Trump's New Grift Is to Name Structures After Himself and Then Cash in on the Brand: An Executive Watch Roundup
Our early-March selection of the president's latest and greatest assaults on the rule of law
The UnPopulist, along with its parent organization, the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism (ISMA), launched Executive Watch early in Trump’s second term. This project, designed to track presidential abuses of power as they are happening, has been meticulously documenting the illicit actions 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 is the most troubling, and why?
Feb. 25, 2026
The DOJ Is Illegally Hiding Serious Allegations Against Trump in the Epstein Files
Category: Political Corruption
Congress has ordered the Department of Justice to release all files from its investigation of Jeffrey Epstein. But it has been releasing them only in dribbles, and there is now evidence it has been deliberately holding back information about accusations made against Donald Trump, a longtime friend and associate of Epstein.
The New York Times investigates:
The materials are FBI memos summarizing interviews the bureau did in connection to claims made in 2019 by a woman who came forward after Mr. Epstein’s arrest to say she had been sexually assaulted by both Mr. Trump and the financier decades earlier, when she was a minor.
The existence of the memos was revealed in an index listing the investigative materials related to her account, which was publicly released. According to that index, the FBI conducted four interviews in connection with her claims and wrote summaries about each one. But only one of the summaries, which describes her accusations against Mr. Epstein, was released by the Justice Department. The other three are missing.
The public files also do not include the underlying interview notes, which the index also indicates are part of the file. The Justice Department released similar interview notes in connection to FBI interviews with other potential witnesses and victims.
The Epstein files contain every accusation ever made relating to Epstein, and it is quite possible this is a false claim that the FBI found not to be credible. But the Justice Department is not letting us see the evidence and determine if or why investigators drew that conclusion. They are acting as if Trump has something to hide, and their job is to hide it for him.
Feb. 25, 2026
Kash Patel Uses FBI Jet for Olympic Luxury Tourist Trip
Category: Personal Grift
If Donald Trump thinks he is our king, his courtiers think they are royalty, entitled to a luxury lifestyle funded by the government. Chief of these perks is flying around the world on luxury private jets paid for with our tax dollars. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem is probably the worst offender, but FBI Director Kash Patel grabbed the most recent headlines.
The New York Times provides an analysis:
The F.B.I. director Kash Patel’s four-day trip to Italy—culminating in a celebratory beer swig with the U.S. hockey team at the Milan Olympics—included several hours of work meetings, a handful of meet-and-greets, hours of down time, private meals and “cultural activities,” according to an internal schedule obtained by The New York Times.
The taxpayer-funded visit to the Games reignited the firestorm over Mr. Patel’s use of government resources, which intensified on Tuesday when Senate Democrats aired new allegations against the director, citing an anonymous whistle-blower inside the Trump administration.
Mr. Patel has fiercely defended his Italy trip, saying it was scheduled months ago and necessary to fortify his relationship with the F.B.I.’s European partners. He has questioned his critics’ love of hockey, and suggested they were insufficiently stoked by the U.S. team’s gold medal victory. …
Mr. Patel has offered comparable explanations when pressed on his decision to provide SWAT team protection for his girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins, a country singer and right-wing activist, as well as for his heavy use of federal resources for travel that has at times appeared to blur professional lines.
Last summer, he flew on a government jet from the Washington area to Inverness, Scotland, for a getaway with friends, including former Navy SEALs, at the Carnegie Club, an exclusive golf resort. He has also taken flights, at taxpayer expense, to a private hunting ranch in Texas and to a wrestling match in State College, Pa., to watch a performance by Ms. Wilkins.
For security reasons, the FBI director has to travel on government jets. But much of Patel’s travel seems oriented around his own leisure activities and luxury lifestyle—the perks of being a member of the royal court—rather than the vital business of the American people.
