We are floored by the tremendous response to the note we sent yesterday, which is copied below for anyone who might have missed it.

It was a bit of a risk to send such a long email — we’re so glad that so many people are taking a few minutes to at least skim through it.

Onward!

- Robert Weissman, Co-President of Public Citizen

******

2025 has been a momentous year. To put it mildly. For the American people. For the fate of our democracy. For Public Citizen itself.

If you’ve been following our emails, you know we have sued the administration 23 times since Donald Trump returned to power. And even though the legal system tends to move very slowly, we have already achieved meaningful results in over a third of these cases (with more wins expected in the months ahead).

We’ve also told you about our multifaceted, interdisciplinary strategy for continuing to stand up to the Trump regime — in the courts, in Congress, on the streets, and more — in the coming year.

With just a few days left in 2025, we wanted to give our million-plus supporters another chance to review the significant work we did together this year and our comprehensive plan for keeping that critical work going in the new year.

In this email:
 This might be the longest email we’ve ever sent — and we’ve sent some long ones over the years. (Heck, it may well be the longest email *anyone* has ever sent you.) We don’t expect everyone to read every word — at least not in one sitting. We know it’s a busy time of year. And we know this is not the only email in your inbox.

But the threats of Trumpism — to our freedom, to our livelihoods, to the progress we’ve made as a society over decades and decades, to our democracy, to the very continuation of our country in any recognizable form — simply cannot be summed up in a few lines.

And we think you deserve to know more, not less, about the serious and consequential work we are doing together to confront those threats, to stand up to Trump and his assorted henchmen and sycophants, to do everything we can to save our country.

So take in what you can today, and come back to this note when you have a minute or two of relative downtime. (We’ll send it a few times to help folks not lose track of it.)

Since this is the most critical time of the entire year for the online fundraising that is essential to a nonprofit organization like Public Citizen, please consider donating today if you can.

Anything you can chip in — $5 or $25, $50 or $100, $500 or even more — will make a difference.

CONTRIBUTE NOW

Or join our popular Monthly Giving program (if you haven’t already) and YOUR DONATION WILL BE MATCHED DOLLAR-FOR-DOLLAR each month for a full year. There’s no better way to help make sure we have the ongoing financial resources to fight Trump day after day after day.

If you’ve donated to Public Citizen already, thank you. If a donation is not right, we understand. Either way, thank you for being part of Public Citizen — including by reading emails like this one.

OK, on to a very long but also very important message ...

23 LAWSUITS AND COUNTING

Public Citizen has filed 23 lawsuits against the regime since Donald Trump returned to power. There will be more to come in the year ahead, but we wanted to give you an update on all the cases so far.

First, one important note: Lawsuits against the federal government can move slowly. Both sides are given a lot of time to submit and respond to filings. With the Trump administration acting so recklessly, this deliberate pace can be frustrating, to say the least. That’s why seeking temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions is a key part of our strategy in many cases.

Most of our lawsuits against the regime have not yet reached the point of a final ruling. But in many of these cases, we have succeeded in stopping, or at least reducing, the damage that Trump is trying to inflict. And when these cases are ultimately decided, we of course believe we should prevail.

Here’s an as-quick-as-we-can-make-it recap of each of our 23 lawsuits so far, starting with the most recent and working back from there.

LAWSUIT #23 — CONSUMER PROTECTION
DATE FILED: December 5, 2025
WHY WE SUED: To stop Trump from completely defunding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
BACKGROUND: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was established after the 2008 financial crisis to keep everyday Americans from getting ripped off by Big Banks. (Public Citizen played a major role in creating the CFPB.) Trump put one of his top lieutenants — Russell Vought, a primary architect of the infamous Project 2025 manifesto — in charge of the Bureau. Vought is refusing to comply with a law that requires him to request funding for the CFPB from the Federal Reserve.
WHERE THINGS STAND: We filed a motion for summary judgment — meaning we asked the court to issue a final ruling right away (because the administration is doing something obviously illegal) and order Vought to request funding for the CFPB as required by law.

