Trump Administration
The Trump Administration is the executive branch government led by President Donald Trump, covering both his terms — 2017 to 2021 and from January 2025. It encompasses the President, Vice President, Cabinet secretaries, and the broader federal workforce operating under their direction. Entries use it where an action is best attributed to the administration as a whole rather than to a specific department or official. The actor is deliberately not split by term: a president serving non-consecutive terms would otherwise force an editorial call on every event that spans or straddles them, and episodes would fragment across two actors for no gain.
2026 Events (28)
Trump administration redirected $500 million clean-steel grant to fund coal-fired furnace at Ohio steel mill
On August 21, 2026, the U.S. Department of Energy announced it had redirected a $500 million grant, originally awarded to Cleveland-Cliffs in March 2024 to decarbonize its Middletown, Ohio, steel mill, to instead fund continued operation of the plant's coal-fired blast furnace. The grant was restructured after Cleveland-Cliffs said the "green premium" business case for the original hydrogen-ready project no longer held; DOE Secretary Chris Wright and Vice President JD Vance, a Middletown native, appeared at the plant to promote the change. A former DOE official said the revised scope conflicts with the Inflation Reduction Act's statutory definition of eligible "advanced industrial technology," which requires funded projects to accelerate progress toward net-zero emissions.
Trump DOJ obtained court vacatur of Oath Keepers leaders' January 6 seditious conspiracy convictions
On August 4, 2026, at the U.S. Department of Justice's request, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta granted a motion to dismiss and vacate the January 6 seditious-conspiracy convictions of eight Oath Keepers members, including founder Stewart Rhodes. In a written order, Mehta said the government offered no legal or factual justification for dismissal and that granting it was not in the public interest, but concluded he had no authority to deny the motion. The vacatur went beyond Trump's January 2025 clemency, which had commuted or pardoned the defendants' sentences but left their jury convictions on the record.
Federal agencies admitted using keyword filters to cancel nearly $2 billion in University of California research grants
In July 2026, federal agencies admitted in signed court stipulations that they terminated more than a thousand University of California research grants based on keyword searches for politically disfavored terms—including "health equity," "structural racism," and "vaccine hesitancy"—rather than merit-based review. The National Institutes of Health alone suspended or cancelled more than 1,000 UC grants flagged by an internal search tool, and the Department of Transportation terminated six grants worth $42 million for referencing terms like "transportation equity." Lawyers for the UC researchers cited the admissions as proof of First Amendment violations and moved for summary judgment against the Trump administration in federal court.
National Park Service replaced the President's House slavery exhibit in Philadelphia overnight, softening Washington's role as enslaver
On July 15, 2026, the National Park Service completed an overnight swap of the interpretive exhibit at the federally owned President's House Site in Philadelphia, installing Trump administration-proposed panels that historians say soften George Washington's role as an enslaver of nine people at the site. Workers replaced the displays "under the cover of darkness," in the mayor's words, days after the Third Circuit ruled that Philadelphia had no legal authority over interpretive content at the federally owned memorial. The new panels devote more space to the early presidency and recast Washington's views on slavery, drawing condemnation from Philadelphia's mayor and civil-rights advocates.
Justice Department subpoenaed four New York Times reporters over their Air Force One security reporting
In July 2026, the Justice Department subpoenaed four New York Times reporters — Julian Barnes, Eric Lipton, Tyler Pager, and Eric Schmitt — over their reporting on security concerns about the Qatari-donated aircraft being prepared as Air Force One. After federal judges froze phone-record enforcement and challenged the DOJ's legal reasoning at a July 24, 2026, court hearing, the government withdrew all grand-jury and phone-record subpoenas. Judge Arun Subramanian called the legal work "slipshod" and threatened sanctions; the Times called the full withdrawal "an important affirmation of our country's commitment to a free press."
Trump DOJ obtained court vacatur of Proud Boys leaders' January 6 seditious conspiracy convictions
On July 10, 2026, at the U.S. Department of Justice's request, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly granted a motion to dismiss and vacate the convictions of four Proud Boys members tied to the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, including the seditious-conspiracy convictions of leaders Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, and Zachary Rehl. In a written memorandum Kelly said the government's request was not based on the facts or the law but concluded he was bound to grant it. The vacatur formally erased jury verdicts that the January 2025 presidential clemency had left intact.
Commerce Department eased AI-chip and defense export controls for UAE firms tied to Trump's crypto venture
On July 10, 2026, the U.S. Department of Commerce issued a rule easing export controls on the United Arab Emirates, granting the Emirati firms G42 and Core42 license exceptions for advanced AI computing equipment and pledging favorable review of export applications tied to the investment firm MGX. The Emirati royal who controls G42 and MGX had secretly acquired a 49 percent stake in World Liberty Financial, the Trump family's cryptocurrency venture, months earlier. Senator Elizabeth Warren called the arrangement a "corrupt deal" and warned it could divert sensitive technology to China.
