Trump Issues a Sweeping Directive That Could Classify Many Non-MAGA Advocacy Groups as Terrorist Outfits: An Executive Watch Roundup
Our mid-October selection of the president's latest and greatest assaults on the rule of law
The UnPopulist, alongside its parent organization, the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism (ISMA), launched Executive Watch earlier this year. This one-of-a-kind project, designed to track presidential abuses of power as they are happening, has been meticulously documenting each illicit action emanating from the White House.
Below is our biweekly selection of new entries posted in Executive Watch. You should bookmark this page that contains a chronological scroll of the abuses and this post that sorts and lists them under our 5 P categories:
After reading this roundup, tell us in the comments: Which of these abuses do you take to be the most troubling, and why?
Oct. 15, 2025
Trump Considers a Blatantly Illegal Plan to Use the IRS to Probe and Harass Donors Who Oppose MAGA
Category: Power Consolidation
A long-standing abuse of presidential power is the use of the Internal Revenue Service as a tool for getting information on the president’s political opponents and subjecting them to legal harassment intended to dry up sources of money for the opposing party. Donald Trump is inevitably getting around to employing this tool.
The news was broken by The Wall Street Journal, which is behind a paywall, but it is summed up by Fox News:
The Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter, the push centers on installing Trump allies at the IRS criminal-investigative (IRS-CI) division and reducing the involvement of agency lawyers in those criminal probes.
Those changes could allow politically motivated probes to be pursued, and they’re being driven by Gary Shapley, an advisor to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, according to the report.
Shapley has said that he will replace longtime IRS-CI chief Guy Ficco and has been developing a list of donors and groups he thinks IRS investigators should look into, the Journal reported. That list includes billionaire Democratic donor George Soros and groups affiliated with him, a senior IRS official and another person briefed on the list told the outlet. …
President Donald Trump said last month in an appearance on “Fox and Friends” that Soros and others have funded left-leaning protesters and added, “we’re going to look into Soros because I think it’s a RICO case against him and other people, because this is more than like protests. This is real agitation. This is riots in the streets, and we’re going to look into that.” …
According to the Journal‘s report, the administration has focused on using the IRS-CI division after other efforts to remove the tax-exempt status of certain non-profits faced challenges from IRS lawyers, who argued the agency would need to have a lengthy investigative record to do so legally.
Notice that this is specifically directed at suppressing public protest against Trump and his policies, a key step in an authoritarian ruler’s consolidation of power. The Executive Functions blog provides some historical context to explain how incredibly illegal this is:
, who writes at Executive Functions along with Harvard conservative law professor, , also notes the irony that it is Republicans who last blew the whistle on apparent politicization of the IRS against Tea Party activist groups during the Obama administration. But Trump treats every complaint about abuse of power by the other side as a blueprint for how he can abuse power once he is in office in a much bigger way.As reported, this is a full-on assault on a long-standing policy, expressed in law and norm, that the IRS should be kept clear of political misuse. President Nixon was impeached for attempting to abuse the IRS’s power for political gain. Following that incident, and with overwhelming bipartisan support, the tax code was amended to prohibit “the President, the Vice President, any employee of the executive office of the President, and any employee of the executive office of the Vice President” from “conduct[ing] or terminat[ing] an audit or other investigation of any particular taxpayer with respect to the tax liability of such taxpayer.” The law imposes fines and imprisonment as penalties for violations, and it requires that any employee who receives any request or directive to violate the statute report it to the Inspector General for Tax Administration.
Oct. 15, 2025
Trump Is Asking Top DOJ Officials to Use the Agency to Prosecute Those Charged With Investigating His Criminal Actions
Category: Presidential Retribution
Every accusation Donald Trump makes about the abuse of power by his political opponents turns out to be a confession of how he intends to use power. Thus, Trump has been using complaints about “weaponization” of the Justice Department as an excuse to do precisely that—most recently, by openly giving orders to top officials to persecute his enemies.
The New York Times reports:
The nation’s three most powerful law enforcement officials—Attorney General Pam Bondi and her top deputy, Todd Blanche, along with Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director—padded into the Oval Office on Wednesday for a public show of unity and to herald some recent successes.