LAWSUIT #22 — STUDENT LOANS
DATE FILED: November 4, 2025
WHY WE SUED: To prevent the Trump administration from denying student loan forgiveness to borrowers just because the regime doesn’t like the kind of work they do.
BACKGROUND: In 2007, Congress created the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program to help people who go into public service work, including: public school teachers, first responders, social workers, military personnel, librarians, government workers, people who work at homeless shelters and food banks, nurses and other employees at nonprofit hospitals, people who provide services to survivors of domestic violence, and many other kinds of workers. Under Trump’s Education Secretary — the billionaire former professional wrestling magnate Linda McMahon — the administration has decided to deny public service loan forgiveness to borrowers whose work it just doesn’t like.
WHERE THINGS STAND: The administration has until early January to file its initial response to our suit.

LAWSUIT #21 — EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION
DATE FILED: October 20, 2025
WHY WE SUED: To block a directive telling staff at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to ignore an entire category of civil rights violations.
BACKGROUND: An employment practice that negatively affects some people more than others because of traits like race, sex, age, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or disability is a form of discrimination known as “disparate impact.” Under Trump, staff at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have been ordered to stop investigating disparate impact claims.
WHERE THINGS STAND: The case was dismissed. The judge ruled that our client was not qualified to sue, but did not rule on whether the administration is acting lawfully.

LAWSUIT #20 — COMMERCIAL DRIVERS LICENSES
DATE FILED: October 20, 2025
WHY WE SUED: To challenge a rule from Trump’s Department of Transportation that prohibits asylum seekers, refugees, and DACA recipients — immigrants who are legally authorized to work here — from getting, renewing, or even keeping existing commercial driver’s licenses.
BACKGROUND: The new rule was based solely on the immigration status of the workers. There is no evidence of a safety issue or any other rational basis for barring people who have passed the written and road tests, and who have legal work authorization, from working as drivers. The administration put the rule into effect immediately, with no advance notice, directly threatening the livelihoods of 200,000 truck drivers, bus drivers, and delivery drivers. The rule will also hurt countless businesses, both large and small — as well as schools and potentially millions of American consumers — that depend on these drivers.
WHERE THINGS STAND: The court granted our motion asking it to put the rule on hold while the case proceeds.***

LAWSUIT #19 — FREE SPEECH FOR FEDERAL WORKERS
DATE FILED: October 3, 2025
WHY WE SUED: To stop the Trump administration from violating the First Amendment rights of federal workers.
BACKGROUND: With the recent government shutdown, hundreds of thousands of government employees set up “out-of-office” emails before being furloughed. But at Trump’s Department of Education — run by the billionaire former professional wrestling magnate Linda McMahon — these emails were replaced with a partisan message blaming “Democrat Senators” for the shutdown. That change was made without the employees’ consent and without notice that partisan messages were being sent in their names. In essence, they were being forced to make a political statement, whether they agreed with it or not.
WHERE THINGS STAND: We won. The court granted our motion and ordered the Department of Education to remove the partisan messages from the employees’ emails.***

LAWSUIT #18 — HEALTH RESEARCH
DATE FILED: August 21, 2025
WHY WE SUED: To restore health research grants from a critical agency within the Department of Health and Human Services.
BACKGROUND: In 1999, Congress established the Agency for Health Research and Quality (AHRQ) within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to support research into how America’s health system works, how to support patients and clinicians in choosing the best care, how to improve health by improving healthcare delivery, and more. Under the “leadership” of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., HHS has destroyed AHRQ’s capacity to process grant applications, withheld decisions on pending grant applications, and refused to spend appropriated funds.
WHERE THINGS STAND: The court ordered HHS to hold onto the funds it refused to spend — rather than return those funds to the Treasury Department — so that the funding will remain available to be spent if we win the case.