Feb. 25, 2026
Blind Refugee Dies After Being Disappeared, Then Abandoned, by Border Patrol
Category: Policy Illegality
Trump’s mass deportation agenda has quickly reproduced all the characteristics of a brutal police state, including unlawful disappearances in which ordinary people, including children, are swept up into the system and no one knows what happened to them. Then, if these people are released, they are routinely dumped in isolated areas without notification. One of them just died.
The Guardian reports:
A nearly blind Burmese refugee who was abandoned by border patrol agents has been found dead in Buffalo, New York, city officials confirmed. …
[Nurul] Shah Alam had been in the Erie county holding center for the past year, after being arrested by Buffalo police in 2025 on charges of assault, trespassing and possession of a weapon. The arrest stemmed from an incident in which Shah Alam got lost while on a walk and ended up on the porch of a woman’s home. He had been using a curtain rod as a walking stick, according to his attorney.
The woman called the police, and when Shah Alam did not follow police commands to drop his curtain rod, they Tasered and beat him, his attorney said.
He was released on bail, and then transferred to border patrol custody.
Border patrol agents then dropped him off at a Tim Hortons about five miles from his home. Neither his attorney nor his family were notified of his release.
“We are saddened to learn that our client, Nurul Amin Shah Alam, was found deceased last night in the City of Buffalo,” the Legal Aid Bureau of Buffalo said in a statement shared with the Guardian.
The negligence and indifference to human life in this case is so systematic it cannot be attributed to accident. Cruelty and lawlessness toward anyone even suspected of being an immigrant is the openly declared policy of this administration. The result: Nurul Shah Alam came to the U.S. as a refugee fleeing oppression and brutality—and found it all over again here in America.
Feb. 24, 2026
The Department of Defense Threatens to Expropriate an AI Company That Refuses to Allow its Technology to be Used for Surveillance
Category: Power Consolidation
The use of artificial intelligence by the U.S. military may be necessary to keep up with other countries that make use of it. But it also raises difficult questions about the potential abuse of the new technology by the military and other agencies, particularly for internal surveillance. The Trump administration’s response to these concerns is to threaten to simply to seize the new technology.
The Washington Post reports:
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has threatened Anthropic, saying officials could invoke powers that would allow the government to force the artificial intelligence firm to share its novel technology in the name of national security if it does not agree by Friday to terms favorable to the military, people familiar with the ongoing discussions said.
But Anthropic is prepared to walk away from the negotiations—and its $200 million contract with the Defense Department—if concerns over the use of its technology for autonomous weapons or mass surveillance are not addressed, according to the people familiar with the discussions. …
Tensions have risen between the firm and the Pentagon in recent weeks over how Anthropic’s AI was applied during the raid to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Defense officials responded swiftly, suggesting that if Anthropic did not allow the Pentagon to apply the AI as it wants to, within lawful limits, the company would be considered a supply-chain risk, costing it and any firm subcontracting its AI future business opportunities.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Hegseth went further, saying Anthropic could in addition be subject to the Defense Production Act—which enables the government to gain control of firms and their products—in the name of national security. The DPA was used during the covid pandemic to address medical supply shortfalls.
America’s military strength depends on our government’s partnership with the world’s best scientists and most innovative companies. But their willingness to work with the government depends on the presumption they are working for the good guys—and if this administration substitutes threats and expropriation for persuasion, they will destroy that presumption.
Feb. 23, 2026
Whistleblower Reveals That ICE Is Teaching New Recruits to ‘Violate the Constitution’ and Our Rights
Category: Policy Illegality
An ICE whistleblower has testified that the organization’s training has been dangerously reduced to accommodate Donald Trump’s deportation surge and that recruits were specifically taught to ignore constitutional protections against search and seizure—in direct contradiction to what the Department of Homeland Security has told Congress.
The New York Times reports:
The account by Ryan Schwank, a former ICE lawyer who worked at the federal government’s law enforcement training academy, coincided with the release by Senate Democrats of several dozen pages of internal ICE records that suggest the Trump administration has curtailed the agency’s basic training.
