase for implementation of the funds. However, a judge ruled in April that the EPA hadn’t provided sufficient evidence of fraud within the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, and can’t end the program which was appropriated by Congress. Kim Meyer of the Southern Environmental Law Center said that if the administration moves forward to cancel the Solar for All funds, “we will see them in court.”

Bringing Asbestos Back

In June the EPA stated in a court filing that they would be revisiting the ban of the last type of asbestos used in the U.S. to determine whether it “went beyond what is necessary to eliminate the unreasonable risk and whether alternative measures – such as requiring permanent workplace protection measures – would eliminate the unreasonable risk.” Asbestos is a well-known carcinogen, causing multiple different types of cancer, and is linked to tens of thousands of deaths each year. It is banned in more than 50 countries, and the ban under Biden was widely regarded as a win for the fight against cancer.

Vague Commitment to Replacing Lead Pipes

Another Biden era rule required municipalities to replace all lead pipes within 10 years, and the EPA has stated that it will defend this rule, but with a promise to “develop new tools and information to support practical implementation flexibilities and regulatory clarity.” The statement provokes concern that the agency could carve out loopholes to the strict requirements.

Punishing Dissent

At the end of June, hundreds of EPA employees signed a letter addressed to Zeldin detailing specific concerns about the actions and direction of the agency. These concerns include an undermining of public trust, ignoring scientific consensus and benefitting polluters, reversing progress in vulnerable communities, dismantling the ORD, and promoting an internal culture of fear. They called on Zeldin to change course, and stated that in doing so he would gain their support. Instead, the EPA placed at least 139 of these employees on administrative leave for two weeks pending an administrative investigation. However, the leave has been extended multiple times, and has lasted two months so far. Democratic Senators sent a letter to Zeldin at the end of July urging him to reinstate these employees, which appears to have had no effect.