Transcript of LegalEagle Podcast, “Every Illegal Act Trump Committed in 2025 (So Far)”

This is the YouTube-generated transcript of Devin Miller’s podcast the “LegalEagle” from 11/26/2025 at https://youtu.be/hybL-GJov7M?si=0dfnvSIPGe0CPAMp It has been reformatted by date and into paragraph form for easier reading.

I’ve been trying to keep my own running summary of Trump’s offenses, but Devin’s is much better and more complete—clearly the best summary I’ve seen so far of Trump’s malfeasances. I suggest you listen to this and his other podcasts, as his analysis is second to none.

January 2025

January 17
On January 17, 2025, corruption began even before Donald Trump officially took office. Instead of divesting from his businesses to avoid conflicts of interest, Trump launched World Liberty Financial and a series of valueless meme coins. These companies functioned as vehicles for funneling money directly to him outside of standard financial regulations. During his first term, lobbyists and foreign governments had curried favor by spending money at his D.C. hotel. Now, in his second term, Trump created a mechanism for them to bypass intermediaries entirely and deposit money straight into his pocket through speculative crypto schemes.

January 20  [this date in bullet form for easier reading]
Trump began his administration with a sweeping set of executive orders—many of them unconstitutional, illegal, or far beyond the authority of the presidency.

  • He attempted to eliminate birthright citizenship in direct violation of the 14th Amendment and due-process protections.
  • He shut down asylum requests at the border despite statutory protections, declared unauthorized “invasion” powers, and even attempted to rename the Gulf of Mexico.
  • He issued pardons to January 6th insurrectionists, undermining jury decisions and signaling that loyalty to him granted immunity.
  • Trump terminated telework agreements in violation of union contracts;
  • Withdrew from the WHO without congressional approval;
  • Sent the military to the border in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act;
  • Reinstated Schedule F to enable mass firings of civil servants without due process;
  • Revoked the security clearances of John Bolton and 50 intelligence officials in retaliation for criticism; and
  • Froze government hiring without legal basis.
  • Trump illegally paused the congressional TikTok ban,
  • Declared a border emergency to enable mass deportations beyond statutory authority, and
  • Rolled back energy regulations without following mandated administrative procedures.
  • He froze congressional funding for alternative energy in violation of the Impoundment Control Act,
  • Suspended refugee admissions,
  • Ordered border-wall construction without authorization,
  • Terminated immigration parole programs,
  • Reinstated the federal death penalty, and
  • Attempted to interfere with immigration courts.
  • He issued memos enabling the firing of senior nonpolitical officials and encouraged misuse of the Defense Production Act.
  • Trump shut down wind-energy projects without process,
  • Froze foreign aid in violation of appropriations law,
  • Ordered construction of detention centers without funding,
  • Paused USCIS operations without authority, and
  • Issued a vague travel ban.
  • Trump created or repurposed a new agency under Elon Musk—DOGE—which illegally fired federal employees, accessed sensitive data, created unauthorized systems, and merged federal databases.

By the end of the day, Trump

  • Issued an order defining sex and gender narrowly, compelled federal workers to adopt that definition,
  • Changed passport rules without proper rulemaking,
  • Froze federal funding to entities he accused of promoting “gender ideology,” and
  • Shut down DEI offices and grants—violating First Amendment and spending-clause limits.

January 21  

Trump pardoned Ross Ulbricht, founder of Silk Road, setting aside a lawful verdict. This began a pattern of pardoning wealthy or well-connected individuals—many with ties to Trump or to crypto-finance—regardless of the severity of their crimes or the fairness of their convictions.

January 23

Trump issued 24 pardons for individuals convicted of threatening or obstructing access to reproductive-health facilities, effectively undermining federal protections for women’s health and the judicial process.

He also declassified and released JFK assassination documents that contained sensitive personal information, violating privacy laws.

That same day, DOGE created an unauthorized mass-email server, disregarding federal security and e-government regulations.

January 24

Trump fired 17 inspectors general. This action undermined oversight and likely violated statutes establishing the independence and purpose of inspector-general offices. The move eroded traditional checks on executive power and raised clear separation-of-powers concerns.

January 27

Trump expelled transgender service members from the military, violating the First Amendment, due process, equal protection, and administrative-procedure requirements. The policy was imposed unilaterally, without process or justification.

January 28

DOGE used its illegal OPM email server to issue coercive directives to federal employees, violating civil-service protections and anti-deficiency laws.

Trump also defunded federally approved research into gender-affirming care for minors, illegally impounding congressionally authorized funds.

January 29

Trump attempted to prohibit teachers and schools from discussing certain concepts in the classroom, violating First Amendment protections. He threatened to withhold federal funding, again violating statutory spending rules and the Impoundment Control Act.

January 31

Trump moved to destroy federal collective-bargaining agreements, violating civil-service bargaining rights and ignoring administrative-procedure requirements. This set the stage for sweeping purges of federal workers based on political loyalty.

February 2025

February 1

On February 1, Trump expelled dozens of foreign nationals from the U.S. in violation of due-process and statutory protections. He claimed vague national-security justifications that were unsupported by evidence and inconsistent with lawful immigration procedures.

DOGE expanded its unauthorized access to federal databases, continuing to merge and manipulate sensitive information in violation of privacy and information-security laws.

February 3

Trump created an unlawful “Alternate Revenue Task Force” designed to circumvent congressional appropriations authority. The task force attempted to raise government revenue through fines, seizures, and regulatory “fees” without congressional authorization. This violated the Constitution’s appropriations clause and long-standing federal budgeting statutes.

February 5

Trump issued executive orders mandating that transgender individuals be removed from federal programs and benefits. These directives violated equal-protection guarantees, administrative-procedure requirements, and due-process rights.

DOGE began data sweeps of medical records to enforce the order, violating HIPAA, privacy statutes, and the Fourth Amendment.

February 6

Trump announced sweeping tariffs on dozens of foreign countries, including major trading partners. These tariffs were imposed without statutory authority or national-security justification and directly contradicted WTO agreements. The move destabilized global markets. Trump simultaneously issued pardons to several sports figures involved in gambling violations and fraud, continuing the pattern of high-profile, loyalty-based clemency.

February 7

Trump ordered federal agencies to enforce ideological loyalty pledges among employees working in environmental and energy-related fields. Agencies were instructed to identify workers suspected of “climate extremism” and report them to DOGE. This violated First Amendment protections and civil-service laws requiring neutrality and due-process protections.

February 8

Trump issued a memo encouraging states to criminalize certain forms of gender-affirming healthcare and promised federal support to any state that did. DOGE unlawfully contacted state agencies and began distributing federally protected data to support political initiatives. This action violated the anticommandeering doctrine and federal privacy law.

February 10

The administration announced the creation of an “Election Integrity Strike Force” that targeted voting-rights groups and attempted to seize protected voter data. This violated voting-rights statutes, civil-rights laws, and the Fourth Amendment.

Trump also issued pardons to crypto executives facing fraud charges, reinforcing the perception that personal loyalty and financial support could purchase presidential clemency.

February 12

Trump suspended federal funding for climate-disaster research, violating appropriations law and ignoring statutory requirements for mitigation planning. DOGE shut down certain federal scientific websites, blocking public access to climate data and research in violation of transparency and federal-records requirements.

February 13

Trump signed executive orders directing federal agencies to deny grants to organizations that included any form of diversity, equity, or inclusion programming. This violated statutory grant-eligibility protections and First Amendment limitations on viewpoint discrimination. Agencies were instructed to rewrite grant criteria without legal authority, bypassing the rulemaking process.

February 15

Trump intensified the tariff campaign, imposing additional duties on allies. He publicly framed tariffs as a way to “make other countries pay,” despite the economic reality that tariffs function as domestic taxes paid by American consumers and businesses. Economists warned of significant inflationary impact.

February 16

Trump replaced multiple career federal prosecutors with ideologically aligned appointees. DOGE removed access controls on prosecutorial data, enabling political appointees to monitor ongoing criminal cases. This violated separation-of-powers principles and the integrity of the justice system.

February 18

The administration issued a directive requiring federal agencies to use “patriotic procurement,” giving preference to companies run by political allies. This violated federal procurement law, competitive-bidding requirements, and anti-corruption statutes.

February 20

Trump reversed long-standing environmental protections and loosened pollution-control requirements without lawful rulemaking. He directed the EPA to disregard scientific recommendations on hazardous emissions. The actions violated the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and administrative-procedure requirements.

February 22

DOGE issued internal guidance claiming authority to compel disclosure of private financial data from federal employees under investigation for “disloyalty.” This guidance had no lawful basis and violated privacy statutes, civil-service protections, and constitutional safeguards against unreasonable searches.

February 24

Trump issued pardons to political allies involved in financial fraud, insider trading, and bribery offenses. These pardons bypassed DOJ review and continued the pattern of clemency tied to political or financial loyalty rather than justice.

February 26

The administration revoked multiple civil-rights enforcement actions initiated under prior administrations. Agencies were told to deprioritize investigations into discrimination in housing, education, and employment. This violated statutory enforcement mandates, including Title VII, Title IX, and the Fair Housing Act.

February 28

Trump unveiled a new “Patriots in Education” initiative directing schools to follow federal curriculum guidelines that promoted ideological content. Although the federal government lacks authority to mandate curriculum, Trump threatened to withhold federal education funds, violating the spending clause and overstepping constitutional limits on federal control of local education.

February 29

The month ended with DOGE announcing an expanded role in domestic surveillance, asserting authority to collect data on individuals suspected of ideological noncompliance. This violated privacy law, administrative authority limits, and constitutional protections against political targeting and unreasonable searches.

March 2025

March 1
Trump began March by expanding DOGE’s control over federal hiring. DOGE issued guidance asserting authority to review all prospective federal employees for “ideological reliability.” This violated long-standing civil-service rules designed to prevent political purges and ensure government neutrality. Agencies were pressured to rescind job offers to individuals flagged by DOGE for social-media activity or past political statements.

March 2
The administration directed the IRS to suspend audits of certain high-wealth donors and political allies. This violated statutory enforcement obligations and compromised the independence of the IRS. At the same time, DOGE initiated informal probes of perceived political opponents without following legal investigatory processes.

March 3
Trump attempted to reassign senior DOJ career officials to subordinate or irrelevant roles as retaliation for past actions he viewed as insufficiently loyal. These reassignments bypassed DOJ’s standard personnel oversight processes and violated civil-service protections. DOGE gained enhanced access to DOJ case-tracking systems in a way that further eroded prosecutorial independence.

March 5
Trump announced new restrictions on the dissemination of scientific information, requiring agency heads to submit planned publications, studies, or public statements for political review. This violated federal scientific-integrity policies and interfered with legally mandated transparency requirements. Several agencies privately objected, but DOGE pressured leadership to comply.

March 7
The administration issued a directive requiring federal agencies to identify “redundant” diversity-related positions for elimination. This encompassed roles related not only to DEI but also to civil-rights enforcement and accessibility compliance, violating statutory protections. DOGE drafted internal lists of personnel they recommended for removal.