LAWSUIT #17 — JOB CORPS PROGRAM
DATE FILED: June 18, 2025
WHY WE SUED: To prevent the Trump administration from closing Job Corps centers all across the country and shutting down the Job Corps program.
BACKGROUND: Congress created the Job Corps program in 1964 to provide vocational and academic training to low-income young people. The program has continued with ongoing bipartisan support in Congress — even when Richard Nixon wanted to shrink it and Ronald Reagan wanted to eliminate it altogether. But the Trump regime, in flagrant defiance of the law, wants to suspend the program and close all 99 Job Corps centers nationwide. Public Citizen, with Southern Poverty Law Center as co-counsel, filed a class-action lawsuit challenging the administration’s unlawful attempt to close the Job Corps centers.
WHERE THINGS STAND: The court granted our motion for a preliminary injunction — meaning the regime cannot mothball the Job Corps program while the case proceeds — with the judge writing that the administration’s actions were “unprecedented” and that it “unequivocally” acted illegally in its scheme to kill the program.***

LAWSUIT #16 — HUNGER IN AMERICA
DATE FILED: June 10, 2025
WHY WE SUED: To stop the Trump regime from shutting down the National Hunger Clearinghouse and hotline.
BACKGROUND: For more than 30 years, Congress has required the U.S. Department of Agriculture to contract with a nonprofit organization to serve as an information clearinghouse for food assistance resources. Hunger Free America has held that contract since 2014, helping tens of thousands of individuals and families access food banks, soup kitchens, and government programs. But in May — with no explanation or warning — the Trump administration terminated the current contract and took no action to find another nonprofit to maintain the clearinghouse.
WHERE THINGS STAND: In response to our lawsuit, the administration complied with the law and awarded the contract to our client.***

LAWSUIT #15 — CONSUMER PROTECTION
DATE FILED: May 21, 2025
WHY WE SUED: To block Trump’s unlawful firing of members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
BACKGROUND: The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) conducts product-safety research, sets standards, and issues recalls. Under federal law, the agency has five commissioners who serve staggered seven-year terms. To ensure the CPSC’s independence, Congress stipulated that commissioners can be removed by the president prior to the end of their terms only “for neglect of duty or malfeasance in office but for no other cause.” However — with no explanation and no suggestion of neglect of duty or malfeasance — Trump illegally attempted to terminate three CPSC commissioners whose terms are not complete.
WHERE THINGS STAND: The District Court ruled in our favor, but the Supreme Court put that ruling on hold while the case proceeds (meaning the commissioners are fired — for now).

LAWSUIT #14 — WORKER HEALTH AND SAFETY
DATE FILED: May 14, 2025
WHY WE SUED: To preserve the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
BACKGROUND: The Trump regime has been quietly dismantling the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), which protects workers in high-risk industries like mining, firefighting, construction, and healthcare. Under Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “leadership” at the Department of Health and Human Services, where NIOSH is housed, the majority of its staff have been fired, slated for termination, or otherwise forced out. As a result, workers throughout the country who otherwise would have been safe will get sick, hurt, and killed on the job.
WHERE THINGS STAND: We are waiting for the court to rule on the administration’s motion for the case to be dismissed.

LAWSUIT #13 — HUMAN RIGHTS
DATE FILED: April 24, 2025
WHY WE SUED: To prevent the Trump administration from shutting down offices within the Department of Homeland Security that safeguard civil rights.
BACKGROUND: Congress has created three offices within the Department of Homeland Security to make sure DHS respects civil rights and civil liberties, to help immigrants who experience problems dealing with department bureaucracy, and to monitor conditions in detention facilities. In March, DHS — under the “leadership” of Trump’s Homeland Security Secretary and self-professed dog killer Kristi Noem — announced its intention to close all three of these oversight offices and fire nearly all of their employees.
WHERE THINGS STAND: The case is proceeding.

LAWSUIT #12 — WORKER RIGHTS AROUND THE WORLD
DATE FILED: April 15, 2025
WHY WE SUED: To reverse the administration’s abrupt and unlawful cancellation of critical international labor rights programs.
BACKGROUND: The Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) protects workers and businesses in the United States from unfair competition by companies and governments that violate workers’ rights to free association and collective bargaining, that use forced labor or child labor, or that otherwise violate labor rights to gain an unfair advantage in the global marketplace. In March, the Trump regime terminated all of ILAB’s cooperative agreements, with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) being run by Elon Musk insisting that the administration would not spend funds Congress specifically appropriated to combat unfair labor practices and to support workers’ rights abroad.
WHERE THINGS STAND: The case is proceeding.

