In the Press

“If he can convince people of the lie that our legitimate government institutions were all wielded in corrupt ways to persecute him, he can convince people that he’s justified in turning those same institutions back on those he claims are responsible for that,” said Ian Bassin, the executive director of Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan organization that advocates legal protections against authoritarianism.

Many analysts have said that this would comprehensively wreck the professionalism of the federal bureaucracy. But there’s another, less-remarked-upon danger here as well: a corruption of government information that could leave the public awash in propaganda and make it easier for Trump’s corporate cronies to hijack the rulemaking and governing process for personal gain.

Amanda Carpenter, a former staffer to Republican Sens. Jim DeMint and Ted Cruz, who now works for Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan nonprofit, told USA TODAY it will be easier for Trump to get underlings to go through with a prosecution − even without strong evidence − because checks on the president’s power will be weaker.

Attorneys from the Texas Civil Rights Project and the Protect Democracy Project are representing the plaintiffs.

The trial is scheduled to end Sept. 17.

In a separate lawsuit, the plaintiffs in 2023 settled with San Marcos police in a case accusing officers of violating the Ku Klux Klan Act by ignoring 911 calls from the bus passengers.

The harassment of the Biden-Harris campaign bus was a deliberate act of physical intimidation, organized and carried out with a political motive. If American elections are to be held peacefully and democratically, the perpetrators of such actions need to be held accountable. And indeed, several of the Biden campaign’s personnel who were present that day filed a federal lawsuit seeking damages against Trump Train drivers. (The attorneys litigating the case for the plaintiffs include lawyers for the nonprofit organization Protect Democracy, on whose board of advisors I serve.)

“The violence and intimidation that our plaintiffs endured on the highway for simply supporting the candidate of their choice is an affront to the democratic values we hold dear as Americans,” said co-counsel John Paredes, a litigator for Protect Democracy, one of the groups bringing the case.