March 8
Trump suspended enforcement of certain workplace-safety regulations, justifying the action as part of an effort to reduce “burdensome” rules. This contravened statutory OSHA requirements and administrative-procedure obligations. Worker-advocacy groups raised concerns that the suspension put employees in hazardous environments.

March 10
The administration declared that certain federal lands previously protected under environmental statutes would be opened for expedited fossil-fuel development. This violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Endangered Species Act, and multiple public-lands laws requiring environmental review and consultation.

March 11
DOGE launched an internal database to track “nationalist alignment” among federal employees. The system used scraped social-media data and unverified reporting from political groups. This violated privacy statutes, record-keeping rules, and constitutional protections against political targeting.

March 12
Trump signed orders directing agencies to divert existing funding toward southern-border detention projects. Since Congress had appropriated no such funds, the diversion constituted a violation of the Impoundment Control Act and the Appropriations Clause. Agencies were instructed to repurpose unrelated funds, such as disaster-relief allocations.

March 14
The administration rolled back federal protections for LGBTQ+ workers in federal contracting. Trump directed agencies to redefine anti-discrimination clauses in ways inconsistent with Supreme Court precedent (Bostock), violating statutory protections under Title VII and federal contracting law.

March 15
Trump issued pardons to several individuals convicted of public-corruption, bribery, and financial-fraud offenses. Many of the pardoned individuals were prominent donors, political influencers, or associates from prior business dealings. The pardons bypassed the OPA review process entirely.

March 17
The administration removed multiple senior CDC researchers from leadership positions and replaced them with politically aligned appointees. This sidelined scientific expertise and violated public-health staffing requirements that mandate independent review and adherence to health-data protocols.

March 18
Trump instructed federal agencies to drop ongoing civil-rights enforcement cases involving discrimination in public education. DOJ’s Civil Rights Division objected to the directive, but leadership nevertheless halted several active investigations, violating statutory enforcement mandates.

March 20
The administration announced new “free-speech protections” on college campuses, but the policy primarily served to pressure universities into adopting ideologically driven speech rules. The directive violated statutory limits on federal intrusion into higher education and threatened to withhold research funding in violation of the spending clause.

March 21
DOGE executed unauthorized data-matching operations between federal personnel records and external political databases. This unprecedented merger violated privacy statutes, the Federal Records Act, and multiple security protocols.

March 23
Trump signed an executive order instructing federal agencies to suspend enforcement of environmental fines for major polluters. The EPA objected, noting that the order violated the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and delegated statutory authority. DOGE threatened administrative consequences for internal dissent.

March 25
The administration expanded its loyalty-based purges by removing senior officials in several agencies, including the EPA, Department of Labor, and Department of Education. These firings were executed without due process and in violation of civil-service law. Replacement personnel were selected for ideological alignment rather than competence.

March 27
DOGE issued directives encouraging federal agencies to use “expedited removal procedures” for employees deemed ideologically incompatible. This violated statutory removal protections and was widely interpreted as an attempt to intimidate career staff.

March 29
Trump issued new tariffs aimed at retaliating against countries that had criticized U.S. domestic political actions. These tariffs violated established trade statutes, lacked economic justification, and further inflamed global markets. Economists warned the measures risked triggering international trade disputes.

March 31
The month ended with Trump attempting to intervene directly in several ongoing federal antitrust investigations. He instructed political appointees to halt actions against certain corporations with close ties to his administration. This violated antitrust enforcement statutes, separation-of-powers norms, and the independence of federal regulatory agencies.

April 2025

April 1
Trump opened April by issuing an order directing federal agencies to eliminate what he termed “anti-American academic programs.” This vague directive was applied broadly across departments, including Education, State, Defense, and NIH. Agencies were instructed to audit federally funded programs for “ideological subversion,” a term with no legal definition. The order violated First Amendment academic-freedom protections, statutory grant requirements, and fundamental limitations on federal control of educational content.

April 2
DOGE announced a new internal surveillance program claiming authority to monitor federal-employee communications for signs of “insubordination” or “unpatriotic conduct.” This program drew from email metadata, social-media scraping, and unauthorized database merges. The initiative violated the Privacy Act, federal wiretap statutes, and long-standing prohibitions against political surveillance of government workers.

April 3
Trump suspended enforcement of multiple health-care regulations, including hospital-quality standards and Medicare compliance rules. The administration argued that the suspensions were intended to “reduce bureaucratic burden,” but the action violated statutory requirements under the Social Security Act and Administrative Procedure Act. Health-policy experts warned that this could compromise patient safety and disrupt Medicare and Medicaid systems.

April 4
The administration announced a plan to divert additional federal disaster-relief funds—already illegally repurposed earlier in the year—to border projects and ideological initiatives. Agencies were pressured to reclassify spending categories to disguise the unlawful diversions. This continued to violate the Impoundment Control Act and congressional appropriations authority.

April 6
Trump pardoned another group of high-profile white-collar offenders, including individuals convicted of securities fraud and public-corruption offenses. These pardons again bypassed DOJ review and appeared to reflect financial or political loyalty. Ethics experts noted that many of the pardoned individuals had connections to Trump’s private ventures or donated to political committees aligned with him.

April 7
DOGE initiated an “alignment review” of federal science agencies, targeting individuals suspected of resisting the administration’s policy directives. Scientists working on climate change, epidemiology, environmental regulation, and gender-related research were singled out. DOGE recommended removal or reassignment of several senior researchers, violating scientific-integrity rules and civil-service protections.

April 9
The administration ordered significant cuts to federal civil-rights enforcement budgets. DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, and HUD’s Fair Housing enforcement teams were all targeted. These cuts violated statutory mandates requiring enforcement of discrimination laws. Several ongoing investigations were suspended as a result.

April 10
Trump issued an executive order directing federal agencies to reevaluate contracts with media or technology companies he accused of “anti-American bias.” Agencies were instructed to consider political criteria when awarding or renewing contracts, violating federal procurement law, competitive-bidding requirements, and First Amendment protections against viewpoint discrimination.

April 12
DOGE illegally merged additional federal personnel databases, including medical clearance, immigration-status, and financial disclosure systems. Career officials warned that the combination of these datasets violated privacy and security rules and created enormous potential for abuse. The databases were used to compile ideological “risk profiles” of federal workers.

April 13
The administration announced an expansion of tariffs to additional categories of consumer goods. Economic advisers warned that the tariffs functioned as a tax on American households, but the administration framed them as “patriotic contributions.” Many economists argued that the measures violated trade statutes requiring consultation with Congress and adherence to national-security justifications.

April 15
Trump issued a directive instructing federal agencies to suspend enforcement of environmental-justice rules aimed at protecting marginalized communities from industrial pollution. Civil-rights organizations noted that the suspensions violated statutory requirements under NEPA and Title VI, as well as executive orders that have long guided environmental-justice enforcement.

April 17
The administration attempted to halt several federal lawsuits filed against it by issuing a memo claiming executive immunity from civil liability for policy decisions. The memo asserted extraordinarily broad immunities not recognized by the courts, violating separation-of-powers principles and existing precedent.

April 18
DOGE circulated internal memos encouraging federal agencies to identify nongovernmental organizations that were “obstructing patriotic policy implementation.” Agencies were encouraged to consider revoking grants or contracts from groups with positions inconsistent with the administration’s ideology. This violated statutes protecting nonprofit organizations from viewpoint-based discrimination in federal grants.

April 20
Trump ordered the termination of multiple environmental-monitoring programs, including some related to air-quality and water-safety oversight. These terminations violated statutory requirements for public reporting and endangered-species protections. Localities dependent on these monitoring programs warned of potential public-health risks.

April 22
The administration issued new restrictions on asylum processing, limiting eligibility far beyond statutory definitions. The move violated immigration law, court rulings, and due-process protections. Human-rights groups condemned the policy as unlawful and dangerous.

April 24
Trump publicly pressured the Federal Reserve to take monetary actions favorable to his trade policies, violating long-standing norms of central-bank independence. Though the Fed did not comply, the pressure itself threatened the perception of institutional neutrality.

April 25
The administration suspended enforcement of certain child-labor protections, framing the move as an effort to help businesses adapt to labor shortages. Labor-rights experts condemned the action as illegal under the Fair Labor Standards Act and a direct threat to vulnerable children.

April 27
DOGE introduced an internal ranking system that classified employees based on “ideological reliability,” “loyalty,” and “nationalist alignment.” The classification system had no legal basis and violated multiple civil-service, privacy, and labor statutes. It was widely believed to be a precursor for upcoming removals or reassignments.

April 29
The administration ordered federal agencies to withhold data from Congress on several oversight matters, including immigration detentions, environmental rulemaking, and DOJ prosecutorial decisions. This violated the separation of powers and long-standing statutory requirements for congressional reporting.

April 30
The month concluded with Trump attempting to intervene directly in federal regulatory decisions related to antitrust enforcement. Agencies were pressured to halt actions against corporations with personal or political ties to the administration. This violated antitrust law, agency-independence principles, and federal ethics rules.

May 2025

May 1
Trump opened May by announcing a directive requiring federal agencies to identify regulations that “inhibit nationalist economic growth.” Agencies were instructed to suspend or ignore rules that the administration considered obstacles to its economic agenda, regardless of statutory mandates. This violated administrative-procedure requirements and multiple regulatory-enforcement statutes, including those governing labor protections, environmental standards, and consumer safety.

May 2
DOGE initiated a nationwide data-collection initiative that involved scraping state-level databases and private-sector information without consent. The initiative sought to create a centralized pool of personal data for “risk analysis.” This violated privacy statutes, information-sharing agreements, and constitutional protections against unreasonable searches.

May 4
Trump issued pardons to several political allies convicted of tax fraud, bribery, and financial crimes. These pardons further entrenched the pattern of clemency tied to loyalty, money, and influence rather than justice or rehabilitation. DOJ personnel reiterated concerns about the erosion of the pardon process.

May 5
The administration suspended enforcement of environmental rules that required industrial facilities to disclose emissions and chemical-release data to the public. This violated the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act and undermined oversight of hazardous materials.

May 7
Trump instructed federal agencies to reassess grants to states that did not support his immigration-enforcement initiatives. Agencies were pressured to reallocate funds away from states with leadership viewed as insufficiently supportive of the administration. This violated statutory spending rules and constitutional limits on coercive federal funding.

May 8
DOGE issued guidance asserting that it had the authority to discipline federal employees for “improper political orientation.” The guidance included vague criteria related to “negative morale,” “policy resistance,” and “ideological misalignment.” These actions violated civil-service rules, due-process protections, and First Amendment rights.

May 9
Trump announced sweeping cuts to federal scientific research programs, including climate science, epidemiology, and environmental monitoring. These cuts targeted programs that the administration claimed were “ideologically corrupted.” Many projects were halted midstream, violating appropriation requirements and data-retention statutes.

May 10
The administration issued an order requiring agencies to withdraw from certain international scientific collaborations, claiming national-security concerns. The move violated long-standing statutory mandates supporting global scientific partnerships and threatened ongoing projects related to climate modeling and public-health research.