“For the last five months, I watched ICE dismantle the training program,” Mr. Schwank said at a forum held in Washington by congressional Democrats. “Cutting 240 hours of vital classes from a 584-hour program—classes that teach the Constitution, our legal system, firearms training, the use of force, lawful arrests, proper detention and the limits of officers’ authority.” …
Mr. Schwank was hired as an ICE lawyer in 2021 and became an instructor last year at the federal government’s law enforcement training academy in Georgia, where he taught courses on the law. He resigned on Feb. 13 after he and another publicly unidentified person submitted a confidential whistle-blower complaint on a separate matter that has raised constitutional questions: a new ICE policy allowing deportation officers to enter homes and arrest people without a judicial warrant.
“ICE is teaching cadets to violate the Constitution,” he said on Monday at the event with congressional Democrats.
Training matters because it indicates what the administrations wants from the agents who enforce its policies—and what this administration wants is for them not to adhere to the Constitution or protections for our rights.
Feb. 23, 2026
Trump Responds to the Supreme Court Ruling Overruling His Illegal Tariffs by Imposing More Illegal Tariffs
Category: Policy Illegality
As predicted, the Supreme Court ruled to strike down tariffs Donald Trump imposed illegally under an “emergency” statute that did not, in fact, grant him a taxing power the Constitution reserves for Congress. Trump responded by declaring that he would impose new tariffs under a different emergency measure. But these tariffs are no more legal than the old ones.
CBS News explains:
Section 122 authorizes the U.S. president to impose tariffs to rectify what the statute describes as “large and serious United States balance-of-payments deficits.” …
But trade and legal experts said Section 122 might not apply in the current context because the large U.S. trade deficit, which Mr. Trump has invoked to justify tariffs, does not qualify as a balance-of-payments deficit. …
“Section 122 is for a balance of payments crisis, which is when you don’t have enough foreign reserves to pay external debts,” Philip Luck, director of the economics program at the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The U.S. has a very large trade deficit, but so long as we can continue to sell assets to the global market, we have no challenge conducting international trade.”
Trump’s strategy is obvious. He wants to do something illegal and unconstitutional, so when the courts strike down one legal rationale for doing it, he switches to another bogus rationale—but keeps the illegal policy, daring the courts to stop him again. The only constant is his contempt for legality and constitutionality as such.
Feb. 22, 2026
Trump Tries to Get a Democratic Official Fired From the Netflix Board for Being a Democrat
Category: Power Consolidation
Donald Trump is not in favor of capitalism or a free market. He’s in favor of a personalist system in which all economic decisions have to be passed by him. That has been on display in the Netflix-Warner Brothers merger negotiations, where he has repeatedly intervened on behalf of a rival company owned by his supporters, and he is now dictating who Netflix can hire.
The Guardian reports:
Donald Trump has told Netflix to remove the Democratic foreign policy expert Susan Rice from its board or “face the consequences,” while the streaming platform is locked in an extraordinary corporate battle to take control of Warner Bros Discovery (WBD). …
Trump’s comments herald a fresh intervention in the takeover battle between Netflix and Paramount Skydance for the studios and streaming businesses of WBD only weeks after promising not to get involved.
Rice was a member of Netflix’s board from 2018 to 2020, before leaving during the Biden administration. She rejoined in 2023 and sits on the company’s nominating and governance committee.
She appeared on a podcast in recent days, during which she said that corporations, law firms and news organizations that showed loyalty to Trump would be held accountable if the Democrats returned to power.
This is not the first time Trump has attempted to tell private companies who they can employ. It’s an attempt to starve out his political opposition, ensuring they cannot prosper or rise to positions of prominence and influence—so that there will be no independent voices to contradict him.
