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2026-01 • Court filings revealed that members of the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) working with the Social Security Administration signed a secret voter data agreement with a political advocacy group and may have attempted to match Social Security–derived data to state voter rolls, used unauthorized tools like Cloudflare to transmit sensitive information, and briefly retained access to private Social Security profiles even after a judge ordered that access cut off.

2026-01 • In early January 2026, President Trump ordered a covert U.S. military and CIA operation, codenamed Operation Absolute Resolve, to strike targets in Venezuela and capture President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, carried out without explicit congressional authorization or a robust post-conflict plan, drawing criticism from legal experts and diplomats who warned it violated the U.N. Charter, echoed the Iraq War playbook, and prioritized leverage over Venezuela's oil and drug routes over any coherent strategy for democratic transition or regional stability.

2026-01 • The official Department of Homeland Security X account posted and promoted a video of senior adviser Stephen Miller telling ICE officers that they have “absolute immunity” from prosecution for actions taken in the line of duty, echoing an extreme and legally inaccurate theory of unchecked law-enforcement power that drew condemnation from legal experts and civil-rights advocates.

2025-11 • During a CBS '60 Minutes' interview, President Trump was questioned about his decision to pardon Changpeng Zhao, the Binance crypto founder who had pleaded guilty to money laundering in 2023. Trump claimed he 'didn't know who he is' and dismissed concerns of favoritism or pay-to-play, despite Zhao's documented business connections to Trump family ventures.

2025-11 • In November 2025, President Trump issued broad federal pardons to key allies who aided in efforts to overturn the 2020 election, including Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, John Eastman, Mark Meadows, and a group of false electors in multiple swing states. While most had not been convicted of federal crimes, the preemptive move covered a wide range of activities tied to challenging and undermining the 2020 results. Critics and legal scholars condemned the pardons as an abuse of presidential power to shield political collaborators and jeopardize public trust in electoral accountability.

2025-11 • A ProPublica investigation in November 2025 revealed that under DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, the department awarded more than $26 million in public funds to Strategy Group, a Republican-friendly advertising firm. The federal money, ostensibly aimed at border and drug prevention messaging, was largely spent on high-priced ads in GOP markets and included significant personal travel perks for Noem and senior aides. Ethics experts cited the arrangement as a flagrant example of corruption and abuse of power.

2025-11 • In late 2025, the Trump administration published a 'Media Offenders' page on WhiteHouse.gov that lists specific news outlets and individual reporters, branding their work as lies, bias, and 'left-wing lunacy' while presenting the administration's narrative as 'The Truth.' Press freedom advocates and media watchdogs argue that the page is part of a broader campaign of retaliation and intimidation against critical coverage, deepening concerns about government-driven propaganda and threats to a free press.

2025-10 • During the October 2025 government shutdown, the Trump administration directed federal agencies to publish partisan banners and statements on their official websites blaming Democrats for the funding lapse—even though Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress. Agency pages, including those for HUD and the Department of Justice, carried labels such as 'Democrats shut down the government,' which experts said likely violated the Hatch Act and blurred the line between governance and political propaganda.

2025-10 • In October 2025, former FBI Director James Comey was indicted by the Trump Justice Department on charges of allegedly lying to Congress about media contacts during his oversight of the Russia investigation. Legal experts and critics, including Comey’s defense team, called the charges selective and retaliatory, pointing to President Trump’s repeated public calls for prosecution of perceived political enemies. The highly publicized indictment fueled accusations that the Justice Department was being used as a tool for political retribution.

2025-09 • President Trump issued an executive order purportedly targetting domestic threats, but it transparently undermines free speech, targets political rivals, and conflates activism with criminal behavior.

2025-09 • In September 2025, President Trump posted a message on Truth Social directly instructing Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute several political opponents, including former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. The message, intended as a private directive but released publicly, broke norms of DOJ independence and was criticized as a blatant attempt to weaponize law enforcement for political retaliation.

2025-08 • Ashli Babbitt, a rioter fatally shot at Jan 6, was granted military funeral honors by the Air Force, reversing an earlier denial and furthering her celebration in far-right circles.

2025-08 • The Trump administration offered Mayor Eric Adams a deal to drop ongoing federal investigations into his office in exchange for public support and political concessions. The offer, widely criticized as an abuse of power and blatant corruption, led to the resignation of multiple city and federal attorneys in protest over compromised legal integrity.

2025-07 • Trump sued CBS and Paramount over a 60 Minutes interview he claimed was deceptively edited to hurt his campaign, resulting in a $16 million settlement to avoid prolonged litigation, despite legal experts denouncing the suit as meritless and a chilling precedent for press freedom.

2025-06 • Trump sued respected pollster Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register under consumer fraud laws after a poll showed him trailing ahead of the election, an action widely criticized as an attack on press freedom and a frivolous use of the courts to punish unfavorable predictions.