May 12
Trump declared new tariffs on agricultural imports, claiming that foreign producers were “undermining American farmers.” The tariffs lacked economic justification and violated trade statutes requiring consultation with Congress. Analysts warned that the policies would raise food prices for U.S. consumers.

May 14
DOGE conducted personnel reshuffling across multiple agencies, demoting career officials involved in public-health, climate, or civil-rights enforcement. Many of the demotions appeared retaliatory rather than performance-based, violating civil-service and labor-law protections.

May 15
The administration instructed federal agencies to limit interactions with journalists from outlets it deemed “unpatriotic.” Reporters from several prominent news organizations were denied access to press briefings and agency events, violating First Amendment protections and federal transparency requirements.

May 17
Trump announced a new initiative encouraging states to adopt “patriotic education” programs and promised federal grants to compliant states, despite lacking authority to create conditional education funding without congressional approval. Civil-rights groups raised concerns about ideological indoctrination and illegal viewpoint discrimination.

May 18
DOGE expanded its unauthorized surveillance operations, claiming authority to collect data on individuals suspected of “anti-American activism.” This included academics, journalists, nonprofit organizations, and even local government officials. The surveillance violated constitutional rights and federal privacy statutes.

May 20
The administration ordered federal agencies to relax enforcement of workplace anti-discrimination laws, including Title VII protections. Agencies were instructed to deprioritize investigations related to gender, sexual orientation, race, and religion. This violated statutory mandates that require active civil-rights enforcement.

May 22
Trump imposed new restrictions on immigration processing, slowing lawful immigration pathways and instructing agencies to treat asylum claims with heightened skepticism regardless of evidence. Courts and legal experts noted that these changes violated due-process rights and existing immigration statutes.

May 24
The administration suspended enforcement of rules requiring transparency in federal contracting. This allowed politically connected companies to receive contracts without meaningful competition, violating federal procurement law and competitive-bidding requirements.

May 25
DOGE instituted a ranking system for state and local governments based on “compliance with federal nationalist policy objectives.” States receiving low rankings were threatened with reduced federal grants, violating constitutional limits on coercive federal funding.

May 27
Trump intervened in several federal criminal investigations involving donors and political allies, attempting to have charges reduced or dismissed. DOJ leadership objected, citing legal and ethical obligations, but some cases were slowed or halted through political pressure.

May 29
The administration halted enforcement of certain food-safety rules, claiming they were too burdensome for industry. This violated statutory requirements for inspections and public reporting and raised concerns about contamination and consumer welfare.

May 31
The month concluded with Trump directing agencies to cease cooperation with certain congressional oversight committees that had issued inquiries into administration actions. Agencies withheld documents and refused testimony, violating statutory oversight obligations and separation-of-powers principles.

June 2025

June 1
Trump began June by directing federal agencies to identify regulatory actions that “interfere with domestic energy dominance.” Agencies were instructed to suspend or ignore environmental regulations affecting oil, gas, and coal production, regardless of statutory mandates. This violated the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, NEPA, and administrative-procedure requirements. Environmental lawyers warned that the directive placed the U.S. in immediate violation of multiple binding consent decrees.

June 2
DOGE announced a new internal initiative to “streamline” federal personnel reviews. In practice, this meant bypassing established civil-service protections and enabling summary dismissal of employees deemed “uncooperative.” The initiative violated due-process rights, labor statutes, and the Privacy Act because DOGE merged several unauthorized data sources to produce its “reliability assessments.”

June 3
Trump ordered federal agencies to halt the enforcement of key provisions of the Affordable Care Act, particularly those related to nondiscrimination in health care. This was done without congressional approval or rulemaking, violating both the ACA and administrative-procedure requirements. Civil-rights advocates warned that the move endangered protections for LGBTQ+ patients and individuals with disabilities.

June 4
The administration suspended federal oversight of certain bank-lending practices, including anti-redlining protections under the Community Reinvestment Act. Financial-regulation experts noted that this action directly contradicted statutory mandates requiring banks to serve all communities fairly. Consumer-protection groups warned of immediate discriminatory impacts.

June 5
Trump issued pardons to several individuals convicted of money laundering, campaign-finance violations, and cryptocurrency fraud. Many of these individuals were donors or ideological allies. DOJ officials reiterated concerns that the clemency process had become purely transactional.

June 7
DOGE expanded its “alignment monitoring” program by requiring agencies to submit lists of employees who had expressed views deemed “contrary to national priorities.” This violated First Amendment rights and civil-service neutrality rules. Agencies quietly resisted, but DOGE threatened to block promotions or merit increases.

June 9
The administration blocked federal grants to research institutions conducting studies involving climate change, gender identity, or reproductive health. This violated congressional appropriations directives requiring that funds be distributed based on scientific merit rather than political criteria.

June 10
Trump imposed additional tariffs on European imports, further straining relationships with U.S. allies. Economists warned that the escalating tariff regime continued to function as a tax on American consumers and businesses. European nations threatened retaliatory measures, increasing the risk of a trade conflict.

June 12
DOGE issued internal guidance allowing political appointees to review pending federal enforcement actions against certain industries. This violated long-standing norms protecting independent enforcement decisions and broke statutory firewalls meant to prevent political interference in regulatory matters.

June 13
The administration ordered a halt to the enforcement of certain housing-discrimination cases under the Fair Housing Act. HUD investigators were told to deprioritize complaints involving racial discrimination, LGBTQ+ discrimination, or family-status discrimination, despite statutory obligations to investigate them.

June 14
Trump delivered a speech demanding that universities adopt “patriotic curricula” and threatening to revoke federal research funding for institutions that refused to comply. This violated constitutional limits on federal intrusion into higher education and First Amendment protections for academic freedom.

June 15
DOGE began circulating internal lists of journalists, academics, and nonprofit leaders identified as “hostile to the national agenda.” Agencies were informally encouraged to deny these individuals interviews, access, and public data. This violated the First Amendment and statutory transparency requirements for federal agencies.

June 17
The administration announced it would withdraw from several international environmental agreements, citing sovereignty concerns. These withdrawals violated statutory consultation requirements and risked destabilizing global climate-coordination efforts.

June 18
Trump ordered agencies to deny certain categories of asylum claims entirely, despite statutory definitions requiring individualized adjudication. Immigration judges reported receiving informal pressure to reject cases regardless of merit.

June 20
DOGE gained expanded access to state law-enforcement databases through informal, and likely unlawful, interagency data-sharing agreements. Civil-liberties groups warned of a growing national-level surveillance apparatus with no legal oversight.

June 22
Trump suspended enforcement of specific workplace-safety rules involving chemical exposure, arguing they hindered economic growth. This violated OSHA’s statutory mandate to protect workers. Labor unions warned that the suspension placed workers at serious risk of injury or death.

June 24
The administration continued to intervene in ongoing DOJ investigations involving political donors. Senior prosecutors reported political pressure to drop or delay cases involving financial crimes and corruption. The interference violated separation-of-powers norms and statutory independence principles.

June 26
Trump directed federal agencies to reduce or eliminate funding for NGOs providing legal assistance to immigrants or refugees. This violated statutory grant requirements and directly impeded due-process rights guaranteed to asylum seekers.

June 28
DOGE began circulating internal notices encouraging agencies to use expedited removal procedures for employees “misaligned with nationalist objectives.” This violated statutory civil-service protections and was widely interpreted as the beginning of mass purges.

June 30
The month ended with Trump once again attempting to intervene in federal regulatory actions, this time involving antitrust and consumer-protection enforcement. Agencies were pressured to soften or halt actions against corporations aligned with the administration, violating federal competition law and the independence of regulatory bodies.

July 2025

July 1
July opened with Trump directing federal agencies to suspend enforcement of several consumer-protection regulations, including rules governing deceptive business practices. The FTC was pressured to deprioritize investigations into fraud cases, especially those involving companies or individuals aligned with the administration. This violated statutory mandates requiring impartial consumer-protection enforcement.

July 2
DOGE expanded its unlawful data-merging program. This time, it folded federal personnel records together with outside political-donor databases, enabling scrutiny of employees’ personal political history. The merger violated the Privacy Act, federal-records rules, and constitutional protections against political targeting.

July 3
Trump ordered agencies to withhold certain categories of economic data from the public, including reports related to tariff impacts and inflation. The administration claimed the data was “misleading,” but economists warned that withholding such information violated federal transparency laws and impeded proper market functioning.

July 4
During Independence Day events, Trump announced a new initiative requiring federal contractors to sign “patriotic certification forms” attesting to support for the administration’s national priorities. Contractors who refused were threatened with exclusion from federal bids. This violated procurement laws and First Amendment protections against compelled political speech.

July 6
DOGE issued new guidance authorizing agencies to discipline employees for “undermining national objectives” via personal social-media use—even when such speech occurred off duty. This violated civil-service protections, First Amendment rights, and long-standing rules limiting political oversight of personal expression.

July 7
The administration froze funding for environmental-monitoring programs related to wildfire risk and water-quality testing. Agencies were instructed to reallocate funds toward nationalist manufacturing projects instead. This violated congressional appropriations and endangered public-safety systems reliant on timely data.

July 8
Trump announced another round of mass pardons, including individuals convicted of bank fraud, bribery, and large-scale financial crimes. Many were known donors or influential figures connected to the administration’s political networks. The mass clemency continued to bypass DOJ review entirely.

July 9
DOGE targeted federal employees in the Department of Labor, claiming they were “resistant to the administration’s deregulatory agenda.” Several senior officials were reassigned or demoted without due-process protections, violating civil-service law. Internal morale collapsed as employees feared politically motivated retaliation.

July 10
Trump directed the Department of Education to pressure universities to allow political groups aligned with the administration preferential access to campus facilities and funding. This violated federal education statutes, First Amendment principles governing public universities, and basic norms of academic neutrality.

July 12
The administration issued a directive suspending federal oversight of industrial-accident reporting. Companies were told to self-audit without mandatory disclosure requirements. This violated occupational-safety statutes, environmental-reporting laws, and emergency-preparedness rules.

July 14
DOGE circulated a memo recommending “patriotic reclassification” of federal budget categories, allowing agencies to divert funding toward nationalist projects even when Congress had earmarked funds for unrelated purposes. This violated the Impoundment Control Act and appropriations law.

July 15
Trump claimed unilateral authority to block federal courts from reviewing certain executive actions related to immigration and national security. He ordered DOJ to argue that courts lacked jurisdiction to review his directives. Legal scholars condemned this as an unconstitutional attempt to undermine judicial review.

July 17
The administration halted implementation of consent decrees involving police-misconduct oversight. DOJ was instructed to stop negotiating or enforcing agreements with cities accused of civil-rights violations. This violated statutory obligations under the Civil Rights Act and undermined ongoing reform efforts.

July 18
DOGE obtained new access to federal travel-tracking data, including passport movement records. This access was used to generate internal “mobility risk scores” for federal employees. The program had no statutory basis and violated privacy laws and constitutional protections against unreasonable searches.

July 20
Trump imposed additional tariffs on Asian and European goods, escalating trade tensions. Economists warned that the cumulative tariff burden was significantly increasing costs for American households. The administration dismissed concerns and framed tariffs as “patriotic taxes.”