Trump administration appointed climate-science critic Matthew Wielicki to head reconstituted U.S. Global Change Research Program
On July 9, 2026, the Trump administration reconstituted the U.S. Global Change Research Program — the interagency body that produces the congressionally mandated National Climate Assessment — and placed it under Matthew Wielicki, a former University of Alabama geochemist who describes himself as a "professor in exile" and routinely disputes mainstream climate science. The program's office had been closed and its website taken dark in mid-2025; Wielicki will now oversee the coordination of federal climate research across more than a dozen agencies.
Trump administration defies court order to resume immigration processing for 39 countries
Six days after U.S. District Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. vacated the administration's freeze on asylum decisions, green cards, work permits, and other immigration adjudications for nationals of 39 countries, the government had still not resumed processing. On June 11, 2026, after a coalition of unions and nonprofits filed an emergency motion to enforce, McConnell ordered the administration to file a status report within 24 hours detailing its compliance and wrote that "there is no excuse this time."
State Department blocked NYC Mayor-elect Mamdani's meeting with Colombia's President Petro
On June 10, 2026, the U.S. State Department intervened to block a planned meeting between New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and Colombian President Gustavo Petro during Petro's visit to New York for U.N. events, warning Colombian officials in Bogotá that the meeting would violate the terms of the limited visa under which Petro had been admitted. Colombian delegates interpreted the U.S. statements as a threat that Petro could be arrested if he proceeded, and the meeting was cancelled. A senior State Department official said "a visa is a privilege, not a right"; Petro's U.S. visa had been revoked the previous fall after he criticized U.S. support for Israel and urged American soldiers to refuse President Trump's orders.
Federal judge rules USCIS freeze on immigration processing for 39 travel-ban countries unlawful
U.S. District Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. of the District of Rhode Island ruled on June 5, 2026 that USCIS unlawfully froze asylum claims and immigration-benefit adjudications — work permits, green cards, and citizenship — for nationals of the 39 countries under the administration's travel restrictions. The 135-page ruling found the freeze exceeded the agency's statutory authority, was arbitrary and capricious, and masked anti-immigrant animus behind pretextual national-security claims, and ordered processing resumed.
Pentagon hires Jan. 6 convict Elias Irizarry into a sensitive DoD counterterrorism role
On June 2, 2026, the Department of Defense confirmed it had placed Elias Irizarry — who pleaded guilty to a charge stemming from the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack and, like other January 6 defendants, was later pardoned — as a political appointee in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict (SO/LIC), within its irregular-warfare and counterterrorism section. The post oversees sensitive special-operations activity and requires a top-secret clearance. The appointment drew internal alarm over entrusting someone convicted in the Capitol assault with a national-security role; the Pentagon defended the hire, calling Irizarry a "qualified, patriotic young professional."
Trump administration ordered DOJ prosecutors to stand down on criminal investigation into Venezuela's Delcy Rodriguez
In late May 2026, the Trump administration quietly directed federal prosecutors in Miami to pause a longstanding DEA-flagged criminal investigation into Venezuela's acting president Delcy Rodriguez, who has been a DEA "priority target" since 2018 over alleged drug trafficking, money laundering and gold smuggling. The Associated Press reported the directive was intended to avoid disrupting the administration's post-Maduro Venezuela stabilization strategy; a similar slowdown was applied to a parallel investigation into Colombian President Gustavo Petro. The Justice Department denied that any investigation existed to "shut down."
DOJ files its second 2026 antisemitism lawsuit against UCLA
On May 26, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice sued the University of California for the second time in 2026, alleging UCLA was "deliberately indifferent" to Jewish and Israeli students during pro-Palestinian encampment protests in spring 2024, in violation of Title VI. The administration had earlier sought more than $1 billion in fines against the university before a federal judge intervened, and several DOJ attorneys have resigned from the underlying investigation, telling reporters the case was "fraudulent," a "sham," and driven by pressure to "find" evidence against UCLA.
Trump DOJ moves to release Biden's private ghostwriter recordings to Heritage Foundation
The Trump Justice Department reversed the prior administration's position and gave notice it will release audio recordings and transcripts of former President Joe Biden's interviews with ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer — material gathered during special counsel Robert Hur's classified-documents investigation — to the conservative Heritage Foundation and the House Judiciary Committee on June 15, 2026 unless a court intervenes. Biden sued the Department on May 26, 2026 to block the release, arguing the recordings contain private conversations, including about his late son Beau's death.