LAWSUIT #11 — CLIMATE CHANGE & ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE
DATE FILED: April 14, 2025
WHY WE SUED: To restore key environmental data the Trump regime scrubbed from various government websites.
BACKGROUND: Shortly after the Trump regime took over in January, it started removing interactive pages related to climate change and environmental justice from the taxpayer-funded websites of various agencies — including the Department of Energy, the Department of Transportation, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. We filed suit on behalf of the Sierra Club, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and others.
WHERE THINGS STAND: We are waiting for the court to rule on the administration’s motion for the case to be dismissed.

LAWSUIT #10 — GOVERNMENT TRANSPARENCY
DATE FILED: April 8, 2025
WHY WE SUED: To stop the Trump administration from keeping its decisions about how to spend taxpayer dollars secret.
BACKGROUND: Trump put a man named Russell Vought — a primary architect of the infamous Project 2025 manifesto — in charge of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). By law, OMB is required to publicly post information about the funds allocated to each federal agency. This is known as the Public Apportionments Database. But under Vought’s leadership and in clear violation of the law, OMB took that database offline and told Congress it would stop maintaining the database altogether. The Public Apportionments Database is one of the most important tools we have for monitoring how the government spends taxpayer money — including whether the administration is flouting Congress’ constitutional authority over government spending (the “power of the purse”).
WHERE THINGS STAND: In response to our lawsuit, the court ordered the administration to restore the apportionments database while the case proceeds. Although OMB has appealed, the information is now back online.***

LAWSUIT #9 — EDUCATION IN AMERICA
DATE FILED: April 4, 2025
WHY WE SUED: To challenge the Trump regime’s dismantling of the Institute of Education Sciences.
BACKGROUND: The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) is a semi-independent division within the Department of Education that conducts, supports, and disseminates high-quality, evidence-based research about education in America. In February, the Department of Education — run by the billionaire former professional wrestling magnate Linda McMahon — began dismantling IES by cancelling dozens of contracts for research studies and support services vital to the agency’s functioning. In March, roughly 90% of IES employees were notified that they would be terminated.
WHERE THINGS STAND: After we sued, the administration announced that it would not cancel access to a key research database as it had planned to do. We are waiting for the court to rule on the administration’s motion to dismiss the case.

LAWSUIT #8 — TAXPAYER PRIVACY
DATE FILED: March 7, 2025
WHY WE SUED: To prevent the IRS from illegally sharing taxpayer data with DHS and ICE.
BACKGROUND: Like other workers, undocumented workers are required to pay income taxes. The Internal Revenue Service is legally required to treat their tax records, like those of every other taxpayer, as private and confidential unless disclosure is specifically allowed by law. No law permits the IRS to disclose tax records for immigration enforcement purposes. But the Trump regime — specifically the Department of Homeland Security along with Immigration and Customs Enforcement — wants to access tax data to support its mass deportation agenda. This is not just about the rights of undocumented workers: Congress enacted taxpayer privacy laws in response to misuse of IRS records during the presidency of Richard Nixon.
WHERE THINGS STAND: The judge agreed that sharing tax information for civil immigration enforcement is not permissible. But, accepting the administration’s claim that it would share such information only for use in criminal investigations, the judge denied our motion for a preliminary injunction. We have appealed that ruling.

LAWSUIT #7 — CONSUMER PROTECTION
DATE FILED: February 13, 2025
WHY WE SUED: To stop the Trump administration from eliminating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
BACKGROUND: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was established after the 2008 financial crisis to keep everyday Americans from getting ripped off by Big Banks. (Public Citizen played a major role in creating the CFPB.) Trump has openly declared his intent to “totally eliminate” the CFPB, and he put one of his top lieutenants — Russell Vought, a primary architect of the infamous Project 2025 manifesto — in charge of the Bureau. But the administration cannot lawfully dismantle a federal agency created by statute. Any attempt to do so is in defiance of the Constitution’s separation of powers. That hasn’t stopped Vought from trying to fire the vast majority of CFPB employees, among other schemes to shut the Bureau down.
WHERE THINGS STAND: The judge granted our motion for a preliminary injunction blocking Vought from summarily firing CFPB staff and cancelling CFPB contracts while the case proceeds. We are waiting for an appeals court ruling on the administration’s appeal of that preliminary injunction. We recently withdrew as co-counsel in this case to focus on Lawsuit #23 (above).***