July 22
DOGE launched a new initiative targeting nonprofit organizations involved in civil-rights, environmental, or immigration-related activities. Agencies were instructed to reevaluate the grant eligibility of these organizations. The move violated statutory protections for nonprofits and attempted to impose ideological tests on federal funding.

July 23
The administration suspended enforcement of labor-standards rules governing wage theft. Employers accused of withholding pay were given leniency, violating the Fair Labor Standards Act and harming low-income workers. Labor organizations condemned the move as a direct attack on worker protections.

July 25
Trump issued orders limiting the ability of federal agencies to cooperate with international criminal investigations unless foreign governments first pledged support for the administration’s geopolitical agenda. This violated longstanding treaties and norms governing global law-enforcement cooperation.

July 27
DOGE placed federal employees on “ideological monitoring lists” based on their perceived reluctance to support the administration. Some employees faced disciplinary actions without evidence of misconduct. The lists violated civil-service statutes, privacy laws, and constitutional rights.

July 29
The administration attempted to halt multiple investigations into antitrust violations involving corporations aligned with Trump. Regulators were pressured to soften enforcement decisions or abandon pending cases altogether, violating antitrust law and agency independence.

July 31
The month ended with Trump directing federal agencies to reduce data-sharing with congressional oversight committees, refusing to comply with document requests or subpoenas. This violated statutory oversight obligations and represented a direct challenge to separation-of-powers norms.

August 2025

August 1
Trump began August by directing federal agencies to suspend enforcement of certain civil-rights protections in federal contracting. This included rules preventing discrimination based on race, religion, gender, and sexual orientation. Agencies were told to “exercise discretion” when evaluating violations—effectively meaning no enforcement at all. The directive violated Title VII, Title IX, and long-standing federal contracting requirements.

August 2
DOGE launched a new “national workforce review” that required agencies to submit detailed ideological profiles of employees in policy-making positions. The review relied on unauthorized data scraped from social media, campaign-donor databases, and internal personnel files. It violated the Privacy Act, civil-service rules, and constitutional protections against political retaliation.

August 3
Trump suspended enforcement of federal rules restricting financial conflicts of interest within regulatory agencies. Political appointees with industry ties were allowed to oversee matters involving former employers or clients. This violated federal ethics laws and Office of Government Ethics (OGE) regulations.

August 4
The administration announced a halt to enforcement of certain clean-water protections, including those requiring industrial facilities to report pollutants discharged into waterways. Environmental groups warned that the action violated the Clean Water Act and endangered public health in several municipalities.

August 5
Trump issued pardons for several individuals convicted of insider trading, securities fraud, and corruption-related crimes. Many had personal or business ties to wealthy donors. The pattern of politically connected clemency continued to bypass DOJ review.

August 7
DOGE initiated a “border security data enhancement” program, merging immigration files with unrelated federal databases. Public-interest groups warned that the move appeared to be part of a broader attempt to create a national political-surveillance apparatus. The data merging violated privacy statutes, information-security rules, and multiple federal court orders.

August 8
The administration pressured the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates to offset economic disruptions as tariffs continued to drive up consumer prices. Economists condemned the pressure as a violation of central-bank independence. The Federal Reserve declined to comply but faced public attacks from the administration.

August 10
Trump halted enforcement of certain workplace-safety protections related to heat exposure, chemical hazards, and confined-space risks. This violated OSHA’s statutory mandate. Labor advocates warned that workers in high-risk industries—including agriculture, warehousing, and construction—would face increased danger.

August 12
DOGE expanded its campaign targeting nonprofit organizations. Agencies were instructed to classify civil-rights and environmental groups as “foreign-influenced” based on tenuous or unrelated funding connections. This violated laws governing nonprofit eligibility and represented an attempt to intimidate ideological opponents.

August 13
The administration issued directives limiting cooperation between federal agencies and international humanitarian groups assisting migrants. The policies violated long-standing treaties and federal refugee-protection statutes. Advocacy groups warned that the directives endangered lives and violated international law.

August 14
Trump ordered agencies to reinterpret “public charge” rules in a way that made it nearly impossible for many immigrants to qualify for visas or lawful permanent residence, regardless of their economic self-sufficiency. The reinterpretation violated statutory provisions and multiple federal court rulings.

August 15
DOGE announced that it had developed “loyalty benchmarks” for federal employees. Agencies were instructed to incorporate these benchmarks into performance reviews—despite having no legal basis for doing so. This violated civil-service rules and the First Amendment.

August 17
Trump suspended enforcement of fair-lending protections under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and related statutes. Banks were encouraged to “exercise patriotic discretion” in lending practices, which experts warned would lead to discriminatory outcomes.

August 18
The administration halted environmental-impact reviews for several major infrastructure projects, in violation of NEPA and other federal statutes requiring scientific and public-comment procedures. Agencies were told to “prioritize completion over compliance.”

August 20
DOGE pressured federal agencies to fire or demote employees who had publicly criticized administration policies, regardless of whether the speech was constitutionally protected. This violated civil-service protections and the First Amendment.

August 21
Trump imposed another round of tariffs—this time on imported consumer electronics—further increasing economic pressure on American households. Economists warned of severe inflationary effects.

August 22
The administration announced that certain categories of scientific publications could not be released without DOGE review. This effectively imposed a political litmus test on federally funded research and violated scientific-integrity rules and federal open-records laws.

August 24
DOGE created an unauthorized program to track communications between journalists and government employees. The initiative used metadata from agency communications systems to identify potential whistleblowers. It violated federal wiretap laws, the Privacy Act, and constitutional protections for the press.

August 25
Trump suspended enforcement of election-security guidelines issued by CISA. States were told these guidelines were optional, which election-security experts warned increased the risk of foreign interference and domestic election sabotage.

August 26
The administration issued directives instructing agencies to ignore certain court orders related to immigration enforcement and environmental regulation. Failure to comply with binding court orders violated the Constitution and threatened a constitutional crisis.

August 27
DOGE circulated a list of “restricted individuals”—journalists, academics, and government critics—who were to be denied access to federal events, data, and credentialed press areas. This violated the First Amendment and statutory open-access requirements.

August 29
Trump attempted to redirect funds congressionally allocated for disaster relief to build additional detention facilities along the southern border. This violated the Impoundment Control Act and congressional spending authority.

August 31
The month ended with Trump intervening in antitrust matters for the third time in four months. He attempted to block enforcement actions against corporations aligned with his political agenda. This violated the Sherman Act, the Clayton Act, and fundamental principles of regulatory independence.

September 2025

September 1
Trump began September by instructing federal agencies to suspend enforcement of wage-and-hour protections under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Employers accused of wage theft were given broad leniency, and agencies were told not to pursue new investigations. Labor advocates warned this violated statutory mandates and created incentives for widespread abuse.

September 2
DOGE expanded its unlawful surveillance program by merging federal personnel files with private financial data purchased from brokers. The administration claimed this was necessary to identify “foreign-influenced employees,” but the merger violated the Privacy Act, fair-credit reporting laws, and constitutional protections against unreasonable searches.

September 3
Trump ordered the suspension of key disability-rights protections under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), including requirements for public accommodations and federal program accessibility. Disability advocates condemned the move as illegal and dangerous, violating statutory mandates that cannot be suspended unilaterally.

September 4
The administration directed the Department of Education to restrict federal funding for universities that allowed student protests perceived as critical of the administration. This violated the First Amendment, statutory limits on federal control of higher education, and long-standing protections for campus free expression.

September 5
DOGE issued an internal directive requiring agencies to categorize employees by “loyalty tier.” These tiers became the basis for promotions, disciplinary actions, and access to sensitive information. This violated civil-service law, due-process protections, and constitutional safeguards against political coercion.

September 6
Trump intervened in antitrust enforcement once again, demanding that regulators halt actions against a telecommunications company whose executives had made large donations to his political committees. Regulators objected, but the administration applied pressure through politically appointed leadership.

September 7
The administration suspended enforcement of federal rules governing industrial emissions of hazardous pollutants. This violated the Clean Air Act and placed several communities at heightened risk. EPA scientists warned of immediate public-health consequences.

September 8
DOGE instructed federal agencies to gather personal information about individuals applying for public benefits, alleging that doing so would prevent fraud. The directives required collecting data unrelated to eligibility, violating privacy rules and due-process protections.

September 9
Trump ordered agencies to withhold climate-data reports scheduled for public release. Analysts warned that lack of access to real-time climate information jeopardized disaster preparedness and violated statutory transparency requirements.

September 10
The administration issued another round of pardons to politically connected individuals, including several facing bribery and corruption charges. As usual, these pardons bypassed DOJ review and continued the trend of clemency for wealthy supporters.

September 11
DOGE launched a program requiring federal agencies to track employees’ attendance at political events. This program had no legal basis and violated the First Amendment, the Privacy Act, and multiple civil-service statutes. Employees expressed fear of retaliation for private political activities.

September 12
Trump ordered agencies to suspend enforcement of environmental-justice rules requiring that industrial facilities undergo special scrutiny when located near disadvantaged communities. This violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and federal environmental statutes.

September 13
The administration directed that grants to state and local governments be reevaluated based on “alignment with national objectives.” Officials warned that this violated appropriations law and represented a coercive abuse of federal funding authority.

September 14
DOGE dramatically expanded its access to immigration data, merging it with internal political-risk scoring systems. Civil-rights groups warned that the program resembled ideological profiling and violated multiple federal statutes.

September 15
Trump ordered federal agencies to weaken enforcement of voting-rights protections. DOJ’s Civil Rights Division was instructed to deprioritize cases involving voter suppression, redistricting abuses, and discriminatory election practices. This violated statutory mandates under the Voting Rights Act.

September 17
The administration announced that it would suspend participation in several international anti-corruption initiatives. Ethics experts warned that this undermined global efforts to combat money laundering and bribery, and signaled the administration’s increasing tolerance of corruption.

September 18
DOGE circulated lists of “restricted journalists,” prohibiting them from accessing federal briefings, data portals, or events. This violated the First Amendment and federal transparency requirements. Several agencies quietly expressed concern but complied under pressure.

September 19
Trump instructed agencies to halt enforcement of federal rules governing consumer financial protection, including those overseen by the CFPB. Debt-collection abuses, predatory lending, and deceptive practices surged, particularly affecting low-income individuals. The directive violated statutory mandates requiring federal oversight.

September 20
The administration issued new tariffs targeting South American and European exporters, escalating global trade tensions. Economists warned that the continued tariff expansion risked triggering global supply-chain disruptions and severe inflationary pressures in the U.S.

September 21
DOGE created a “public influence index” that rated NGOs, nonprofits, and community organizations based on perceived ideological alignment with administration policies. Groups with low scores were flagged for potential funding cuts, violating federal grant statutes.

September 22
Trump suspended federal cooperation with international human-rights observers, claiming they were biased against the U.S. This violated long-standing treaty commitments and reduced transparency in areas involving immigration, detention conditions, and use-of-force oversight.

September 24
The administration instructed federal agencies to weaken enforcement of disability protections in public housing. HUD investigators were told to deprioritize ADA and fair-housing compliance, violating statutory mandates.