DOJ scrubs Jan. 6 prosecution releases, erasing records of pleas and convictions
In late May 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice mass-deleted news releases from its website detailing federal prosecutions of Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol-attack defendants — including guilty pleas, jury verdicts, and prison-sentence announcements covering portions of the roughly 1,600 cases, with assaults on Capitol and D.C. Metropolitan Police officers and seditious-conspiracy convictions of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders among the purged set. The DOJ's rapid-response social-media account defended the takedown as removing "partisan propaganda" from the prior administration. The formerly accessible URLs now return "Page not found" errors.
FBI moved to interview Milwaukee police and Wisconsin election officials in DOJ 2020-election reinvestigation
In May 2026, FBI agents working for a Trump-administration Justice Department probe of Wisconsin's 2020 presidential election moved to interview Milwaukee Police Department officers who had been posted at polling places and the city's central ballot-counting site on Election Night 2020, and sought interviews with current and former Milwaukee election officials and Wisconsin Elections Commission deputy administrator Robert Kehoe. The Wisconsin effort extended a multi-state federal campaign — already underway in Georgia, Arizona, and Michigan — to reinvestigate Joe Biden's 2020 wins despite audits, recounts, and court rulings that found no widespread fraud. Election-law experts described the interviews as intended to intimidate election officials, noting that the federal statute of limitations for 2020-election conduct had expired.
Federal agencies refused records to the DOGE data-access oversight investigation; GSA blocked inspection of converted offices and a Starlink install
The Washington Post reported on May 18, 2026 that multiple federal agencies are refusing to produce records for an active oversight investigation into how the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) obtained access to sensitive federal data and systems. At the General Services Administration, senior officials blocked investigators from examining at least six offices DOGE had converted into bedrooms and from inspecting Starlink satellite equipment installed at the agency. The pattern of refusal sits on top of a January 2026 dismantling of the executive branch's principal internal oversight infrastructure — the dismissal of 18 inspectors general and the heads of the Office of Special Counsel and Office of Government Ethics — which removed many of the watchdogs that would otherwise have compelled compliance.
Trump administration ran 67M+ voter registrations through the DHS SAVE database for noncitizen and deceased-voter checks ahead of the midterms
Associated Press reporting on May 17, 2026 (carried by PBS NewsHour, the Philadelphia Inquirer, HuffPost, and ABC News) documented that the Trump administration has run at least 67 million voter registrations — predominantly from Republican-controlled states — through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's expanded SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements) database since August 2025. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services confirmed about 60 million registrations checked in a roughly one-year window, with about 24,000 flagged as potential noncitizens; the DOJ Civil Rights Division separately said about 350,000 records were flagged as possibly deceased. The SAVE program was statutorily designed to prevent improper benefit payments to noncitizens — its use for voter- roll administration is an executive-driven expansion without a corresponding statutory mandate.
The National Science Foundation suspended at least 18 UC Berkeley research grants over a disputed foreign-funding claim despite a court injunction
In early May 2026, the National Science Foundation suspended at least 18 active research grants held by University of California, Berkeley scientists, citing unspecified "foreign funding" concerns that affected researchers say do not apply to their projects. The suspensions were imposed despite a standing court injunction restricting such actions, and at least one grant had been canceled by NSF and restored by a court before being suspended again. Berkeley researchers, who have brought a class-action challenge, said they were given almost no information about what NSF considered problematic.
ICE re-arrests El Gamal family at first check-in, attempts deportation in defiance of federal release order
On April 25, 2026, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents re-arrested Hayam El Gamal and her five children at the family's first required post-release check-in in Colorado Springs, two days after U.S. District Judge Fred Biery of the Western District of Texas ordered them freed pending their asylum proceedings. ICE routed the family onto a flight bound for Michigan and told them they would be deported to Egypt; the plane reversed course mid-air only after Judge Biery and U.S. District Judge Nina Wang of Colorado issued emergency orders Saturday evening directing that the family not be removed. The mother and her five children — held at the Dilley, Texas family detention center for more than ten months and never charged with any crime — were released again just after midnight on April 26.
DHS training tells USCIS officers to weigh flag-burning, criticism of Israel, and pro-Palestinian protest against green-card applicants
On April 25, 2026, The New York Times reported the existence of internal Department of Homeland Security training materials — not previously published by DHS or USCIS — instructing officers to treat protected political speech as a discretionary negative factor in green-card and other immigration-benefit adjudications. The training names flag-burning, criticism of the state of Israel, and pro-Palestinian campus protest activity as triggers, and directs officers to escalate cases involving "potential anti-American and/or antisemitic conduct or ideology" to USCIS managers and the agency's general counsel's office.