LAWSUIT #6 — FOREIGN AID
DATE FILED: February 10, 2025
WHY WE SUED: To block Trump’s illegal and inhumane foreign aid freeze.
BACKGROUND: On his very first day back in office, Trump issued an executive order directing agencies to freeze foreign assistance that supports humanitarian efforts worldwide, including $4 billion that was supposed to be spent by the end of September. The administration then froze, and later terminated, a large swath of grants for foreign assistance work. Only about 1% of the federal budget — just one penny out of every dollar — goes to foreign aid. With that relatively modest expenditure, American aid helps millions and millions of people all across the world who are facing disease, famine, illness, malnutrition, and oppression.
WHERE THINGS STAND: In February, the court ordered the government to pay all the grantees’ invoices for work they had already done. More recently — after a great deal of back-and-forth in this case, some of which made national headlines — we won a preliminary injunction in the lower court requiring the administration to spend appropriated funds before September 30. The Supreme Court stepped in and allowed the administration to impound (meaning not spend) about $4 billion. The case is proceeding.***

LAWSUIT #5 — GOVERNMENT TRANSPARENCY
DATE FILED: February 7, 2025
WHY WE SUED: To keep “DOGE” out of the Department of Education
BACKGROUND: Operatives from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) being run by Elon Musk infiltrated Department of Education databases that include financial information of thousands of student-loan applicants and their families.
WHERE THINGS STAND: After the court indicated that our clients could not show harm needed to pursue the case, we closed the case voluntarily.

LAWSUIT #4 — GLOBAL HUMANITARIAN CRISIS
DATE FILED: February 6, 2025
WHY WE SUED: To preserve the U.S. Agency for International Development.
BACKGROUND: Shortly after returning to power, Trump tried to dissolve the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in clear disregard for the law and the Constitution. Elon Musk later bragged that he had spent a weekend “feeding USAID into the wood chipper.” Established by Congress in 1961 — when John F. Kennedy was president — USAID provides life-saving food, medicine, and support to much of the rest of the world. In January, though, Trump’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, illegally ordered USAID workers to stop doing their jobs, froze the agency’s funding, and prepared to lay off or fire nearly all employees. With USAID in disarray, medical clinics, soup kitchens, refugee assistance programs, and countless other critical projects across the globe could not operate.
WHERE THINGS STAND: We initially won a temporary restraining order to stop Trump from carrying out this global humanitarian nightmare. But the judge later lifted it, allowing the regime to terminate the majority of USAID’s employees, and granted the administration’s motion to dismiss the case. We have appealed that ruling.

LAWSUIT #3 — PUBLIC HEALTH
DATE FILED: February 4, 2025
WHY WE SUED: To restore critical health information the Trump regime deleted from government websites.
BACKGROUND: Based on a directive from the administration to scrub information related to gender or “DEI” from government websites, essential public health agencies — like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) — removed vital information that doctors and researchers all across the country were using to treat patients, monitor diseases, advance medical discoveries, and save lives. In some instances, information that had been publicly available going back to the 1990s had vanished.
WHERE THINGS STAND: We won. The court issued a final ruling in our favor, requiring the agencies to restore the deleted information, which they have done.***

LAWSUIT #2 — FINANCIAL PRIVACY
DATE FILED: February 3, 2025
WHY WE SUED: To limit “DOGE” infiltration of the Treasury Department.
BACKGROUND: The U.S. Treasury Department possesses sensitive personal and financial information for millions and millions of Americans who send money to or receive money from the federal government. Federal laws protect such information from improper disclosure and misuse — including by barring disclosure to individuals who lack a lawful and legitimate need for it. But instead of protecting Americans’ private information as required by law, Scott Bessent, Trump’s jillionaire Treasury Secretary, allowed operatives from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) being run by Elon Musk access to the data.
WHERE THINGS STAND: We are waiting for the court to rule on our motion for summary judgment in the case.

LAWSUIT #1 — “DOGE” WAS ILLEGALLY STRUCTURED
DATE FILED: January 20, 2025
WHY WE SUED: To prevent “DOGE” from operating in violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act.
BACKGROUND: Within literally one minute of Trump taking office on January 20, Public Citizen filed suit in federal court alleging that the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) being run by Elon Musk was not in compliance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act, a law that requires federal advisory committees to consist of members with a fair balance of viewpoints, to make meetings open to the public, and to make records and work product available to the public.
WHERE THINGS STAND: With DOGE mutating into something other than an advisory committee, we voluntarily closed this case.