They left about an hour later, after President Trump tossed out, offhandedly, three names of people he wanted prosecuted: Jack Smith, the special counsel who brought two criminal indictments against him; Andrew Weissmann, a former F.B.I. official who was a lead prosecutor for the team investigating the Trump campaign’s possible ties to Russia in the 2016 election; and Lisa Monaco, the deputy attorney general under President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
“Deranged Jack Smith, in my opinion, is a criminal,” he told the three administration officials, who have tried—with a few notable exceptions—to do what he wants.
They smiled, nodded and shuffled in place as he spoke.
“His interviewer was Weissmann—I hope they’re going to look into Weissmann, too—Weissmann’s a bad guy,” Mr. Trump added, referring to a recent event in which Mr. Smith appeared alongside Mr. Weissmann. “And he had somebody, Lisa, who was his puppet, worked in the office, really, as the top person. I think she should be looked at very strongly.” …
The president, who vowed to go after the “scum” who once investigated him, often calls for investigations of people he hates, including Beyoncé and Bruce Springsteen.
But those threats appear to be gaining legal force.
It is important to grasp how far beyond civilized norms this is. Nixon’s chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, went to jail for much less. But at least in Haldeman’s case, he and Nixon plotted in secret to interfere with the Watergate investigation. Today, Trump is openly treating top law enforcement officials as his personal lackeys at a press conference in the Oval Office.
Oct. 8, 2025
Trump Threatens to Jail Chicago Mayor and Illinois Governor for Opposing His ICE Immigration Raids
Category: Presidential Retribution
Donald Trump has an obsession with the idea of jailing his political opponents. Most recently has threatened to jail Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker. His pretext is the need to “protect” ICE agents, which reminds us that part of the purpose of ICE is to serve as Trump’s goon squad to intimidate and arrest opposition politicians.
The New York Times provides a summary:
President Trump said on Wednesday that Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois and Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago should be jailed, escalating his campaign of retribution against those he sees as his political foes.
Both Mr. Pritzker and Mr. Johnson are Democrats who have opposed Mr. Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to the Chicago area and have criticized the aggressive way in which the Trump administration has carried out immigration raids. Mr. Johnson has signed an executive order to establish “ICE-free zones” in Chicago to prevent federal agents from staging operations.
“Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers! Governor Pritzker also!” Mr. Trump wrote on his Truth Social site.
Trump did not describe any crimes committed by his targets or any legal rationale for arresting them. We could write this off as meaningless bluster—except for the fact that Trump now has an established record of demanding that the Department of Justice prosecute his enemies without any legal basis or justification.
Oct. 3, 2025
On America’s 250th Anniversary, Treasury Plans an Illegal Trump Coin to Glorify Him Like a King
Category: Policy Illegality
One of the signs that heralded the end of the Roman Republic and the assertion of unlimited power by an emperor was the depiction of a living leader on Roman coins, elevating that leader to a status previously held only by gods and mythological figures. So it’s no surprise this is the next step of Donald Trump’s attempt to appoint himself emperor.
CNN reports:
A portrait of President Donald Trump may be featured on a commemorative $1 coin issued by the United States Mint in honor of America’s 250th birthday in 2026, according to first drafts of the images confirmed by the U.S. Treasury. …
The draft images show Trump’s side profile on the front with “Liberty” at the top, “In God we Trust” on the bottom and the dates 1776 and 2026. On the reverse is the famous image of Trump raising his fist after the Bulter, Pennsylvania, assassination attempt, with the words “FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT” at the top and an American flag billowing behind his head.
It’s not clear the controversial coin design will be minted: It’s against US law to display the image of a sitting president or living former president. A president may be featured on a coin no sooner than two years following the president’s death.
“No coin issued under this subsection may bear the image of a living former or current President, or of any deceased former President during the 2-year period following the date of the death of that President,” according to the US code governing coin design.
It is a sign of the times that CNN says “it’s not clear” whether the administration will do this—immediately before quoting a law that unambiguously declares it illegal. So it’s perfectly clear that this violates the law, and the only thing that is “unclear” is whether the administration will openly and brazenly throw out the law.