Feb. 21, 2026
Trump’s DOJ Is Systematically Launching Bogus Lawsuits Against its Enemies to Harass Them
Category: Presidential Retribution
The Trump administration keeps threatening its enemies with legal retribution, only to have the cases fail—as was the case with the six members of Congress whose video urged members of the military not to follow illegal orders. But the underlying story is that this legal harassment, even if it is ultimately unsuccessful, is fueled by the government systematically lying in court.
The Guardian provides a good overview:
In recent months, the federal government has relentlessly prosecuted protesters, government critics, immigrants and others arrested during immigration operations, often accusing them of physically attacking officers or interfering with their duties.
But many of those cases have recently been dismissed or ended in not guilty verdicts.
In several high-profile cases, the prosecutions fell apart because they relied on statements by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers that had no supporting evidence or in some instances were proven by video footage to be blatantly false.
Criminal defense lawyers said it was unusual for federal prosecutors to pursue a high volume of charges over minor clashes with law enforcement, and that it was extraordinary to see the DoJ lose case after case across jurisdictions.
Still, the costs for defendants, even if ultimately exonerated, have been enormous, with many having their mugshots blasted by the government and some forced to languish in jail or have criminal charges hang over them for weeks and months.
When the federal government files false charges against someone, the process is the punishment. By peddling provable lies in court, Trump’s Department of Justice is hoping it can deter dissent by imposing legal costs and disrupting the lives of anyone it chooses to target, no matter how clearly innocent they are of any crime.
Feb. 19, 2026
Trump Attacks Iran Without Consulting Congress or Offering a Coherent Explanation to Americans
Category: Policy Illegality
Donald Trump is amassing a very large military force surrounding Iran, but without having made any decision about whether he will attack the country, how we will do it, or even what the goals of the mission are.
The New York Times contrasts this to how other presidents have taken us to war and describes the extent to which we are all in the dark:
Though Mr. Trump is largely fixated on the nuclear weapons program, at various moments he and his aides have cited a range of other rationales for military action: protecting the protesters that Iranian forces killed by the thousands last month, wiping out the arsenal of missiles that Iran can use to strike Israel, and ending Tehran’s support for Hamas and Hezbollah.
Then there is the question of whether military force, the hammer Mr. Trump reaches for so quickly, can even accomplish those ends. Most of Iran’s near-bomb-grade uranium is already buried from the last strike, in June. And it is not clear how airstrikes would immediately aid protesters around the country or persuade Iran to stop funding terror.
Mr. Trump has never consistently described his goals, and when he talks about them it is usually in a haze of brief, offhand comments. The president has given no speeches preparing the American public for a strike on a country of about 90 million people, and sought no approval from Congress. He has not explained why he has chosen this moment to confront Iran instead of, for example, North Korea, which in the years after Mr. Trump’s failed negotiations in the first term has expanded its nuclear arsenal to 60 or more warheads, by U.S. intelligence estimates, and is working to demonstrate they can reach the United States. …
When pressed on Iran, Mr. Trump regularly deflects questions about whether regime change is his true goal, leaving unclear what kind of end-state he seeks.
The Constitution gives Congress sole power to declare war for precisely this reason: to ensure that the goals, means, and costs of a war will be debated ahead of time. But Trump is asserting total personal control of the government, leaving us waiting to plunge at any moment into a war whose purpose he himself does not seem to know.
Feb. 19, 2026
Trump Asserts Personal Ownership of Government by Draping His Face on Public Buildings, Including the DOJ
Category: Power Consolidation
If filmmakers want to establish that their story is set in a dictatorship, one of the first things they might do is have the buildings of the capital draped in banners showing the name and face of the strongman leader. That is the kind of setting we live in now, and Donald Trump has taken the extra step of draping his name over the previously independent Department of Justice.
NBC News reports:
A banner featuring a photo of Donald Trump and the words “Make America Safe Again” was hung from the Justice Department’s headquarters in Washington on Thursday in one of the most public signs of the president’s influence over a department that once brought criminal charges against him.
