Executive Watch

Tracking presidential abuses of power

The Executive Watch is a tracker of presidential abuses of power that we at The UnPopulist, and our parent organization the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism (ISMA), designed in order to provide a one-stop, comprehensive, easily searchable database that anyone can click on to see the full picture of Trump’s illicit actions in office.

To go directly to Executive Watch, click here.

We’ve divided presidential abuses of power into five categories: the 5 Ps.

• Personal Grift

• Political Corruption

• Presidential Retribution

• Power Consolidation

• Policy Illegality

This post will serve as a continually updated repository of all our Executive Watch entries, sorted by presidential abuse category, as well as full essays, podcasts, and videos.

• 5/27/25: Trump Sells a Pardon to a Rich Crook Who Paid a Million Bucks to Have Dinner With Him

• 5/11/25: Trump Plans to Ditch the American-Made Air Force One and Accept a $400 Million Flying Palace from the Emir of Qatar as a Bribe

• 5/5/25: Trump’s Son Opens a Private Club for Businesses to Pay for Access to his Dad

• 5/2/25: Businesses Pouring Billions Into Trump’s Memecoin Venture to Buy Influence Is the Very Definition of Graft

• 4/24/25: Trump Is Selling His Crypto Meme Coin to Anonymous Donors in a Pay-to-Play Scheme

• 4/11/25: Crooked Crypto Exchange Invests in a Trump Venture In Exchange for Having a Federal Money-Laundering Investigation Dropped

• 3/13/25: A Chinese Scammer Is Seeking a Pardon from Trump in Exchange of Investing in His Crypto Fund

• 3/11/25: Trump Uses the White House to Make a Sales Pitch for Tesla in Exchange for Campaign Cash from Musk

• 3/4/25: Trump Charges Business Leaders $5 Million to Dine with him and Potentially Pockets the Funds

• 3/2/25: Trump Uses Sovereign Crypto Fund as a Payout to Political Insiders

• 2/27/25: Cryptocurrency Scammer Pours Millions in Trump’s Venture and Gets Charges Dropped

• 2/25/25: Musk Lands a Lucrative FAA Contract While Saying He’s Stopping Government Abuse

• 2/19/25: Musk Uses His Political Power to Force Companies to Advertise on X

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• 4/17/25: Treasury Official Ask IRS to Rethink Audits of the Pillow Guy and Trump’s Other ‘High Profile Friends’

• 3/28/25: The White House Fires a Federal Prosecutor Who Criticized Trump and Was Prosecuting a Trump-Supporting, Tax-Defrauding CEO

• 3/20/25: Trump Announces Shakedown Deal with Big Law Firm

• 2/17/25: Trump Abuses His Foreign Policy Powers as a Favor to ‘Manosphere’ Influencer Andrew Tate

• 2/11/25: Trump’s Pardon-for-Deportation Crackdown Deal with NYC Mayor Eric Adams

• 2/10/25: Surprise! The Most Ethically Challenged Administration Guts the Government Ethics Agency

• 2/10/25: Trump Gives the Green Light to American Companies to Engage in Corruption Abroad

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• 6/7/25: In a Classic Authoritarian Move, Trump Threatens to Crush Musk if the Tech Tycoon Funds Democrats Now

• 6/4/25: Trump Threatens to Scrap Columbia’s Accreditation After the University Capitulated to His Previous Demands to Fight Campus Antisemitism

• 6/4/25: Trump Issues Executive Order to Invalidate Biden’s Pardons and Other Policies Based on Conspiracy Theories Even as He Sells Pardons to Corrupt Politicians and Tycoons

• 5/27/25: The Administration Suspends Visa Interviews of Foreign Students Pending Vetting Rules of Their Social Media Posts to Ensure Ideological Conformity

• 4/18/25: Trump Administration’s Campaign of Retribution Threatens Scientific Journals Not on Board with MAGA Science

• 4/16/25: Trump Threatens to Nix Harvard’s Tax-Exempt Status if it Fails to Embrace His Ideological Agenda

• 4/15/25: Trump’s Counterterrorism Czar Wants to Prosecute Critics of Mass Deportation for ‘Aiding and Abetting’ Terrorists

• 4/14/25: Trump Wants the FCC to Revoke CBS’ Broadcast License for Running Stories Critical of Him

• 4/11/25: Trump Orders Harvard to Implement Viewpoint Diversity or Else!

