On June 29, the Supreme Court overturned Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, the 91-year-old precedent that has allowed Congress to shield independent agency leaders from removal except “for cause.” In a 6-3 ruling, the Court found that Trump’s 2025 firing of Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter without cause was lawful. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Roberts dismissed the precedent as “a result in search of a rationale” and declared that “subordinates who exercise the president’s power are subject to removal by him.”

The ruling’s reach extends far beyond the FTC. For decades, Humphrey’s Executor has protected roughly two dozen agencies designed to operate above partisan politics — including the FCC, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the National Transportation Safety Board. Stripping their leaders of removal protections clears the way for a president to purge regulators who resist his agenda and replace them with loyalists, collapsing the independence that allows these institutions to police elections, markets, communications, and safety without fear of retaliation.

In a separate same-day ruling, the Court drew one line the administration didn’t get to cross: a 5-4 majority blocked Trump’s attempt to immediately remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook over disputed mortgage-fraud allegations, finding the Fed uniquely insulated from at-will removal and that Cook hadn’t been afforded due process.

Justice Sotomayor’s dissent in the Slaughter case, warning the decision “promises only chaos,” underscores what’s now at stake. The leaders of federal agencies, with the exception of the Fed, are now much more beholden to the president.

On Fox News Sunday in mid-May, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche claimed without evidence that “there’s a ton of evidence that the 2020 election was rigged” and that the Department of Justice has “multiple investigations going on in Arizona, in Georgia, in Fulton County, Georgia” focused on determining whether “the right people voted.” Blanche offered no specific evidence to support the claim, acknowledged that the investigation has taken more than five years because supposed election-riggers are “very good at hiding what they’re doing,” and declined to provide any timeline for results.

No court, audit, or law enforcement investigation — including those conducted by officials appointed by and loyal to the Trump administration — has produced credible evidence that the 2020 election was stolen or rigged. What makes Blanche’s statement distinct from prior disinformation is its source: it is the sitting head of the Department of Justice, using the authority of that office to validate claims the legal system has repeatedly rejected.

As Protect Democracy’s Executive Override report documents, the administration has made election denialism official federal policy — using investigative and enforcement powers to manufacture the appearance of fraud and flood the public with disinformation designed to erode confidence in the 2026 midterms. Blanche’s Fox News appearance fits squarely within that strategy. The report warns that conspiracy theories and bogus investigations serve not only to deceive voters now, but to lay the groundwork for the administration’s final gambit: contesting or overturning 2026 election results that the administration doesn’t like. Lending the DOJ’s institutional credibility to election disinformation accelerates both goals simultaneously.

On June 23, just days after a Memorandum of Understanding ended the president’s unilateral war with Iran, the Senate adopted a resolution directing the president to remove military forces from the conflict. The resolution was adopted on a bipartisan basis, signaling both that the war does not have support in Congress, and that Congress is willing to reassert its constitutional authority of war powers, at least in this case.

A day later, though, after the president made his opposition to the resolution clear to Republican senators in person, the Senate reversed course, rejecting a similar motion. The Senate has now left Washington for a two-week recess.

This fitful attempt to push back against the president is a stark reminder both of how much the Congressional muscle to assert its war powers has atrophied, and of how much control the president still has over his party. Trump was able to prosecute this war from beginning to what could be its end without meaningful Congressional involvement, and even after hostilities have ceased, he is still demanding a free hand to act as he sees fit.

The April 25 shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner and the subsequent exchange of fire between a gunman and the Secret Service outside the White House have sharpened concerns about political violence in the run-up to the 2026 midterms. Rather than treating the attack as a shared civic danger, the White House moved within days to assign blame to Democrats and the media, claiming their rhetoric had “helped to legitimize this violence.” That framing omits a documented pattern running in the other direction: an NBC News review found that Trump’s public attacks on perceived political enemies generated threats against at least 22 officials on both sides of the aisle.

Research consistently finds that election periods are correlated with heightened risk of political violence, and data shows that threats and harassment against local officials surge during election years — most frequently targeting election officials and poll workers, with an additional uptick in threats against judges over election-related issues. Swatting incidents, online death threats, and increased protection measures for officials connected to politically charged cases have all intensified since the Correspondents’ Dinner shooting, raising concerns inside federal law enforcement about the trajectory of the threat environment as the midterms approach.

It’s important to remember, too, that there are things we can do to lower the temperature:

• We can condemn political violence, regardless of whether it’s directed at figures we support or vehemently disagree with.
• We can intentionally avoid spreading false narratives, fueling conflict, or providing platforms to extremists.
• We can use legal tools to hold those accountable who spread dangerous misinformation, put others at risk, or threaten those engaged in the political process.
• We can all collectively choose to obtain our information from trusted, official sources, avoiding the contentious and inaccurate information that often circulates online.

Deployments of ICE agents to cities across the country began in earnest in the summer of 2025, and a year later, they are set to ramp up again. White House border czar Tom Homan has said that one of those surges will target New York City, explaining that the surge would happen because Governor Kathy Hochul is no longer allowing state and local law enforcement to double as immigration officials across the state.

While Homan acknowledged that he “had to” surge ICE into the city, he also made it clear that he doesn’t want to repeat what happened in Minnesota. “You will not see a Minnesota. I will not let Minnesota happen,” he said.

This comes as tensions have continued to escalate around the Delaney Hall, an immigration detention center in New Jersey. The facility has been the site of protests over the conditions inside, and those protests have sometimes led to armored officers using tear gas and batons to beat back the protesters. More than 80 people have been arrested.

The Supreme Court on June 29 in a ruling in Watson v. Republican National Committee that states may lawfully accept and count mail ballots that are postmarked by Election Day and received within a grace period. This ruling affirms a longstanding and lawful practice: counting ballots that were cast on time, even when they arrive shortly after Election Day. This practice is fully consistent with federal law, and the decision appropriately recognizes the authority of states to determine their own election rules so long as they do not conflict with federal law. 

The ruling is also a meaningful setback for the president’s strategy to disrupt the 2026 midterms, as it means that states will be allowed to count ballots as they have in previous cycles. Above all, the ruling is a reminder that mail voting is a secure, convenient option for tens of millions of Americans, including military service members, American citizens overseas, voters in rural areas and those with disabilities or health concerns. By upholding existing grace periods, the Supreme Court has preserved settled practices and avoided an outcome that could disenfranchise voters across the country due to delays outside their control.

Two significant developments this week show that the administration’s use of federal power to suppress civic participation is facing real resistance.

A federal judge blocked DOJ subpoenas targeting Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and other state officials, finding the “dominant purpose” of the subpoenas was to “coerce” and “harass and retaliate against” officials who had criticized the administration’s immigration enforcement — not to investigate any actual crime. The ruling is the latest in a series of court decisions finding that the Trump Justice Department conducted politically-motivated investigations aimed more at harassing opponents than examining potential crimes.

On a separate front, ABC is publicly fighting back against the FCC’s investigation of “The View” and threats to its broadcast licenses — actions the network’s own Democratic commissioner called “naked political retribution.” ABC began airing on-air ads this week urging viewers to submit public comments before a July 6 deadline, taking the fight directly to the public.