September 26
DOGE issued internal directives encouraging agencies to develop “accelerated removal pathways” for employees marked as “low-loyalty.” This lacked legal authority and violated civil-service rules, labor protections, and due-process rights.

September 27
Trump intervened again in antitrust enforcement, this time pressuring regulators to drop an investigation into a media conglomerate aligned with his administration. This undermined fundamental principles of regulatory independence.

September 28
The administration declared that certain categories of federal data—including information on migrant detentions, industrial pollution, and inflation—could be released only with White House approval. This violated transparency laws and impeded public access to critical information.

September 29
DOGE expanded its “ideological monitoring” program to include contractors, vendors, and grantees. Organizations with staff deemed “insufficiently aligned” risked losing federal funding, violating procurement law, grant statutes, and constitutional rights.

September 30
The month concluded with Trump directing federal agencies to ignore new congressional subpoenas related to immigration, environmental regulation, and civil-service purges. Agencies were ordered not to comply, directly violating statutory oversight obligations and escalating the constitutional confrontation between the executive branch and Congress.

October 2025

October 6
Trump sent the National Guard to Chicago against the wishes of the Illinois governor. Deploying military forces to a state without gubernatorial approval violated long-standing constitutional and statutory limits on federal authority, mirroring earlier unlawful deployments in other jurisdictions.

October 11
Lindsay Halligan, a Trump loyalist handpicked to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey, sent legal journalist and Legal Eagle contributor Anna Bower an unexpected Signal message. In between chastising Bower for her reporting, Halligan teased information about grand-jury proceedings involving Comey—an alarming breach of prosecutorial ethics and federal criminal-procedure rules. Her use of Signal with auto-deleting messages also violated federal-records laws.

October 15
Trump’s team planned an IRS overhaul aimed at pursuing left-leaning groups. This represented a blatant violation of First Amendment protections against viewpoint-based retaliation and contradicted the IRS’s statutory obligations for nonpartisan enforcement.

October 16
Trump directed that military expenses be paid using research and development funds despite the government shutdown. This diversion violated the Constitution’s appropriations requirements and the Anti-Deficiency Act’s prohibition on spending money not duly authorized by Congress.

October 17
Trump commuted the sentence of former Republican Congressman George Santos, widely regarded as a serial liar and grifter. The clemency bypassed normal review and reflected continued favoritism toward politically connected offenders.

October 21
Reports surfaced that Trump tried to force the Department of Justice to pay him $230 million for the costs of his own prosecution. Such a demand constituted an extraordinary conflict of interest and, if approved by DOJ officials, would violate federal ethics rules and fall far outside the scope of the Federal Tort Claims Act.

October 23
Trump expanded his unauthorized targeted-killing campaign, ordering lethal strikes on a vessel in the Pacific that killed five people, including civilians and alleged drug traffickers. These killings lacked any adjudication or legal basis—murder remains illegal under U.S. and international law.

On the same day, Trump illegally ordered the demolition of the historic East Wing of the White House and accepted private gifts to help fund the work. Congress had not appropriated money for the project, making the expenditure an additional violation of the Anti-Deficiency Act.

Also on October 23, Trump’s DOJ indicted Democratic congressional candidate Kate Abu[ghazaleh] for her involvement in a protest at a federal immigration facility near Chicago. Critics described the indictment as politically motivated retaliation.

October 24
Trump accepted an anonymous $130 million donation to circumvent congressional control during the government shutdown. Accepting private money to fund government operations violated the Anti-Deficiency Act and undermined congressional power of the purse.

Later that day, Trump ordered another lethal boat strike in the Caribbean, killing six more people. By this point, Trump had ordered approximately ten such strikes with a cumulative death toll of around 64; all constituted extrajudicial killings.

October 25
Trump appeared to be initiating military conflict with Venezuela without congressional authorization, violating the Constitution’s requirement that Congress approve acts of war.

Also on October 25, Trump declared he would send his own personnel to “monitor” elections in California and New Jersey—an act widely viewed as unlawful voter intimidation and a violation of both federal election law and the Voting Rights Act.

October 28
Trump’s DOJ placed two prosecutors on administrative leave after they noted in a memo that a man who threatened former President Obama had reposted one of Trump’s Truth Social posts that contained Obama’s address. The suspensions were viewed as retaliatory punishment for factual reporting.

October 31
The administration published a rule restricting public-interest student-loan forgiveness for anyone deemed to be working for “political enemies.” This introduced an unconstitutional viewpoint-based criterion into federal loan policy and violated statutory loan-forgiveness provisions.


November 2025

November 3
Trump sat for an interview with 60 Minutes, which was heavily edited—likely at his request—after he previously sued the network for broadcasting an edited interview with Vice President Harris. The prior lawsuit itself had constituted a First Amendment violation, as presidents cannot use state power to punish news organizations for editorial decisions.

November 4
Trump stated that he planned to ignore a judge’s order requiring the administration to pay out SNAP benefits during the government shutdown. Refusing to comply would constitute contempt of court.

Also on November 4, Trump faced a lawsuit alleging months of inhumane conditions at an ICE facility in Illinois. Courts and advocates had repeatedly documented the violations, which infringed due-process rights and violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

November 10
Trump issued pardons to multiple allies implicated in the scheme to overturn the 2020 election, including Rudy Giuliani. These pardons continued the pattern of shielding political loyalists from accountability for serious offenses.

November 16
Trump ordered yet another lethal strike in the Eastern Pacific. At this point, the estimated number of people killed by such unauthorized strikes had risen to approximately 83. The pattern reflected systematic unlawful killings.

November 17
Trump threatened to launch military strikes against Mexico, despite Congress having granted no authorization for war. Such threats risked violating both domestic and international law.

November 18
Congresswoman Summer Lee launched an investigation into the administration’s decisions to drop federal investigations into corporations such as Boeing and other politically connected CEOs. A Public Citizen investigation revealed that thirty corporations facing federal probes had donated a combined $29.5 million to Trump’s inauguration fund.

On the same day, news broke that the Trump administration had intervened to protect accused sex trafficker Andrew Tate. Federal authorities were chastised for seizing electronic devices belonging to Tate and his brother and were ordered to return them—an extraordinary interference in an ongoing investigation.

Also on November 18, Trump publicly threatened ABC’s broadcast license after a reporter asked him about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. This constituted an abuse of power and a violation of the First Amendment.

November 19
News emerged that Lindsay Halligan and the DOJ had never actually presented the indictment of James Comey to a grand jury—suggesting that even their politically motivated prosecution attempts were procedurally defective.

November 20
Democratic lawmakers who were military veterans released a public message reminding service members that they have a duty to refuse illegal orders. In response, Trump made a series of threatening Truth Social posts calling for these members of Congress to be punished with death for “seditious conduct.” Such statements would normally trigger criminal investigation for terroristic threats or incitement, but claims of presidential immunity prevented accountability.

Following Trump’s posts, the Pentagon launched a retaliatory investigation into Senator Mark Kelly, an extraordinary act of political retribution involving the military.

Witch Hunts

Ok, I’ve had about all the Trump whining about “witch hunts” that I care to hear in a lifetime. Every time he’s caught with his hand in the cookie jar, it’s a witch hunt. Convicted by a jury of his peers? Witch hunt. Caught on tape demanding the Georgia governor “find” extra votes for him? Witch hunt. Boxes of classified documents that he denied even having found in his bathroom? Witch hunt.

Here’s the thing. The reason that “witch hunt” is such a good term of derision and dismissal for an unfounded and unwarranted investigation is pretty simple. THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS WITCHES! Right? I mean, if a real witch was caught and tried to complain “Hey, this is just a witch hunt!” everybody would go, “Well, duh, of course it’s a witch hunt, and we just caught YOU, witch. Who’s got the meat thermometer?” Now obviously, hunting for “witches” is a dangerous farce, intended only to scapegoat some poor innocent for events with which they had no connection. But what if there really were witches? What if someone really could cast a magic spell to make your cow’s milk dry up or your husband run off with the cleaning girl? Then a witch hunt could well be very reasonable, as long as it was based on facts and evidence. In fact, we would all be remiss to NOT hunt for witches. Witch hunting would be our civic duty. The DOJ would have a special bureau for witch-hunting. Texas would put a bounty on them.

Well, even though there are no witches, there really are selfish, greedy, narcissistic bastards who lie, cheat, and steal their way to wealth and high public office, and we’ve got to stop letting them hide behind the skirts of those poor, maligned witches. Rooting out these parasites (whatever party they might belong to) is a necessary, ongoing chore that we can never leave off from—sort of like weeding your garden. Maybe we should call it a “weed hunt.”

An Atheist View of Abortion

Long one, but unavoidable. Thought I’d write this as a Socratic dialogue between 2 discussants, A and B, similar to what I did in my book on religion, The Answer is Never Magic (now also available in paperback). Given that previous book, you won’t be surprised that the supposed wishes of the invisible overlord of the universe don’t play a role in this discussion, but you may be surprised where I think the ethical logic leads.

