During Donald Trump's second presidency, the Trump administration took a series of actions using the government to target his political opponents and civil society. News outlets described his actions as part of his promised "retribution" and "revenge" campaign, within the context of a strongly personalist and leader-centered conception of politics. During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly stated that he had "every right" to go after his political opponents.
He undertook a massive expansion of presidential power under a maximalist interpretation of the unitary executive theory. Several of his actions ignored or violated federal laws, regulations, and the Constitution according to American legal scholars, the Government Accountability Office, and federal judges. He threatened, signed executive actions against, and ordered investigations into his political opponents, his critics, and organizations aligned with the Democratic Party. He politicized the civil service, undertaking mass layoffs of government employees to recruit workers more loyal to himself. He ended the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence, weaponizing it and ordering it to target his political enemies. He utilized several government agencies to retaliate against his political enemies and continued filing personal lawsuits against his political opponents, companies, and news organizations that angered him.
By July 2025, Trump had extracted more than $1.2 billion in settlements in a "cultural crackdown" against a variety of institutions that largely chose to settle rather than fight back. He engaged in an unprecedented targeting of law firms and lawyers that previously represented positions adverse to himself. Trump targeted higher education by demanding it give federal oversight of curriculum and targeted activists, legal immigrants, tourists, and students with visas who expressed criticism of his policies or engaged in pro-Palestinian advocacy. He also detained and deported United States citizens.
Trump's actions against civil society have been described by legal experts and political scientists as authoritarian and contributing to democratic backsliding, as well as negatively impacting freedom of the press, free speech, and the rule of law.
Background
In 2024, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the president has a presumption of immunity for all "official acts".
Trump frequently promised to exact retribution against perceived political enemies through his 2024 campaign, and has said he has "every right" to go after political opponents. A central campaign theme for Trump's second presidential bid was "retribution". Trump framed the 2024 election as "the final battle", and openly promised to leverage the power of the presidency for political reprisals.
Before the 2024 election, Trump repeatedly suggested that he supports outlawing political dissent that he regards as misleading or that questions the legitimacy of his presidency, for example saying that criticism of judges who ruled in favor of him "should be punishable by very serious fines and beyond that." He also repeatedly called for media companies who have produced unfavorable coverage of him to have their licenses revoked, and said that he would jail reporters who refuse to name the sources of leaks. Upon his inauguration, The New York Times described Trump as using "grievance as a political tool, portraying himself as the victim of what he claims is a powerful and amorphous 'deep state.
In late November 2025, ten months into his second presidency, Reuters counted 470 people, organizations, and institutions that Trump had already targeted for retribution.
Actions taken Mass firings and expansion of presidential power
Trump undertook mass firings of federal employees, inspectors general, and Democratic members of independent agencies and oversight boards who could attempt to block or constrain his moves, in express defiance of existing laws prohibiting such actions. His actions were described by legal experts as unprecedented or in violation of federal law, and with the intent of replacing them with workers more aligned with his agenda. In a peer-reviewed journal article, Donald Moynihan described the exercise as an anti-statist restructuring of American government centered around political loyalty. Legal analysts described such firings as setting up Supreme Court cases that could expand his power over independent executive branch agencies that Congress set up to be insulated from presidential control based on a maximalist interpretation of the unitary executive theory. His actions removed checks and balances within the executive branch by ignoring agencies such as the Office of Legal Counsel.
In an executive order on February 18, Trump declared the executive branch an extension of his own person, and that only he and the United States Attorney General had final say on the interpretation of all executive branch law. He sent teams to administer loyalty tests to some federal employees, intelligence, and law enforcement candidates. His actions politicized the civil service, especially among law enforcement. His actions against civil society were described by legal experts and hundreds of political scientists as authoritarian and contributing to democratic backsliding, and as negatively impacting the rule of law.