Oct. 1, 2025
In Exchange for a Luxury Jet from Qatar, Trump Issues an Executive Order Committing the U.S. to Defending it from External Aggression Like NATO Allies
Category: Political Corruption
What does the bribe of a $400 million luxury jet get you? Apparently, it gets you turnkey access to the entire military power of the United States. That seems to be the upshot of a new executive order extending U.S. military protection over Qatar in a way that has been extended only (in theory) to our NATO allies—and not, say, to Ukraine or Taiwan.
CNN reports:
President Donald Trump has signed an executive order for the U.S. to guarantee the security of Qatar—a significant commitment to a non-NATO, Arab ally.
“The United States shall regard any armed attack on the territory, sovereignty, or critical infrastructure of the State of Qatar as a threat to the peace and security of the United States,” the order, which is dated Monday, reads. …
“In the event of such an attack, the United States shall take all lawful and appropriate measures—including diplomatic, economic, and, if necessary, military—to defend the interests of the United States and of the State of Qatar and to restore peace and stability,” it reads.
Mediaite reports on the blowback from conservatives, who do not regard this—along with the construction of a Qatari Air Force training base in Idaho—as their vision of “America First.” We should also note that this has been done, not through a treaty approved by the Senate, but with an executive order, and rather than being the product of open debate, it is the result of influences we can only guess at.
Oct. 1, 2025
Trump Proposes an Unconstitutional ‘Compact’ to Universities to Put Them Directly Under the Federal Thumb
Category: Power Consolidation
A few months ago, a group of anti-freedom conservatives—no doubt hoping to benefit from the favor of Donald Trump’s sponsorship—advanced an idea for a “compact” that Trump would impose on universities. Now he’s putting that idea into practice, in exactly the form they suggested: a “compact” with the universities.
At MSNBC, two academics sum up this rotten deal:
On Wednesday, the Trump White House sent a “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” to nine top U.S. universities. The memo offers these institutions a devil’s bargain: In exchange for a promise of preferential access to federal grants, universities must follow the administration’s dictates on admissions, tuition, grading, student discipline, campus speech and protest rules, faculty and staff hiring, athletics, and many other domains that go far beyond federal law.
Any institution that yields to these broad and intrusive demands would give up its legal rights and would forever be subservient to the whims of the government. If the Justice Department decides that a signatory violated the vague terms of the agreement, that university would be forced to return all federal money it received in that year—along with any private donations at donor request. …
Most importantly, the administration’s dictates would be an impermissible overreach into the free speech of private institutions, according to legal experts across the political spectrum. The government may not use its funding to compel speech or to force recipients to give up their constitutional rights, which is precisely what the Trump administration seeks to do. The compact would even require that “all university employees, in their capacity as university representatives,” abstain “from actions or speech relating to societal and political events except in cases in which external events have a direct impact upon the university.”
The clear aim of this deal is to place universities under federal control, capturing them as the personal fiefdoms of Donald Trump. But the only “compact” that matters here is the U.S. Constitution. Federal funds are not Trump’s to employ for his own ends, and it is unconstitutional for the president to use taxpayers’ money to impose ideological loyalty tests.
Sept. 29, 2025
Trump Is Even Targeting the Private Employment of Officials Who Investigated His Criminal Acts by Threatening to Cancel the Contracts of Companies Like Microsoft that Hire Them
Category: Presidential Retribution
One of the illusions that brought Trump to power is the idea that he is “pro-business” and favors deregulation. In reality, he wants an economy controlled personally by him, down to the finest details, such as the design of corporate logos—and who they hire as executives. He has already demanded that companies fire their CEOs and chief economists, and now he’s doing it again.
The Hill reports:
President Trump called for Microsoft to fire Lisa Monaco, former President Biden’s No. 2 Justice Department official, who was recently appointed as the company’s chief of global affairs.
In a post on Truth Social on Friday, Trump called Monaco “corrupt and totally deranged” and, citing national security concerns, called for her to be terminated from her role. …
“She is a menace to U.S. National Security, especially given the major contracts that Microsoft has with the United States Government,” he continued. “Because of Monaco’s many wrongful acts, the U.S. Government recently stripped her of all Security Clearances, took away all of her access to National Security Intelligence, and banned her from all Federal Properties.” …
Monaco, as Biden’s deputy attorney general, was closely involved in the federal investigations into Trump’s role in the lead-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and into his mishandling of classified documents. …
Earlier this year, Trump rescinded Monaco’s security clearance, along with that of other former political opponents, including Biden.