The Justice Department has traditionally operated with a degree of independence from the White House. That separation, however, has eroded during Trump’s second term as the Justice Department has gone after his perceived political foes. …
Since taking office again, the Justice Department has pursued cases against some of Trump’s perceived opponents, including former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James after Trump publicly urged Attorney General Pam Bondi to bring charges. …
Stacey Young, a Justice Department veteran under both Republican and Democratic administrations who left the department last year and founded the group Justice Connection, said…“Hanging that banner should put to rest any doubt that Donald Trump has hijacked the independence of the Justice Department. He—not the American people—is the only client DOJ’s current leadership serves.”
Trump consistently acts as if the U.S. government and its agencies are his property and exist to serve his own personal needs and interests, not the rights and interests of the American people. Physically draping his own image on public buildings is the outward symbol of this personalist view of government.
Feb. 19, 2026
Trump Pledges $10 Billion Not Approved by Congress for His ‘Board of Peace’ Slush Fund From Which He Can’t Be Ousted
Category: Political Corruption
The so-called Board of Peace is Trump’s attempt to use the wealth and power of the United States government to set himself up in a permanent position of international power from which he can never be ousted—all of it paid for with your tax dollars. But the money he is pledging has never been legally approved by Congress, as the Constitution requires.
Military.com has a good overview, but The New Republic is blunter:
Donald Trump announced Thursday that he wants the United States to contribute $10 billion to his so-called Board of Peace—essentially forming a slush fund of taxpayer money the president can use however he likes. …
Transferring billions of taxpayer dollars would require congressional approval. And Trump has not gotten that.
So far, Trump’s foreign policy has been nothing short of an assault on Congress’s power of the purse. The president has unilaterally declared war against foreign drug smugglers, launching a series of deadly extrajudicial strikes on vessels the government claims—but refuses to prove—are carrying drugs. (These strikes are still ongoing: 11 people were killed as recently as Monday.) Not to mention the massive military operation Trump mounted to depose a foreign leader and steal that country’s oil—all without Congress’s ever declaring war. …
There is one other source of money Trump could potentially dip into. The president previously sold permanent seats on his board for $1 billion a head, but refused to say where that money was going.
Or perhaps the money will come from Trump’s Qatari slush fund for oil money extorted from Venezuela. Either way, this is the signature of Trump’s presidency. He siphons off the power and wealth provided by the American taxpayer for public purposes, and uses it for his own personal advancement and aggrandizement.
Feb. 18, 2026
Naming Buildings After Trump Is Not Only About Self-Aggrandizement But Also Self-Enrichment
Category: Personal Grift
There is a reason we don’t usually name things after presidents while they are still in office, or even while they are still alive. It’s to prevent self-aggrandizement—and personal grift. Yet as Donald Trump’s sychophants in Florida prepare to name the Palm Beach airport after him, his family is already ramping up their attempt to make money from the name change.
The New York Times reports:
Mr. Trump’s family business recently filed trademark applications for potential airport names, records show, an effort to preserve control over the use of his brand. The applications, filed last week with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, staked a claim to three names: President Donald J. Trump International Airport, Donald J. Trump International Airport and “DJT,” the possible airport code.
The application also sought to use the name in connection with a variety of airport-themed merchandise, including luggage, animal carriers and “shoes for protection of airline passengers’ feet during airport security screening.” …
A Trump-branded airport would break presidential and aviation norms. Other presidents had to wait years after leaving office—or to die—to have airports bear their names. And when other airports are named, a public authority or government agency almost always handles the trademark process, according to Josh Gerben, a trademark lawyer who discovered the Trump filings. …
While Mr. Gerben noted that the trademarks could provide a moneymaking opportunity for the president, Mr. Trump’s company has vowed not to charge for the use of his name on the Palm Beach airport.
At this point, I think we’re entitled to distrust Trump’s promise. After all, it doesn’t seem like he would file all the paperwork to stake a claim on royalties if he did’t plan to make money from it. Trump has already been abusing his position to demand that public buildings be named after him. Once he gets that concession, now he’s preparing the legal basis to cash in on it.
