And what illegalities has TrumpCo been involved in?
Do you really need a list? Here are a few:
Agents of the Department of Government Efficiency engaged in a standoff that involved police when they accessed the U.S. Institute of Peace. Officials with the institute for weeks had insisted that the administration had
no authority over it due to its independent, nonprofit status, but DOGE seized its headquarters and threatened those inside the building with prosecution if they did not vacate.
The Department of Education
announced a reduction in force initiative that would diminish its staff by nearly 50%. In response, 20 state attorneys general and the District of Columbia
sued Trump, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and the Education Department over
violations of the separation of powers doctrine, the executive’s obligation to properly execute laws and the Administrative Procedure Act.
Trump issued an
executive order directing the attorney general and other agency heads to suspend the security clearances, cease supplying provisions, review and terminate contracts, restrict access to government buildings and refrain from hiring individuals at Perkins Coie LLP.
... it
violates the separation of powers doctrine and the First, Fifth and Sixth Amendments.
The Office of Personnel Management
directed agency leaders to begin terminating probationary employees and
sent an email the following day further clarifying this policy. Several labor unions and organizations
filed a lawsuit on Feb. 19 against the mass termination of probationary employees on the grounds that OPM’s directive
violates the Administrative Procedure Act and the separation of powers doctrine.
The White House blocked Associated Press reporters from the Oval Office, Air Force One and other press pool events over the news organization’s stance on the Trump administration’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico. In response, The Associated Press
filed a lawsuit on Feb. 21 against three White House officials arguing that the ban
violates the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause and the news outlet’s First Amendment rights.
Trump
signed an executive order that, among other things, called on agency heads to swiftly begin “large-scale reductions in force” across the federal government. Three Indigenous tribes and five Native Americans students
filed a lawsuit against the secretary of the interior, the assistant secretary for Indian affairs and the director of the Bureau of Indian Education arguing that Trump’s order, and other actions taken by the administration, caused layoffs of BIE staffers and university educators and the restructuring of the bureau, leading to the degradation of educational services at various federally funded tribal schools and post-secondary institutions. The administration’s actions, the lawsuit alleges, were
done without the consultation of the tribal nations and thus violated federal laws requiring tribal consultation. The lawsuit also argues that the BIE’s reductions in force and its restructuring violated the Administrative Procedure Act and tribal rights around education.
The federal judge who
blocked the Trump administration’s federal funding freeze on Jan. 31
said the administration
violated his temporary restraining order by continuing “to improperly freeze federal funds” and not resuming the “disbursement of appropriated federal funds.”
Russell Vought, the Trump-appointed acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, directed the agency to halt most of its work and closed its headquarters for the following week in an effort to essentially shutter the bureau. In response, the National Treasury Employees Union
filed two lawsuits against Vought arguing that his directives are unlawful. The first lawsuit says Vought
violated the separation of powers doctrine by “undermin[ing] Congress’s authority to set and fund the missions of the CFPB.” The second lawsuit says Vought
violated the Privacy Act by allowing the Department of Government Efficiency to access CFPB employee records.