Launching Justice Department investigations
Trump ended the post-Watergate norm of independence for the Department of Justice (DOJ) and weaponized it to investigate his political opponents, calling them "scum". His administration publicized actions against local leaders, judges, and federal officials who opposed his agenda, along with what The New York Times described as "people who have simply gotten on the president's bad side" in an attempt to stigmatize them. Trump made numerous suggestions, requests and demands to jail, arrest, investigate or prosecute his political opponents, including by explicitly or indirectly ordering investigations into political opponents and celebrities such as James Comey, Beyoncé, Oprah Winfrey, Bruce Springsteen, Chris Krebs. Trump's interim DC Attorney General Ed Martin and head of the Weaponization Working Group stated the Justice Department would publicly name and shame individuals they did not have sufficient evidence to prosecute. Legal experts described this approach as violating the department's ethical and procedural rulebook, and that many of his other actions publicizing investigations were "so outside the bounds that it could undermine any criminal case".
Trump used the Justice Department to punish his enemies and reward his allies while making unfounded claims of prior "weaponization" against him. Trump ordered the attorney general to investigate the Biden administration for "weaponization of the federal government" and "government censorship of speech". The Guardian described the investigations as "politically charged reviews into his personal grievances". The orders made misleading accusations against the Biden administration and asserted they had committed criminal conduct against him and his supporters and demanded evidence be found to "correct past misconduct".
On January 27, the DOJ fired more than a dozen officials who worked on criminal cases against Trump, alleging a lack of trust in faithfully executing his agenda. It also announced a "special project" to investigate prosecutors who had previously brought charges against January 6 United States Capitol attack rioters, and launched a "weaponization working group" to review and investigate officials at both the state and federal levels who previously investigated Trump and provide the White House quarterly reports on its findings. Several FBI agents and the FBI Agents Association sued the Trump administration to prevent the publication of the names of 5,000 FBI agents for their involvement in investigating the January 6 attack, and Trump later said he would fire some agents involved in investigating the attack. FBI agents involved in securing indictments against Trump or viewed as aligned with his political enemies were ultimately fired, and the FBI Agents Association criticized the actions as "a campaign of erratic and arbitrary retribution".
On March 14, 2025, Trump gave a norm-breaking political speech at the Justice Department's Great Hall, promising to "expose" his enemies in what The Associated Press described as "the latest manifestation of Trump's unparalleled takeover of the department". The Economist described Trump as "paying a price for erasing any expectation the department would operate independently" in reducing its credibility in its response to the Epstein files. Foreign diplomats described the Justice Department's seeming politicization, as well as the apparent decline of the rule of law and integrity of the US legal system, as potentially complicating transnational criminal investigations. By August 4, The New York Times reported that judges had increasingly doubted "the fundamental honesty and credibility of Justice Department lawyers in ways that would have been unthinkable only months ago" following instances of the Justice Department having "repeatedly misled the courts, violated their orders and demonized judges who have ruled against them".
On June 5, 2025, Trump ordered his administration to investigate former President Joe Biden for his executive actions, arguing he was too mentally impaired to do the job and casting doubts as to the legitimacy of his pardons, although Trump admitted he had no evidence to back up his claims. Legal experts described the investigation as unlikely to do anything except fire up his core supporters.
In April 2026, Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi following dissatisfaction at her lack of successes prosecuting his political opponents, according to NBC News. In an April 2026 interview with NBC, Trump's former criminal defense attorney and then-Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche stated that Americans should be "happy" Trump was deeply involved in the DOJ, describing Trump as "my boss" and saying that probes into his political opponents would continue as "they involve individuals that the president has had significant issues — for good reason, by the way, within the past that will continue the rest of the time he's president". In August 2026, after his Senate confirmation as Attorney General, Blanche refused to pledge the DOJ would act independently of the White House, saying that "[t]here's a big difference between saying we will always do our job and investigate any case and act independently of the White House" and that "[n]o, I'm not going to pledge that" and that "no attorney general should ever pledge that." Blanche denied that Trump asked him to prosecute specific individuals and said the president would never ask him to do something unethical or illegal.
Interagency Weaponization Working Group