• 4/9/25: Trump’s Executive Orders Target His Own Former Aides for Challenging His ‘Stolen Election’ Conspiracy Theories

• 3/25/25: Trump Targets Another Law Firm Offering Services to His Opponents, Eviscerating the Principle of Effective Representation for All

• 3/24/25: Trump Toady Briefly Canceled a Program Handing Social Security Numbers to Newborns in a Hospital to Spite Maine’s Governor

• 3/22/25: A Trump Memo Threatens Any Lawyer Who Dares to Sue His Illegal Executive Actions

• 3/15/25: Trump Announces that Negative Coverage of Him Is Illegal and Threatens Networks

• 3/8/25: Trump Revokes the Green Card of a Pro-Palestinian Campus Activist Without Any Criminal Charges

• 3/6/25: Trump Goes After a Law Firm Just Because it Has Represented Democrats

• 2/25/25: Trump Targets the Law Firm Representing the Special Counsel Who Investigated Him

• 2/21/25: Trump DOJ Threatens Opposition Lawmakers for their Speech

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• 6/24/25: Trump’s DOJ Sues the Entire Maryland Federal Bench After its Judges Stopped His Lawless Deportations

• 6/24/25: Trump’s Personal Lawyer in the DOJ Now Up for Judgeship Actively Plotted to Disobey and Defy Court Orders Barring Lawless Deportations

• 6/22/25: Trump Deliberately Keeps Congressional Democrats in the Dark Before Military Strikes on Iran

• 6/12/25: Trump Abuses FTC’s Powers to Force Advertisers to Support Right-Wing Media Against Their Own Conscience

• 6/11/25: Trump Trashes America’s Bedrock Commitment to an Apolitical Military and Demands Only MAGA-Supporting Troops at His Speech

• 6/9/25: Trump Prevents Congressmen from Performing Their Oversight Function by Denying them Access to ICE Detention Centers

• 5/26/25: Trump’s Pardon Czar Hands a ‘MAGA Pardon’ to a Corrupt Sheriff Convicted for Bribery

• 5/21/25: The FTC Obliges Musk and Targets a Democrat-Aligned Group Flagging Racist Content on X

• 5/17/25: Trump Threatens ABC With an FCC Investigation for Reporting that He Solicited the Qatari Palace in the Sky as a Plane Bribe

• 5/12/25: Trump Tries to Take Over the Library of Congress Without Congressional Authorization and Put His Lackeys In Charge

• 5/9/25: ICE Agents Arrest Newark Mayor for Protesting Deportations Outside the Detention Prison in an Attempt to Intimidate Local Officials

• 4/25/25: Trump Guts the Hatch Act’s Prohibition on Government Employees Campaigning for MAGA on Official Time

• 4/25/25: Trump FBI Arrests a State Judge for Allegedly Defying the Immigration Police State

• 4/24/25: In a Classic Move From the Authoritarian Playbook, Trump Orders a Politically Motivated Investigation of a Democratic Fundraising Platform

• 4/19/25: Trump’s FCC Head Threatens to Revoke Comcast’s Licenses Over Unfavorable Coverage of Abrego Garcia’s Deportation to Salvadoran Gulag

• 4/16/25: Trump Alters His ‘Deal’ with Big Law and Wants to Extort Legal Services for Himself and His Allies

• 3/30/25: Trump Is Stacking the Press Pool With Loyalists and Crushing the Independence of the White House Press Corps

• 3/25/25: Trump’s Unconstitutional Executive Order Tries to Usurp State Control Over Election Law

• 3/17/25: The Trump Administration Forcibly Enters and Seizes Congressionally Funded Non-Profit

• 2/21/25: Trump Tells DHS to Spend Millions on Political Ads Thanking Him for Closing the Border