ICE deported Colombian woman to DR Congo after Congolese officials refused her on medical grounds
On April 16, 2026, ICE placed Adriana Maria Quiroz Zapata — a 55-year-old Colombian woman with diabetes, hyperlipidemia, and hypothyroidism — on a removal flight to the Democratic Republic of the Congo two days after Congolese officials had formally refused to accept her because they could not guarantee the medical care her conditions required. On May 13, 2026, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon (D.D.C.) granted a 14-day temporary restraining order finding the deportation likely unlawful under the Immigration and Nationality Act and directing the Trump administration to facilitate her return, citing her "daily risk of medical complications, up to and including death." Judge Leon modified that order on June 5, 2026, after finding her lawyers had not established that ICE received the Congolese refusal before the flight departed. She remained in the DRC.
ICE deported Colombian man shielded from return to Colombia to DR Congo under third-country removal deal
On April 15, 2026, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed Jorge Andres Cubillos, a Colombian man who had lived in St. Cloud, Florida with his wife and four children since 2018, to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, despite a 2022 immigration judge's grant of withholding of removal that barred his return to Colombia. Cubillos was flagged after ICE lodged a detainer following his arrest on a domestic battery charge, and he was sent to the DRC as part of the first group of Latin American migrants deported there under a new U.S. third-country arrangement. He arrived to be held in a hotel near Kinshasa, separated from his family and reporting deteriorating health while authorities decided his fate.
ICE detains Iranian Ph.D. student Yousof Azizi and moves to deport him after BBC Persian commentary on U.S.–Iran war
Federal immigration agents detained Yousof Azizi, a 40-year-old Iranian Ph.D. candidate at Virginia Tech, outside his Germantown, Maryland home on April 13, 2026, and the Trump administration is moving to deport him. ICE has transferred him through facilities in Louisiana, Texas, and Arizona; his wife, his lawyers, and CAIR say the action is retaliation for his Persian-language media commentary on the U.S. war on Iran, while DHS says he misstated prior involvement with Iran's Student Basij Organization on his visa application and that his student visa was terminated after he failed to re-enroll at Virginia Tech for Fall 2025.
CDC paused more than two dozen lab tests after downsizing gutted its reference labs
In the week of April 1, 2026, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted a list of more than two dozen diagnostic tests it had paused — the largest set the agency has ever halted at once — including testing for rabies, mpox, Epstein-Barr, and varicella-zoster, as well as rare imported pathogens. Reporting tied the pause directly to the agency's downsizing: staffing fell an estimated 20-25%, with the poxvirus and rabies labs losing about half their staff and the malaria branch gutted further. HHS called the pause a "routine review," a framing the reporting on staffing losses contradicts.
DOJ charges 30 more over anti-ICE Minnesota church protest, bringing total to 39 defendants
On February 27, 2026, the U.S. Justice Department unsealed a superseding indictment in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota charging 30 additional people — bringing the total to 39 — over the January 18 anti-ICE protest at Cities Church in St. Paul. All 39 are charged under place-of-worship civil-rights statutes, including the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, with conspiring to interfere with and interfering with the free exercise of religion; the defendants include independent journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort, who say they were covering the protest as reporters. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that 25 of the 30 newly charged had been arrested, even though a magistrate judge had earlier found no probable cause to arrest several defendants, including the journalists.
Federal grand jury indicts independent journalist Georgia Fort and former CNN anchor Don Lemon under FACE Act for covering anti-ICE church protest
On January 30, 2026, federal agents arrested independent journalist Georgia Fort and former CNN anchor Don Lemon following an anti-ICE protest at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, where a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official serves as pastor. A federal grand jury in Minnesota indicted both on charges of "conspiracy against right of religious freedom at place of worship" under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act of 1994. Both journalists have maintained they were reporting on the protest, not participating in it. As of mid-May 2026, Fort reports that the legal constraints of the pending prosecution have functionally silenced significant portions of her newsgathering.
2025 Events (2)
Trump administration forces 15+ federal agencies to replace employees' out-of-office emails with partisan shutdown messaging without worker consent
On October 1, 2025, the first day of the FY2026 government shutdown, the Trump administration directed more than 15 federal agencies to replace furloughed employees' personal out-of-office email auto-replies with partisan messaging blaming Democratic senators for the shutdown, without employee knowledge or consent. At the Education Department, the deputy chief of staff for operations directly overrode personal messages with text reading "Democrat Senators are blocking passage of H.R. 5371 in the Senate."
GSA directed all federal agencies to cancel ~$100M in Harvard operating contracts, escalating political retaliation campaign
On May 27, 2025, the General Services Administration sent a letter to all federal agencies directing them to identify and cancel remaining contracts with Harvard University — approximately 30 contracts worth an estimated $100 million — and to seek alternative vendors for future services. The directive escalated the administration's retaliatory campaign against Harvard, which had publicly refused White House demands to alter its hiring, admissions, and governance practices. The contract-cancellation mechanism targeted operating agreements distinct from the $2.6 billion in research grants already frozen or cancelled since April 2025.