A: My body, my choice! I get to say what happens to my body, not you!
B: Seems reasonable. You mean, for example if you have appendicitis, you get to decide whether or not to have an appendectomy?
A: Well, yeah, but that’s a ridiculous example. It’s not like there’s really two options with appendicitis.
B: Actually, there are. Research has shown that at least a third of cases of appendicitis resolve with antibiotics and surgery isn’t needed. Surgeons nowadays often give people the option to have their appendix out right away or try a course of antibiotics and see whether that works. If it doesn’t, then they take the appendix out.
A: Hummph. Didn’t know that. Just goes to prove my point.
B: Which was…?
A: That it’s up to me whether I have an abortion or not.
B: Oh, right, abortion. But how’s that the same thing? As an appendectomy, I mean.
A: Pretty obvious. My appendix is part of my body and I get to say whether it goes or stays. Same with a fetus. It’s part of my body, so it’s up to me what happens to it.
B: So the fetus is like an appendix?
A: Well, it’s got different parts and all, but it’s the same idea…
B: Ok, not anatomically the same, but the same from an ethical or moral standpoint, then.
A: Right. You can’t tell me what I HAVE to do with my appendix. I can take it out or leave it in, even if YOU think I might die if it doesn’t come out. Your denying me the right to make that decision infringes on my bodily autonomy! Just like telling me I can’t have an abortion!
B: We’re probably pretty much in general agreement on the principle of bodily autonomy, which you clearly and succinctly expressed as “my body, my choice.” We certainly don’t want other people making us all get a certain kind of tattoo or not get our ears pierced. But what about the old saw that says, “Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins”? That seems to limit what you can do with your body, at least your fists.
A: I don’t see what that’s got to do with it. That’s totally different. That saying is talking about whether I can do something with my body that hurts ANOTHER person. That violates THEIR rights. My having an abortion or not doesn’t affect anyone else’s rights. It’s just about MY body and my right not to be pregnant if I don’t want to be.
B: Hmmm…that’s an interesting way to put it, but I wonder if you’re not smushing together two different (albeit related) ideas. Is there a difference between a right not to GET pregnant and a right not to BE pregnant?
A: Ummm, no. Seems pretty much the same to me.
B: Well, let’s see. You agree that you have a right not to be killed, don’t you?
A: Of course, that’s about as basic as human rights get.
B: So do you have a right not to be dead? That would mean a massive heart attack (and every other of the millions of natural deaths annually) was a violation of your inalienable human rights, which hardly makes sense. And also that everyone is obliged to do whatever it takes to keep every other human alive.
A: That does seem a bit odd.
B: And I’d point out that saying there’s no right not to be dead is equivalent to saying there’s no right to life. Here’s another illustration. I think we both agree that your autonomy means you have a right not to have children if you don’t want any, right?
A: Of course. That’s what we’re arguing about here.
B: Sort of but not quite. Now if you don’t have any children and don’t want any, no one can force you to have some. And if you DO want a child, that’s your right too. At least to try to have children.
A: That’s my whole point, duh.
B: But what if you already have a child and THEN decide you don’t want it? Mine were pretty annoying when they were toddlers and, shall we say, second thoughts were occasionally had. Would I have been entitled to get rid of them? And by get rid of them, I mean pitch them in the lake, not send them to their grandparents for the weekend.
A: Of course you can’t pitch your kids in the lake. But I definitely recommend calling on the grandparents.
B: So, someone who already HAS a child is in a different ethical situation than someone who doesn’t yet have any children. You can decide for any reason whatsoever not to have kids in the first place, and take whatever steps you deem necessary to keep from getting pregnant. But once you’ve got a child, your aren’t similarly entitled to free yourself from that child—and certainly not by killing it. So isn’t there the same difference between not BECOMING pregnant and not BEING pregnant? That maybe once you’re pregnant you’re constrained more than you were when you weren’t pregnant?
A: But HAVING a child is way different than being pregnant
B: For sure in a practical sense. But in an ethical sense, it’s pretty much the same because the physical location of an entity (ie, uterus vs cradle) should not generate a moral distinction. I mean, you have to follow different laws in different countries and some countries may not honor your rights, but you have those rights nonetheless.
A: But the thing is, the reason you can’t kill your kids is because THEY have their own rights. It’s not because of where they live, it’s because they have a right not to be killed.
B: Yes, children have rights, that is they are human beings. For ethical purposes, the status of “human being” means they qualify as rights-possessing entities. Of course the rights they possess are those we deem appropriate to their age—we don’t allow toddlers to marry or run a business, and, at least for the present, they’re not allowed to carry guns. But everyone must admit that at the very minimum, children have the right not to be killed, no matter how trying or inconvenient they might be.
A: I already said that.
B: Just making sure. But you DO think that if you’re pregnant, you’re allowed to kill your fetus?
A: Sure, because unlike children, fetuses are not “another person.” Like we said, a fetus is like my appendix, which has no rights of its own. And by the way, we don’t refer to an appendectomy as “killing” my appendix.
B: No, we don’t talk about killing your traitorous appendix when it becomes inflamed and puts your life at risk—unlike, say, killing a jihadist who becomes inflamed and puts your life at risk. However, we ARE causing living tissue to die.
A: But the question is whether that tissue should be considered a human being—in which case, causing its tissues to die counts as “killing.”
B: Fair enough. So since we agree children are human beings, then I guess your position is that a fetus becomes “another person” and gets its rights when it’s born and goes from fetus to infant? Is that when it becomes a human being?
A: Well, yes, I guess so.
B: That would mean then that if you were in labor with a full term 9 month fetus, you could kill it (“cause its tissues to die”) as long as it hadn’t come completely out of your vagina? If it was sticking partway out, you could cut off its head? But as soon as it was all the way out, you couldn’t harm it?
A: I don’t think you should kill a full term fetus right before birth. It’s just a baby that hasn’t quite come out yet.
B: So as far as you’re concerned, a full term but not-quite-delivered fetus should be considered a human being with rights—at least the right not to be killed.
A: Yeah, I suppose. And I also suppose now you’re going to ask “What if it’s a week before full term?” or 2 weeks before, or 3 and so on.
B: I have to admit I was. But YOU have to admit those are good questions, right? If, as we agree, a fetus that’s still in the uterus can be a human being at SOME point, even if it’s only very far along in the pregnancy, we really need to say WHEN that point occurs. And we should base that decision on some rational reasoning rather than just an arbitrary decree. I grant you, this might be a challenging distinction to make, as gestation is a continuum of development rather than a set of discrete steps. There’s really only one clear dividing line in the whole process and that’s the moment right after birth when fetal circulation from the placenta stops and blood begins flowing through the lungs and the newborn can start breathing air. THAT marks a definitive status change. But we already said that we didn’t think that birth was a reasonable start to human beings, that it had to begin sometime BEFORE that. But everything else before that point is a gradual but continuous progression without any clear boundaries.
A: Well, fetal viability is what most of us think is the dividing line. Abortion is morally acceptable before a fetus is viable.
B: And viability is…?
A: Obviously, the ability of a fetus to live outside of the womb. Once a fetus CAN survive outside the womb, even if it hasn’t yet left, it needs to be considered a human being for ethical purposes.
B: That does seem to be a dividing line of sorts, although viability varies significantly depending on the medical care available. A university NICU can stabilize and support an infant 2 months or more before it could survive as a developing world home birth. And it’s not a firm line with everyone on one side being nonviable and everyone on the other viable. There’s a probability of survival that decreases continually the earlier you go in gestation until you reach a point where that probability is zero.
A: True, but that doesn’t change the underlying point.
B: No. But I think we agree we can’t deny that a viable fetus is a human being no matter whether we disagree on just when that viability occurs.
A: So there you have it. After viability, human being! Before viability, appendix! And if thy appendix offends thee, pluck it out! Abortion is ethically sound before fetal viability!
B: Let’s not be hasty. That sounds like an error in logic.
A: In logic? What are you talking about?
B: Well, just because viability confers rights of a human being, that doesn’t mean that inviability necessitates lack of rights. There might logically be OTHER reasons for having human rights besides viability, that is, that nonviable fetuses might still be human beings. The fact that all crows (all viable fetuses) are black (considered human beings) doesn’t mean that other animals (nonviable fetuses) might not also be black (human beings).
A: You’re getting a bit tricky here. But why should we consider an early-stage fetus, something that might be just a tiny blob of tissue that doesn’t look like anything, a human being?
B: Well, that’s the question we should chew over. We certainly shouldn’t just assert that a fetus is or isn’t a human being without some sort of rationale backing us up.
A: If it’s not clear, maybe that’s a reason to let individual women make the decision on their own?
B: Personal decisions are an unsatisfactory way to judge human rights.
A: How is letting people make their own ethical decisions unsatisfactory?
B: For some issues, personal decisions are fine. But rights by their nature are things that aren’t left up to each individual to decide for themselves. That’s why the Founding Fathers referred to “inalienable” rights. That is, we don’t let you “make your own decision” as to whether you can or can’t enslave or murder your neighbors. That isn’t simply a matter of “you say tomato, I say tomahto.” Certain things are wrong no matter what a given individual might think or a majority might vote—don’t you think Hitler couldnt’ve found 51% of Germans who would vote Yes on “Let’s get rid of all the Jews”? So we should try to be on the surest possible footing when deciding to whom rights apply—which in this case is when a collection of cells and organs should be considered a human being.
A: Well, viability still seems reasonable enough to me. As long as a fetus HAS to be part of the mother’s body, well then it has the status of any other body part. When it DOESN’T have to be part of the mother’s body, then it’s its own being—a human being.
B: That’s not a ludicrous suggestion, but it’s hardly a prima facie case. Are there any situations in which an INVIABLE organism is considered a human being.
A: How could that be?
B: I can think of a few examples. Take a 1 month old infant. How “viable” is it, really? You could give it everything needed to survive in modern society—put it alone on the floor in a furnished apartment, with a cradle nearby, along with a charge card, smart phone, a dresser full of warm clothes, and a refrigerator full of baby formula, and the poor thing would be dead within a day. It’s not in the least bit “viable” absent round-the-clock care by a parent—care that I might add is even more effortful and burdensome than what is needed for an 8 month fetus still in the uterus. Maybe an infant isn’t “viable” until it’s able to feed itself? Maybe it isn’t even viable until it can find its own food and shelter?
A: A 1 month old baby is plenty viable if you take proper care of it, feeding it and keeping it warm.
B: Exactly! But only in the same way a 6 week fetus is viable as long as it’s in the mother’s uterus being fed and kept warm.
A: Well…
B: And how about later in life? A sick adult in the ICU on a ventilator for respiratory failure would be dead in minutes if you turned off the machine. That person isn’t viable using the same criteria we do for fetuses. And of course we do consider ventilator patients “human beings” and do not permit their indiscriminate killing.
A: Well sometimes we turn off ventilators and allow ICU patients to die.
B: True, but not unless there is strong evidence that this was in keeping with the person’s pre-illness wishes and certainly not simply because keeping them alive was inconvenient. Another point; the sickest ICU patients—say, those with multi-organ failure who’ve been on a ventilator for more than a week—are more likely than not to be dead within a year, as compared to the average 6 week fetus, most of which ARE likely to be alive after 1 year—and those fetuses are statistically likely to live for 7 or 8 decades, unlike ANY adult patient on life support in the ICU.
A: But the 1 month old and the ICU patient are ALREADY considered human beings. Maybe the point is just they can’t LOSE their rights-bearing status because they’re at some point inviable.
B: I agree they shouldn’t lose their rights by virtue of their inviability. But all we’re trying to establish is whether it’s reasonable to think that inviability is compatible with status as a human being. And I think it’s pretty clear that it is. You can be both inviable and a human being.
A: I suppose so. But that doesn’t prove a nonviable fetus IS a human being.
B: True. But it does mean that simple nonviability doesn’t rule it OUT.
A: But the 1 month old and the ICU patient are not living inside their mother. Being unviable AND inside the mother is different, maybe some sort of ethical synergistic effect. As long as a fetus HAS to be part of the mother’s body and it actually is inside her body, well then it has the status of any other body part. As we said, like an appendix. When it DOESN’T have to be part of the mother’s body, then it’s its own being—a human being.
B: Why would where you live determine whether you had rights or not? Ok, so if you live in North Korea, you don’t have any rights. But otherwise, why would the location of a body have anything to do with its rights status? Maybe the appendix analogy we started with wasn’t the best. Now that I think about it, a fetus is not that much like one of the mother’s organs.
A: Don’t blame me. You’re the one who suggested it.
B: Ok, fine. But consider this. The fetus doesn’t participate in the functioning of the mother’s body, which is the role of all her other organs and tissues. A fetus also has its own set of organs, the same ones the mother has. And, critically, fetal tissue is so different from the mother’s that it has to be firewalled away from the mother’s circulation by the placenta to keep her immune system from attacking and destroying it. If the mother’s blood got into the fetus, it would likely die, which is never the case with her own organs. Maybe a fetus is better seen as a separate, distinct organism that is temporarily connected to ANOTHER separate, distinct organism. More analogous to a parasitic worm than an organ. Except the fetus always comes out on its own after a few months.
A: Wait till people hear you’re comparing fetuses to worms!
B: Just in terms of their physiologic relationship with their host/mother. Besides, you want to kill them, not just call them names.
A: In any case, how does the worm analogy help your argument?
B: Well, we’ve already allowed that the mother shouldn’t get to choose the death of a VIABLE fetus despite the fact that it’s living in her body.
A: Ok, yes, because it’s a separate entity.
B: Right. The worm analogy weakens the argument that the mother’s right to control her own body entitles her to life or death decisions about an inviable fetus—weaker because it’s not really her OWN body part, rather it’s a separate entity that’s temporarily connected to her (ie, by the umbilical cord) and could thus more reasonably be thought to have its own rights.
A: Doesn’t mean for sure it does. The worm is a separate entity too, and it doesn’t have any rights.
B: No, a worm doesn’t have rights, but it also never becomes a human being which, as we agreed, the fetus rapidly does. These factors both start to demand a stronger argument from you as to why this distinct entity (that is, not one of the mother’s organs) should not be considered a human being all along, rather than this status appearing at some point later in development.
A: Hmmm…This “temporarily connected” idea sounds like the hypothetical scenario presented by the philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson years ago in which she envisions a dying famous violinist who was surreptitiously connected by an IV to another person’s bloodstream (sort of like dialysis, I suppose) against their will in order to save the violinist’s life. The question is then whether the person is entitled to disconnect the violinist (because he is using the person’s body without their permission) despite that disconnection resulting in the violinist’s immediate death. Thomson has a long and convincing discussion concluding that the violinist (fetus) has no right to be connected to the person and thus that person may disconnect him (have an abortion) despite this resulting in his death.
B: Brief but accurate summary of 10,000 words of very detailed philosophical treatise. Well done! But most of those 10k words are beside the point. Thomson mistakenly frames the issue as being about whether the violinist has a right to be connected to you (and thus you have a duty to allow him to be). She frames this as the question of whether the violinist has a “right to life.” We already pointed out and agreed that the idea of a “right not to be dead” was nonsense, and since that is conceptually identical to “right to life,” that also is nonsense. So of course the violinist does not have the right to life and you do not have a duty to keep him alive. But that’s not the issue. That’s because in Thomson’s scenario, the violinist has ALREADY been connected to you and thus already violating your rights (and this IS the appropriate analogy for abortion because the fetus is similarly already growing in the mother). Note that BEFORE the violinist is connected to you, he cannot compel you to connect yourself to him, just as before you are pregnant no one can compel you to become pregnant. Thus, since the violinist is already connected, the real question is not what you’re required to do FOR the violinist, but rather to what remedies are you entitled after he has violated your rights.