• 2/18/25: Trump Guts the Independence of Key Federal Agencies, Paving the Way to their Politicization

• 2/17/25: King Trump to America: I Am Beyond the Law

• 1/27/25: Trump Fires Watchdogs Who Track Public Corruption While Claiming He’s Fighting ‘Waste, Fraud, and Abuse’

• 1/17/25: Trump Uses the Threat of FCC Action to Intimidate and Shake Down CBS

• 1/16/25: Trump Aide Dictated Terms of Facebook Overhaul

• 1/15/25: Trump Browbeats Congressional Republicans to Appoint Loyalists on Committee Assignments

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• 6/19/25: Donald Trump Once Again Violates the Law Banning TikTok for His Own Political Benefit

• 6/19/25: ICE Illegally Refuses to Allow Congressional Oversight of its Detention Centers

• 6/10/25: Trump Uses the Vast Authority Granted to Him by the Supreme Court to Once Again Issue a Travel Ban and Abuse His Immigration Powers

• 6/9/25: Donald Trump Commandeers the California National Guard to Suppress Protests Against ICE Deportation Raids

• 5/12/25: Trump’s Authoritarianism Comes for the Free Market and Imposes Price Controls on Pharmaceuticals

• 5/9/25: Stephen Miller Peddles Dangerous Falsehoods that the Executive Has Sweeping Authority to Suspend Habeas Corpus and Defy Courts on Immigration

• 4/26/25: Trump’s Mass Deportation Campaign Comes After American Children

• 4/23/25: Trump Wants to Send Undocumented Aliens to the Salvadoran Gulag Without a Hearing

• 4/21/25: Trump’s Unlawful Campaign to Revoke Visas of International Students for Minor Offenses Is Designed to Spread Fear

• 4/14/25: Trump Threatens to Send U.S. Citizens to El Salvador’s Gulag

• 4/13/25: The Trump Administration Is Openly Defying the Supreme Court’s Order to Bring Home Abrego Garcia After Erroneously Deporting Him to a Salvadoran Gulag

• 4/10/25: Trump Abuses ‘Emergency’ Power to Set Tariffs by Autocratic Whim

• 3/24/25: Trump Defies Congress and Eliminates a Website Requiring him to Show that he Was Spending Appropriations as Intended

• 3/20/25: Trump Threatens to Send U.S. Citizens who Protest to the Salvadoran Gulag

• 3/17/25: The Trump Administration Defies Judge Demanding Basic Details about Those it Is Deporting

• 3/15/25: Trump Asserts Illegal Wartime Powers to Deport Immigrants in Defiance of the Court

• 3/14/25: Justice Department Wants to Barge Into Homes of Alleged Immigrant Gang Members Without a Warrant

• 3/5/25: Musk Usurps the Power of the Purse from Congress but Republicans Can Apply for Relief from Funding Cuts

• 2/21/25: Trump Punishes AP for Exercising Its Free Speech Rights

• 2/20/25: Trump Attempts an Illegal and Unconstitutional Takeover of the U.S. Postal Service

• 2/18/25: Trump DOJ Seeks to Claw Back EPA Funding by Launching a Bogus Criminal Investigation

• 2/17/25: Trump’s Anti-DEI Inquisition Targets Georgetown, a Private University

• 2/12/25: The Trump Administration Illegally Seizes New York City Funds

• 1/28/25: Trump Withholds Congressionally Mandated Spending in Defiance of the Constitution

• 1/20/25: Trump Defies the Law to Keep TikTok Alive

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Articles

• The Judiciary Will Become Virtually Powerless in Protecting Your Rights if the Current Budget Bill Becomes Law by

  Clint Bolick
  (6/14/25)

• Don’t Be Fooled, Courts Can’t Really Stop Trump From Assaulting Law Firms by

  Walter Olson
  (6/10/25)

• An Effective Resistance Strategy Against Trump’s Constitutional Assaults Needs to Mobilize Both Courts and Public Opinion by

  Ilya Somin
  (6/9/25)