We know that was a lot. So here’s a recap of the recap:

In 8 of these 23 cases — those marked with three asterisks (***) at the end of the entry — we have either won the case outright or gotten a ruling, such as a preliminary injunction, that impedes whatever bad thing the regime is trying to do while the case proceeds.

That’s over a third of the lawsuits we have filed so far! And — in terms of what we noted above about the pace at which these kinds of cases tend to make their way through the courts — it’s still early. We fully expect more progress in some of these suits.

Given the powerful forces and legal realities we’re up against, this is something that everyone who supports Public Citizen can and should take pride in.

Are these lawsuits alone enough to fully defeat Trump and MAGA? Of course not. But are they a meaningful part of the pushback that is the only chance we have to collectively save our country? No doubt about it.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Here are answers to some questions we’ve gotten about our lawsuits and other ways Public Citizen is confronting the Trump regime.

HOW DO YOU DECIDE WHICH CASES TO FILE?

To file a lawsuit against the government, first we need to identify a law the government has violated. Then we need to identify a person or organization who was, or is very likely to be, harmed by that violation and is a good fit to serve as the “plaintiff” (i.e. who we represent in the case). When we see something wrong that the Trump regime is doing, that’s what we look at first: Does that wrongful action violate the law, and who is directly impacted?

Both of those things can sometimes be straightforward and sometimes be tricky. Many outrageous things aren’t actually illegal. And many people and organizations are hesitant to go up against the Trump regime in court.

In addition, the courts have set a high bar for what someone needs to show to be able to sue — what the courts refer to as “standing.” For example, we’re all taxpayers, but being a taxpayer generally does not give someone the right to sue in federal court, even when their money is being wasted — on the grounds that the harm is too generalized.

Other factors also go into deciding which cases to file: How important is a particular issue? Does the wrongful behavior involve an area of law in which Public Citizen has expertise? How are courts likely to rule, given the signals coming from the Supreme Court?

Lastly, there are real constraints on our budget and staffing. Public Citizen never has, and never will, take money from Uncle Sam or Big Business — our independence and integrity are not for sale. Our work is powered by everyday folks chipping in if and when they can. Since Trump returned to office, we have seen a marked uptick in donations. We can’t thank our supporters enough for that. We also know they are not a bottomless reserve of cash. As a nonprofit organization that has been fighting vastly better funded corporate and government entities for over half a century, we prize our ability to budget and operate efficiently and responsibly.

THE TRUMP REGIME IS DOING SO MANY OUTRAGEOUS AND DESTRUCTIVE THINGS, AND IT SEEMS TO BE GETTING AWAY WITH SO MUCH. WHY CAN’T THE COURTS STOP MORE OF IT?

Many of the cruel and damaging things the administration does are, unfortunately, legal. For example, Congress recently voted to strip Medicare benefits from 15 million people. When the administration implements that horrific policy, it will be legal — not right, but legal.

Another constraint is that with some of the unlawful things the administration has done, nobody is legally in a position to sue. For example, the Constitution’s “emoluments clause” makes it illegal for a president to accept foreign gifts without congressional authorization. But when Trump takes a foreign gift, there may not be anyone who has “standing” to sue him over it (meaning anyone who was directly harmed).

And, of course, even when we and others are able to file cases against the regime in federal court, we don’t always prevail. There are a lot of reasons for this, and every case is different, but one reason is that judges — whether appointed by Democratic or Republican presidents — tend to give the federal government the benefit of the doubt.

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER YOU FILE A LAWSUIT AGAINST THE ADMINISTRATION?

In normal times, lawsuits against the government tend to move slowly. We start by filing a “complaint” in court. Sixty days later, the government files its response. Then both sides file motions arguing why they should win and responses to each other’s motions. After several more months, the judge issues a ruling. Then the losing side might appeal. Some of our cases still move at that kind of pace.