The line about Microsoft’s government contracts is supposed to be evidence for why Monaco poses a danger, but it’s really there to remind Microsoft of the leverage the federal government holds over it. This is an attempt by the president to deprive former officials of the ability to seek private employment, as punishment for investigating his own crimes.
Sept. 25, 2025
Trump Issues ‘Anti-Terror’ Directive That Would Sic the Police State on Everyone Except the MAGA Right
Category: Presidential Retribution
As part of his exploitation of the killing of Charlie Kirk to suppress political dissent, Donald Trump has issued a new directive, known by the acronym NSPM-7, targeting as “left-wing terrorism” a wide collection of ordinary, perfectly legal viewpoints.
Investigative reporter
brought this to everyone’s attention:With the mainstream media distracted by the made-for-TV drama of James Comey’s indictment, Trump has signed a little-noticed national security directive identifying “anti-Christian” and “anti-American” views as indicators of radical left violence. Called National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, it’s being referred to as “NSPM-7” by administration insiders. …
The Trump administration isn’t only targeting organizations or groups but even individuals and “entities” whom NSPM-7 says can be identified by any of the following “indicia” (indicators) of violence:
· anti-Americanism,
· anti-capitalism,
· anti-Christianity,
· support for the overthrow of the United States Government,
· extremism on migration,
· extremism on race,
· extremism on gender
· hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family,
· hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on religion, and
· hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on morality.
“The United States requires a national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts,” the directive states (emphasis mine).
This is an authorization for a vast police state to monitor and legally harass people whose views are not approved by the administration, defined in extremely broad and vague terms—such as “hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on religion,” which adds a theocratic element—that can be applied to just about anyone.
Sept. 24, 2025
Trump’s Gold Card Plan Would Illegally Sell Green Cards While Scrapping Every Other Congressionally Created Pathway to Permanent Residency
Category: Political Corruption
There is nothing more emblematic of the real meaning of Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda than his proposed “Gold Card,” which would openly sell legal permanant residency—the last big step to U.S. citizenship—to rich foreigners for $1 million each. This proposal is, of course, completely illegal.
Forbes provides an overview:
In a recent meeting with immigration hardliners, [Commerce Secretary Howard] Lutnick said the Trump administration was considering “‘suspending’ all other green card categories” so the Trump Gold Card would be the only pathway to immigrate permanently, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday evening. …
Multiple immigration experts told Forbes it is neither legal nor feasible for the Trump Gold Card to replace existing pathways to a U.S. green card—including the EB-5 visa, which offers residency through investment, and the EB-1 and EB-2 visas, which offer residency to foreign nationals through employment.
“Congress writes the rules” on visas and “the president can’t just snap his fingers and change the rules,” Julia Gelatt, associate director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute, told Forbes. …
Loweree scoffed at the administration’s claim that the Gold Card was designed to drive down the federal debt. “The idea that they’re concerned about the debt when they just championed and pushed through the Big Beautiful Bill Act that’s projected to increase the debt by over $3 trillion is ridiculous. This is an effort to create a new pay-to-play scheme and reorient our immigration system into something that simply favors the rich and moves away from the historical priorities of family reunification and focusing on skills and critical labor that’s critical to the U.S. economy.”
In addition to being illegal, the Gold Card reflects the corrupt heart of the Trumpist worldview, in which neither citizenship nor anything else can be earned by ordinary people, and the U.S. government works only for those who are able to pay out large quantities of hard cash.
© The UnPopulist, 2025
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Most troubling abuse: Power consolidation
We've all been frogs in this pot except that some of us frogs didn't die. Robert has a very curious way of looking at things - and I don't mean in a good way. I agree with you that previous presidents have gotten away with "horrible excesses" but I haven't been convinced that Trump is the "end of the world". In fact, it may be that the world has already ended and Trump is the last man standing!? I understand, I'm not going to get everything I want out of an election. You are not going to get everything you want out of an election! The question is, where do we go from here? That's where we are.