• The Supreme Court Should Resist Handing Sweeping Removal Powers to this President in the Name of Constitutional Purity by

  Corbin K. Barthold
  (5/27/25)

• There Is No Piecing Back Our Badly Shattered Constitutional Order by

  Andy Craig
  (5/22/25)

• A Key Tool for Stopping Government Tyranny Might become a Casualty of Next Week’s Birthright Citizenship Case by

  Anthony Sanders
  (5/8/25)

• Dictator on Day 100 by

  Robert Tracinski
  (4/29/25)

• Will Trump Convince the Supreme Court to Embrace an Expansive Unitary Executive Theory and Grab More Power? by

  Peter M. Shane
  (4/24/25)

• Trump’s Policy of Shipping Innocents to the Salvadoran Gulag Shows Utter Contempt for Not Just the Constitution but Law Itself by

  Andy Craig
  (4/15/25)

• How to Undo Trump’s Growing Dictatorship and the Damage it Is Inflicting by

  Larry Diamond
  (4/6/25)

• Trump Is Going After the Independence of the Entire Legal Profession, Not Just Big Law by

  Walter Olson
  (3/26/25)

• Trump Is Nuking Free Speech in the Name of Fighting Wokeness on Campuses by

  Lindsie Rank
  (3/20/25)

• A Supreme Court Truly Devoted to Originalism Would Be Nice in the Face of Trump’s Lawlessness by

  Kim Wehle
  (3/19/25)

• Trump Is Going After Big Law to Make it Difficult for His Political Targets to Get Effective Representation by

  Walter Olson
  (3/13/25)

Podcasts

• Will Appeals Courts Affirm that Trump Is Abusing His Emergency Power by Imposing Sweeping Tariffs?
  Host:

  Robert Tracinski
  . Featured Guest:
  Ilya Somin
  (5/31)

• Why DOGE Should Scare Even Advocates of Small Government
  Host:

  Aaron Ross Powell
  . Featured Guests:
  Julian Sanchez
  and
  Noah Kunin
  (5/7/25)

• Only Moral Leadership Can Stop America From Giving in to Authoritarianism
  Host:

  Robert Tracinski
  . Featured Guest:
  David French
  (5/4/25)

• Can Trump Really Deport 10 Million People?
  Host:

  Shikha Dalmia
  . Featured Guest:
  Dara Lind
  (4/26/25)

• Trump Wants to Deny Legal Representation to Opponents He Targets
  Host:

  Robert Tracinski
  . Featured Guest:
  Walter Olson
  (4/2/25)

Videos

• Trump Jr. Uses His Dad to Milk Oligarchs by

  Landry Ayres
  (6/5/25)

• Trump’s Corrupt Pardons for Corruption by

  Landry Ayres
  (6/4/25)

• Musk Quits DOGE After Wrecking Our Governing System by

  Landry Ayres
  (5/29/25)

• Trump’s Library of Congress Takeover Means He Could Spy on Lawmakers’ Research by

  Landry Ayres
  (5/23/25)

• Trump’s Black and White Refugee Double Standard by

  Landry Ayres
  (5/19/25)

• Trump’s Chief Ghoul Stephen Miller Wants to Disappear You by

  Landry Ayres
  (5/14/25)

• Trump’s Executive Order Threatens Public Broadcasting for its Alleged Woke Bias by

  Landry Ayres
  (5/9/25)

• Trump’s FCC Uses its Regulatory Authority to Shut Down Negative Coverage by

  Landry Ayres
  (5/7/25)

• The DOJ’s Arrest of Judge Is Another Leap Toward Autocracy by

  Landry Ayres
  (4/30/25)

• Trump is Crushing the Independence of the White House Press Corps by

  Landry Ayres
  (4/16/25)

• Trump’s Crypto Crony Corruption by

  Landry Ayres
  (4/8/25)

• Trump Goes After the Independence of the Entire Legal Profession, Not Just Big Law by

  Landry Ayres
  (4/1/25)

• Trump Asserts Illegal Wartime Powers to Deport Migrants in Defiance of the Court by

  Landry Ayres
  (3/24/25)

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