Feb. 18, 2026
CBS Attempts to Censor Stephen Colbert at the Behest of Trump’s FCC
Category: Presidential Retribution
Stephen Colbert announced that his CBS show—already on the chopping block to curry favor with the Trump administration—was blocked from interviewing a Democratic candidate because the network is complying in advance with a constitutionally dubious FCC ruling designed to suppress coverage of opposition politicians.
Popular Information describes the situation:
CBS forbade Late Show host Stephen Colbert from interviewing Texas State Representative James Talarico, a Democrat running to unseat Republican Senator John Cornyn. The incident is a chilling example of how the Trump administration and allied media organizations are colluding to suppress critical coverage of the administration.
Addressing the incident on Monday night’s show, Colbert said he was also told by CBS’ lawyers not to discuss the decision to spike the Talarico interview. But Colbert, whose show is being canceled in May, ignored that directive.
At issue was the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) “equal time rule,” which states that if a broadcast radio or television station provides time to a candidate for political office, it must provide equal time to all other candidates. (The rule does not apply to cable, streaming, or other non-broadcast platforms.) There is, however, an exception to the rule for news coverage and interviews. And, for decades, that exception has also applied to interviews of politicians by talk show hosts.
In a January 21 “Public Notice,” the FCC declared that interviews of political candidates on late night and daytime talk shows would no longer have a blanket exemption. Rather, the FCC would make a case-by-case determination of whether a program was conducting interviews for “bona fide” news purposes or for “partisan purposes, such as an intention to advance or harm an individual’s candidacy.” The notice did not provide any guidance as to what makes a show “partisan.” …
In a Fox News interview, Carr made clear that the rule was targeting Colbert and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel. Carr said that if Colbert or Kimmel did not want to comply with the new requirements, they could move to cable or a podcast, which are outside the FCC’s jurisdiction.
Note also that Carr has not chosen to apply the same directive to conservative-leaning talk radio. This is pure presidential retribution against a whole genre of shows that he regards as politically hostile—and another reminder that the power of the FCC needs to be limited, and its independence restored, to protect our freedom of speech.
Feb. 17, 2026
Trump Appoints Unqualified Lackey to Fine Arts Commission to Rubberstamp the Corruption-Ridden Trump Ballroom
Category: Power Consolidation
One of Donald Trump’s top obsessions is building himself a grandiose gilded ballroom. The whole project has been a cesspool of corruption, in which donors have failed to disclose themselves as required by law, and Trump has pushed it through by gutting the panels that are supposed to review new construction, filling them with unqualified lackeys.
The Washington Post reports:
When Congress created the Commission of Fine Arts more than a century ago, its members were intended to be “well-qualified judges of the fine arts” who would review and advise on major design projects in the nation’s capital, lawmakers wrote. The initial slate of commissioners included Daniel Burnham and Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., architects and urban planners who designed much of Washington.
Now, the 116-year-old commission is set to include its newest, youngest member: Chamberlain Harris, a 26-year-old White House aide and a longtime executive assistant for President Donald Trump, who is slated to be sworn in at the panel’s next public meeting on Thursday. …
Trump’s selection of Harris—who was known as the “receptionist of the United States” during the president’s first term and has no notable arts expertise — comes amid the president’s push to install allies on the arts commission and another panel, the National Capital Planning Commission. Both commissions are reviewing Trump’s planned White House ballroom and are expected to review his other Washington-area construction projects, such as his desired 250-foot triumphal arch. …
Asked about Harris’s qualifications to serve on the fine arts commission, the White House on Tuesday touted her as a “loyal, trusted, and highly respected advisor” to the president.
This is a microcosm of Trump’s approach to government, in which personal loyalty to him is the only qualification that matters. This is how he is setting out to undermine any independent institution meant to assert the American people’s ownership of the White House—or of anything else in our government.
© The UnPopulist, 2026
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