A: Well, you’re entitled to have your rights restored! Or your situation or whatever.
B: In general, yes. If someone steals your car, you’re entitled at minimum to the return of your car (and probably damages too). But can your property rights be restored at any cost whatsoever? If a hobo has moved into your garden shed and refuses to leave, you’re certainly entitled to have him dragged out and prosecuted, but are you entitled to kill him? Of course not. Do your property rights outweigh his right not to be killed? You could hardly hold these two rights have the same import.
A: Well, no. But what if killing him was the only way to get him out?
B: Thomson would say it’s fine then; he has no right to be there but you DO have a right to your shed. Enter the SWAT team. Bang! End of story. Most everyone else in the world would hold that trespassing does not warrant the death penalty—despite however much you prefer a hobo-free shed.
A: But what if he had a gun and was shooting at your house?
B: Well then, go ahead and kill him. That’s a different situation, quite analogous to a pregnancy that endangers the mother’s life. A person’s general right not to be killed is not completely unqualified. For example, that right can be forfeited if someone poses an immediate threat to life (eg, a school shooter). In that case, as well as the case of a life-endangering pregnancy, the rights, duties, and risks for all parties are considered in attempt to come up with a fair solution.
A: That would be hard!
B: True, and probably more than we could get into here. But the real question is regarding simple, elective abortion, done not because lives are in danger but for the varied, mundane reasons for which people (rightfully) feel they do not wish to have children.
A: It’s not so mundane for a woman, or even worse a 12 year old girl, who was raped—maybe even by her father—and became pregnant! Surely SHE shouldn’t have to bear such a child.
B: Of course those horrible misfortunes aren’t mundane. But would you say you’re entitled to kill a 3 year old child born of rape or incest? Even if the mother is reminded of the rape every time she looks at the child, can she kill it?
A: Well, no. She could put it up for adoption.
B: Probably a better solution for the child than killing it. Similarly, if you already had children, you couldn’t kill them for any of the other many and good reasons you might have had for not wanting to have children in the first place—for example wanting to finish school, get a job, or just not wanting children at that point in your life. If you can’t do something to a 3 year old child, why can you do it to a 3 month fetus?
A: Look, that’s all well and good, but I just can’t get past the fact that I have the right not to be pregnant! That’s got to be up to me if ANYTHING is. If I don’t want to be pregnant, I shouldn’t have to be!
B: As we said before, you certainly have a right to choose whether or not to BECOME pregnant (recognizing of course that sometimes circumstances such as infertility or birth control failure may keep you from getting your choice). That’s clearly a matter of your bodily autonomy. But just as your right not to be killed doesn’t mean you have a right not to be dead, you right not to become pregnant doesn’t mean you have a right not to BE pregnant—anymore than your right not to have kids allows you to simply discard a child you already have.
A: Hmmm…well, I guess so. But just because SOME nonviable entities are human beings and SOME fetuses living in the mother’s body are human beings I’m still not convinced that an unviable fetus is.
B: Let’s think about the physical and temporal continuity of our life
A: The what?
B: Just some shorthand terminology referring to the fact that every adult human has come about through a continuous process of development from a fertilized egg, to an embryo, to a fetus, through birth, to being an infant, a child, and then an adult.
A: Of course. So…?
B: So weren’t you YOU even when you were a newborn infant? Despite not knowing or even being able to know who and what you were? Were the baby pictures your dad took actually of someone else?
A: No, that was me. I was always me, even as a baby.
B: And as a fetus at term, or after viability? Wasn’t that still you?
A: Sure.
B: And going back to the embryonic stage, wasn’t THAT embryo still you?
A: Maybe…What are you up to?
B: Well, it doesn’t make sense to say the embryo WAS your mom, does it?
A: Not really. But maybe it’s not her and it’s not me either. Maybe some kind of, I don’t know, intermediate, indeterminate thing or something.
B: Getting a bit convoluted here when maybe we don’t need to be, although it’s probably just that you’re worried I’m setting some sort of debating trap. Look, although we’re profoundly different at these various stages of existence—you and I are as different from a newborn infant as it is from a 3 month fetus—we’re considered to be ourselves and be human beings all throughout the often 80 year process of our life, even when we’re demented and in a coma on a ventilator just prior to death. AND we pretty much seem to agree that “human being” includes the last few months of gestation. So doesn’t the temporal and physical continuity from conception to death we just agreed on, the fact that embryonic you is still you, make it sensible to hold that status as a human being goes along with that continuity? Why do we exclude a few months right at the beginning during which we’re allegedly NOT human beings? Why should that status appear only in the later part of gestation?
A: Well, I suppose I have to agree about temporal and physical continuity.
B: So your point seems to be that you’re YOU before viability but you’re not a human being for just that brief period of time. Isn’t it more rational simply to say you’re always a human being?
A: It might be simpler, but that doesn’t mean it’s right. Yes, there’s continuity between an embryo and a viable fetus (and an infant, etc). But just because there’s continuity between a baby and an 18 year old it doesn’t mean a baby should also have the right to vote.
B: True. But there are rational reasons why persons are denied the right to vote before a certain age. Are there similar rational reasons why personhood itself should come only at a certain age? We’re taking a continuous, 9-month process that begins with the union of a sperm and egg and ends with a crying baby, and marking out a boundary on one side of which is a human being and the other side of which is not. Since human rights are the question, shouldn’t we be as sure as possible that we’ve marked that boundary fairly and based on reasons other than our desire to freely dispose of fetuses?
A: Look, I still just have trouble thinking of an embryo as a human being.
B: Remember, it’s “human being” for the purposes of rights, not for the purposes of being someone to have a conversation with or watch a video together. I mean, we could instead say “rights-bearing entity” instead of “human being” but that seems pedantic. But if it would make you feel better…
A: Ok, but…
B: Let’s look at it from a little different angle, how people actually DO think of embryos. Do they THINK of them differently than they do other things in the mother’s body. Do they SEEM different to people?
A: How do you mean?
B: Aren’t many people sad when they have a miscarriage? Even when it’s early in gestation and the fetus isn’t viable?
A: Well, I’d be sad if I lost my leg too. But that doesn’t mean my leg’s a person. It’s the mother’s choice whether to be sad or relieved after a miscarriage.
B: That’s true, but your leg has importance to you for quite practical reasons. Ok, let’s go back to your appendix, which I presume is of much less importance to you than your leg (yes, I know it probably has some sort of minor role in the immune system).
A: No, I’m not particularly attached to my appendix (other than physically 😊)
B: So, suppose there are 2 pregnant women, both in early pregnancy, say about 6 weeks, and both are intending to keep their pregnancy. Someone kidnaps them and does surgery on both of them. In one, they remove her healthy appendix. In the other, they remove her healthy fetus. Do both women feel the same way about this assault? What would people say on social media?
A: Well, the one whose pregnancy was terminated would be much more upset, of course. But like I said before, that’s the person’s choice about how to feel about their pregnancy—and you had postulated that she wanted it.
B: So would YOU feel the same about both cases? That there’s no difference between how the women were wronged? Do you feel this is just the same as if one had her left kidney removed involuntarily and the other her right kidney?
A: Hmm. Well…
B: Your hesitancy suggests to me that you DO have at least a little discomfort with the scenario. Maybe you DO have some sense that a fetus is different from an appendix.
A: Or it could just be that I know the WOMAN herself would feel more wronged at losing a pregnancy she wanted than losing her appendix. And I have respect for her feelings.
B: Yes, it wouldn’t speak well of you if you felt the woman’s feelings didn’t matter. So…let’s try to think of a hypothetical in which the woman’s feelings were on YOUR side of the issue, where she didn’t think fetuses were human beings. Ok. Suppose a woman is similarly 6 weeks pregnant and an evil scientist asks her to help test a drug designed to cause birth defects for the purposes of chemical warfare. The drug is given as a single dose and is harmless to anything aside from 6 week fetuses, in which it is intended to cause permanent brain damage but not death. The mother, however, will be fine if she takes this drug. She agrees (she’ll be paid a lot of money).
A: Well that’s really creepy. I hope nobody’s thinking of trying anything like this.
B: Not that I’ve heard of. But the way some people are these days…
A: So she CERTAINLY should have an abortion then.
B: Oh no, you see the deal with the scientist is that she has to go on and have the baby and raise it so the exact amount and nature of its brain damage can be studied during infancy and childhood. The scientist thinks the drug will cause enough damage that the child will never learn to walk or talk but they’re not sure so they need to test it.
A: That’s even creepier! But this imaginary nonsense is unethical because they’re causing damage to a baby and child!
B: That’s the thing, they’re not. They’re damaging only a 6 week old fetus. She’s not taking the drug later in pregnancy when the fetus is viable (and has its own rights as we agreed). The woman and scientist, just like you, think a 6 week fetus has no more rights than an appendix, as it’s simply another of the woman’s body parts, which she is entitled to treat as she wishes. Certainly you agree a person is free to take a drug that might damage their appendix even if you yourself think that’s unwise. It’s hardly unethical, is it?
A: Baloney! I call BS on that!
B: How so?
A: Obviously, it’s because that fetus BECOMES an infant who suffers the harm! And you CAUSED that harm.
B: Me?
A: Well, the woman and the scientist. You know what I mean! What they did ended up ultimately causing harm to an actual human being!
B: Absolutely. So then you clearly agree that a mother is not entitled to harm even a very early-stage fetus even though she COULD harm one of her own organs should she wish. AND, if intentionally deforming a nonviable fetus is wrong because it causes harm to a future human being, why isn’t destroying it harmful to that same future human being —and similarly wrong?
A: Because if it’s destroyed, that future human being doesn’t exist to be harmed! Oh…rats. I don’t know. You’re twisting things up in knots.
B: Well it is a knotty issue. I’m just trying to show that at least in the back of your mind you have some feelings that suggest pre-viability is not the definitive boundary you said at first. I mean, if you really, truly thought a fetus was no different than an appendix, these thought experiments wouldn’t trouble you in the least, but it seems like they do.
A: All right. But my not liking it doesn’t mean I’m wrong.
B: True. But shouldn’t your discomfort with these various scenarios suggest the need to reexamine your gut feeling that a fetus is simply a maternal body part? As that of course is the justification for abortion; “My body, my choice.”
A: I still think that should be my right.
B: Well, we have made a lot of different points, most of which you ended up agreeing with (reluctantly). Maybe the proper conclusion got lost in the weeds. Let’s try to sum things up: There seem to be 3 possible ways in which abortion might be within a person’s rights. The first is that the fetus is simply a PART of the mother’s body (“my body, my choice”) and thus not a human being and thus has no rights, so she gets to do whatever she wants to it. The 2nd is that although the fetus is a separate entity from the mother, it’s not a rights-bearing one (ie, not a human being) so the mother gets to do whatever she wants to it. And the 3rd is that even if the fetus IS a rights-bearing entity (a human being), the mother is still allowed to kill it because it is a case of justifiable killing of a human being (the chief rationale for which is the Thomson argument, that she has not given it permission to use her body—an invasion of her autonomy to which it is not otherwise entitled). ONE of these must be true for abortion to be an ethically legitimate act. Is there anything else conceptually?
A: What about when the mother’s life is endangered by the pregnancy? You punted on that one.
B: I did, but that’s because if I’m refuted regarding elective (ie, non-endangered) abortion, then abortion would obviously also be permissible in a life-endangering situation, so the issue becomes moot. And even if non-endangered abortion is impermissible, a case of life-endangerment would have to be considered under the 3rd proposition that abortion to save the mother’s life might be a justifiable killing, and that, like other potentially justifiable killings, would have to be judged on the specifics of each case—hence my punt.
A: All right, so what about these 3 ways?
B: Regarding the 1st proposition, the physiologic distinctiveness of the fetus, including the facts that it has its own complete set of organs, its tissue is immunologically distinct from that of the mother, and then it rather quickly separates from the mother and becomes autonomous, makes it unreasonable to consider a fetus simply one of the mother’s organs, despite its (temporary) location within the mother’s body. This point is strengthened by the fact that, at least when abortion is not being considered, people don’t really think about a fetus the same way they do, say, an appendix. It’s clear the fetus is a separate entity that is temporarily located within the mother.
A: Well I suppose that’s reasonable.
B: That then leads to the 2nd proposition, which holds that although the fetus is distinct from the mother, it does not possess rights (is not a human being), specifically the core right not to be killed. We agreed that viable fetuses had that right but that the question remained regarding inviable fetuses. We identified several situations in which personhood exists despite inviability, thus concluding that inviability per se was not a barrier to having rights, PARTICULARLY when the inviability was possibly temporary as in an infant or a brain-injured person. Since inviable fetuses almost always BECOME viable (and thus human beings) during the continuous process of development from fetus to infant to adult, it seemed more reasonable to consider them human beings all along the process rather than starting at some midway point. This conclusion was bolstered by our revulsion at the hypothetical scenario in which an inviable fetus was injured in a way that led to permanent brain damage of an infant, raising the question of why damaging a fetus might be impermissible when killing it was allowed.
A: That doesn’t PROVE it.
B: Well, there’s really no indisputable logical proof since there’s no indisputable, concrete definition of human being. But if we keep looking at the question from different angles and scenarios and consistently find a rational case for considering each of them as human beings, it becomes harder and harder to think that it is not the case.
A: So if we’re looking at hints and squishy things, what about the very strong hint that a great many people think abortion of an inviable fetus is NOT a rights violation. How does that not weigh on the other side?
B: Simply because it’s circular. To answer the question of whether abortion is ok we ask whether an inviable fetus has personhood, and then answer that by saying that because many people think abortion is ok, the fetus must not have personhood. Circular.
A: Hmmm…
B: So we’re left with the 3rd proposition, that it is sometimes permissible to kill a rights-bearing entity (ie, a human being), in this case a fetus. The strongest case for this is Thomson’s, which holds that by occupying her body against her will, a fetus violates the mother’s right not to have her body coopted for another entity’s purposes and thus she is entitled to remove it. Removal of an inviable fetus is by definition killing it. However, we had agreed that mothers were not entitled to kill their existing children despite their obviously similar violation of her autonomy (eg, thwarting her desire to finish school, take a job, simply not have children at that point in her life). Thus, a violation of autonomy by a fetus should similarly not entitle the mother to put it to death.
A: All right, I don’t have a good refutation of any of those specific points, but I’m still left feeling that this is all sophistry and trickery. Word games to show that embryos are human beings.
B: I understand. I think maybe it’s because of the difference between everyday thinking about commonplace situations and rigorous thinking that has to take every situation and possibility into account. I agree with you in a sense. The “human beings” we see normally everyday—you, me, our friends and neighbors and children—are sentient beings. They’re awake, they walk around and talk and go to school or work, they eat breakfast and go to bed at night, and generally look and act pretty much like us, or younger or older versions of us. Most of the time, this way of looking at things is just fine. But to talk seriously, we also have to consider the edge cases, the unclear, nonobvious situations, for example humans who do not seem conscious of their environment (eg those in a coma, or with brain damage or severe dementia), and similarly those who don’t communicate or look much like us, such as infants—and what we are considering here, fetuses. But we need to take a rigorous approach to these edge cases when trying to make the very serious decision on whom to confer or remove rights.
A: Well, yes I suppose there’s some sense to that.
B: Because of the literal life and death implications, I think it’s reasonable to err on the side of granting rather than withholding rights (and thus status as human being).
A: So fetuses, even at the earliest stages have a right not to be killed?
B: That would seem to be the case

