The Department of Justice announced the creation of the “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” described by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche as “a lawful process for victims of lawfare and weaponization to be heard and seek redress.” The fund, worth $1.776 billion (a transparently political statement in spite of declarations to the contrary), was established as part of a settlement in which President Trump and his family dropped their $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns.

The fund is structured to potentially compensate nearly 1,600 individuals charged in connection with the January 6 Capitol attack, as well as others who claim harm from what the administration characterizes as political prosecution under prior administrations. A five-member commission, appointed by the Attorney General, would issue monetary awards by majority vote. Trump’s attorneys filed to dismiss the IRS case in a way that would bar the presiding judge from analyzing whether the settlement was legally valid or from dismissing it. A group of 93 members of Congress filed a brief teeing up a legal challenge to the arrangement.

The fund represents a significant escalation in the administration’s effort to use the Justice Department as an instrument of political reward rather than independent law enforcement. Following news that Trump accuser E. Jean Carroll is now under criminal investigation by the department, it’s a reminder of how much Trump has pushed the Department away from its long-vaunted independence.

The War Powers Resolution of 1973 requires a president to get approval from congress — or withdraw U.S. forces — within 60 days of notifying Congress that fighting has begun. We hit that deadline  on May 1, 2026, after Trump launched the war with Iran on February 28 with no authorization. Rather than comply with the law, Trump wrote to congressional leaders claiming the hostilities had “terminated” — a claim his own administration contradicted by launching a new military operation. He also suggested the War Powers Resolution is unconstitutional and said he would not seek authorization because it had never been sought “before” by other presidents — a claim that is false.

Congress, meanwhile, has put up no resistance to Trump’s ongoing actions in the Iran War. A War Powers Resolution failed in the House of Representatives after it resulted in a tied vote, a clear signal that Congress is not planning to exercise its constitutional prerogatives in this area. The result is a war that Congress has tacitly endorsed, one that the president continues to wage unilaterally in spite of its deep unpopularity with the American people.

Two converging developments over the past two weeks have sharpened the threat to free and fair elections ahead of November. First, though courts have continued to push back on the DOJ’s unprecedented effort to build a national voter database, the threat remains acute. Judges in Maine and Wisconsin dismissed the DOJ’s attempts to force turnover of state voter rolls, the latest in a string of defeats that now spans Arizona, California, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon, and Rhode Island. The DOJ has sued at least 30 states and the District of Columbia seeking detailed voter data — including dates of birth, addresses, driver’s license numbers, and partial Social Security numbers — with the stated goal of checking for noncitizen voters. Courts have found no legal basis for the demands, and voting rights advocates have warned the administration’s true aim is to lay groundwork for challenging or overturning unfavorable election results. The DOJ has appealed or refiled in states where it has lost — a pattern that, regardless of outcome, creates confusion and anxiety among voters already underway in primaries.

The latest chapter in this ongoing effort comes from the US Postal Service, which proposed a rule on May 29 that would require states to provide mail-in ballot voter lists.  At its core, this new rule is an implementation nightmare designed to create chaos for already overburdened election officials. And that chaos is the point. The Constitution explicitly vests the authority to run elections in the states and in Congress, not the executive branch or a logistics agency. USPS has no legal mandate to compile a centralized “Mail-In and Absentee Participation List” containing individual voter names, addresses, and serialized tracking data. This is an extension of their voter data grab efforts and a set-up for post-election disruption. The rulemaking openly states the database is designed to “facilitate law enforcement efforts” — enabling federal officials to cross-reference mailed versus received ballot counts and flag “issues” for investigation. The administration is building a centralized federal repository that partisan actors can use to mount frivolous, hyper-targeted post-election challenges while also creating the technical infrastructure to disrupt ballot delivery in real time.

Second, the Supreme Court’s April 29 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais has triggered an ongoing sprint to redraw congressional maps across the South before November. Republicans in Louisiana, Tennessee, Florida, Mississippi, and Georgia all moved toward mid-decade redistricting in the weeks since the ruling gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. News out of Alabama, where a court overruled the new map the legislature tried to put in place, and South Carolina, where the state senate decided against drawing a new map altogether, suggest that not every state might institute new maps before November. Even so, this gerrymandering push is unprecedented and dangerous.

On Fox News Sunday, 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.

The investigation into the Southern Poverty Law Center, when combined with the news that former FBI Director James Comey was being indicted for a second time and that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is still trying calling for investigation Senator Mark Kelly, is a reminder of the sweeping efforts this administration has made to silence dissenting voices. These three investigations are all targeting different pillars of dissent, from civil society to politicians of the opposing party, but each of them meets the three-part standard we laid out in our tracker on retaliatory actions:

1. Evidence suggesting political interference with an investigation
2. Political opponents being treated differently than those similarly situated
3. Courts or other legal validators questioning the actions of the DOJ

These actions, then, are designed not to enforce the law, but to punish those who speak out against the administration. They are efforts to quash dissent and the ability to participate freely in the public square before an election, and they aren’t the only examples.

News also broke this week that the DOJ wants to know more about who on Reddit and X is criticizing ICE, and we also know that the president is working to push a government-wide NDA on all federal employees. The administration is working on all fronts to silence dissenting voices both inside the government and in the broader public square.

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.

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.

A court ruling this month offered partial protection for one set of vulnerable institutions while exposing the limits of judicial relief. A federal judge ruled on May 12 that ICE may not conduct warrantless arrests at more than 5,000 churches that have claimed sanctuary status, barring enforcement within 100 feet of those properties without prior approval from agency headquarters or an immediate threat to safety. But the ruling’s scope is limited to those 5,000 churches, and ICE is still claiming the right to make warrantless arrests in other sensitive circumstances — including homes. The DHS Home Entry Memo — which Protect Democracy and the ACLU are challenging in federal court — continues to authorize ICE officers to forcibly enter homes to make arrests without judicial warrants.

The administration is simultaneously expanding its reach through agreements with state and local law enforcement — paying financial incentives to local police departments under the 287(g) program and incorporating immigration checks into routine traffic stops across an expanding array of jurisdictions — thereby extending the enforcement dragnet well beyond communities near the border.