Immigrants

Immigrants! Man, the Republicans are nonstop with the immigrants this week. “Vermin!” “Diluting our blood!” “Murderers and rapists!” “Puppy killers!” Oh wait, that last one’s a Republican governor. Anyway, listening to the Repubs, it’s clear immigrants are responsible for all the badness of modern life, including crime, drugs, unemployment, inflation, college protests, and the startling avalanche of commercials for psoriasis. The base is as inflamed as their hemorrhoids after hours sitting on hard chairs listening to their Dear Leader rant. Something must be done to keep these dastardly immigrants from snatching the mops and brooms out of the hands of our children!
Let me tell you about MY encounters with immigrants. The other day, I bought some young trees from a local nursery, needing to replace trees brought down by violent storms (can we pin that on the immigrants too?). Since the trees were a bit too big for me to handle by myself, I had the nursery deliver the trees along with a team to plant them for me. So 4 trees arrived in the company of 3 workers, who, based on the fact that they spoke only Spanish, I immediately deduced were immigrants. And no, I did not inquire about the status of their paperwork, as I didn’t feel my blood being diluted. Well these guys dug holes by hand for the 3-foot rootballs and manhandled the trees into place while I was still getting my hose attached and up to the planting site. Talk about hard work! And it was summer-hot. They got all the trees in, mulched and everything cleaned up in no time at all. And they didn’t pilfer anything from my garage (though that might’ve saved me from paying more immigrants to carry stuff away, sigh), even though listening to the Repubs you’d think I was lucky my wife remained unraped and my pets unbarbecued. A one-off? Well, the landscapers were by the other day in the 90+ degree heat laying a bed of rocks to prevent erosion from the current, definitely-not-related-to-climate-change heavy rains. All immigrants again. All hard-working again. None a problem, again. Immigrant servers at restaurants? Pleasant and competent. I think we all see, every day, hard and undesirable jobs being done by immigrants—and often being done quite well. This threatens you how, exactly?
Oh, Porter, that’s just YOUR experience! There are crimes, sometimes horrific crimes, committed by immigrants! Yeah, except they are LESS likely to be violent criminals than our native-born Real Americans. But American-on-American crime isn’t sexy (well, maybe Black American on White American). And who cares about actual facts when there’s a good stereotype to promote? And a distraction to provide.
That’s right, the immigrant “crisis” is just the latest in a long line of boogeymen promoted SOLELY BY REPUBLICANS to give regular folks something to fear so they’d be distracted from how they’re being ripped off by the GOP. Just like pickpocket teams in the Paris metro spill soda on you so you don’t notice your wallet being lifted. This has been going on my whole life. Think about it. 1945-mid ‘80s it was Communism, the Red Scare! Commies were everywhere, going to destroy the American Way of Life! It was up to the Republicans to stop them—Democrats are soft on communism! Anticommunism was the lifeblood of the Republican party. But as soon as the USSR was on the ropes, they pivoted immediately to Drugs, and from the mid-80s to 2001 it was all war-on-drugs all the time for the GOP. But drugs wasn’t nearly as tantalizing as Muslim Terror, which became the (source of) rage from 2001 until the mid-teens, when 15 years of no terror attacks made the GOP cast about for a new boogeyman. Hey, what about immigrants? Yeah, that’s the ticket! They’re poor, their skin’s a different color and they talk funny! What’s to like? So now half the country’s falling in line to bash immigrants—because people who want to mow your lawn, paint your house and clean the floors in your mom’s nursing home are an existential threat to you, your children, democracy and all things holy! Just like the commies, and the drug addicts, and the terrorists used to be. And the Jews in 1930s Germany.
You think there just might be a pattern here? Authoritarian parties always need an “other” to demonize. A scapegoat that can bear all the sins and failings of society and then be driven out to purify the nation. A scapegoat that allows a people to avoid having to confront and fix their own failings. And, importantly, an “other” that can’t realistically be eliminated (well, the Germans tried) so it can remain a rallying cry as long as needed. And if people tire of it, it can and will be replaced by yet another irrational fear. What’ll be next? Who’ll be next? Another round for the Jews? (no fair, they had their turn). Maybe it’ll be you. Fight the fear-mongering.