But in many of the cases in Trump’s second term, we are trying to stop things that can’t be fixed after the fact or where the people we represent are experiencing harm right now. As a result — much more frequently than ever before — we are asking judges to rule on a very expedited basis, filing motions for “temporary restraining orders” (TROs) or “preliminary injunctions.” If a judge grants such a motion, the government must pause its unlawful activity while the case proceeds. To get a preliminary injunction, we have to persuade the judge that (1) we are likely to win in the end and (2) without immediate relief, the plaintiff will experience harm that cannot be repaired later. Even so, the administration appeals most preliminary injunctions.

It can all get quite jumbled, but, eventually, things do get sorted out. We do our best to keep you apprised about key developments along the way. One thing to keep in mind is that filing a lawsuit is the beginning, not the end — after we announce a case, there is tons more work for our lawyers to do.

WHAT ABOUT THE SUPREME COURT?

Public Citizen has argued more than 60 cases before the Supreme Court, during Democratic and Republican administrations. In addition, we file briefs and often provide assistance to one side or the other in a significant number of other cases that come before the Court.

The Supreme Court has issued many rulings we vigorously disagree with, including Trump v. United States, which provides broad criminal immunity to the president for almost any action taken while serving in the Oval Office.

In this second Trump term, the Supreme Court has issued quite a few rulings on its “shadow docket” (the name people have given to cases filed as emergency motions asking the Court to act quickly, such as requests to put preliminary injunctions on hold). Most of the shadow docket decisions this year have favored the Trump administration. However, we won one of the very first shadow docket decisions the Court issued on challenges to Trump actions.

Most cases that we file — or that anyone files — do not reach the Supreme Court. The government has accepted defeat in some cases that we and others have won. And the Court may decline to review some cases the administration asks it to take up.

When we lose cases at the Supreme Court (or in any court), it hurts — because the stakes are often so high. But that does not necessarily mean the fight is over. We can go to Congress and try to get laws changed. We can push for a future administration, or even the Trump administration itself, to reverse its policies. These are not pathways that will give fast results, but we don’t quit just because we got an adverse court ruling.

WHAT CAN BE DONE WHEN THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION DEFIES COURTS?

When the administration does not follow a court’s order, we go back to the court, tell the judge what’s going on, and ask for a more specific order or a decision holding the relevant government official in contempt of court. The Trump regime has been more willing to mislead or slow-walk decisions than any we have ever encountered. It sometimes takes multiple efforts to get the administration to comply. While the regime has defied rulings on a few occasions, it is, for the most part, following court orders.

WHY AREN’T WE SUING DONALD TRUMP, OR THIS OR THAT OFFICIAL IN HIS REGIME, INDIVIDUALLY?

Longstanding legal principles make it impossible in many areas of law, and very difficult in other areas of law, to hold individual government officials personally accountable. Beyond that, the Supreme Court’s ruling last year in Trump v. United States conjured out of thin air a broad presidential immunity from criminal prosecution.

Our lawsuits can do — and are doing — a lot to block bad policy or actions. They are not, however, a way to impose personal accountability on Donald Trump.

WHY DOES IT SEEM LIKE TRUMP IS ABLE TO SUE WHOEVER HE WANTS WHENEVER HE WANTS?

Donald Trump is extremely litigious. For decades, Trump has used lawsuits — or the threat of lawsuits — to bully business rivals; city, state, and national governments; media companies; people he owes money to; people and groups who have been critical of his loathsome and illegal behavior, and others.

What is perhaps most disturbing now is that Trump is continuing to use lawsuits to bully adversaries. Not only is he weaponizing the Department of Justice, he is bringing dubious lawsuits against universities and media companies. And in case after case, those entities have agreed to settlements, including significant monetary payments. But here’s the thing: They aren’t settling because they think they would lose the lawsuits on the merits, they’re settling because they have business before the government and are afraid of retaliation by Trump.

That’s a very serious problem of authoritarianism, but it’s not a problem rooted in the judicial system. When people fight back in court against Trump, they are often able to win.

OUR PLAN FOR 2026

The American people are confronting an authoritarian onslaught with no precedent in our nation’s history and no guarantee that our democracy will survive in any meaningful form.

In pursuit of his dictatorial ambitions, Donald Trump and his regime are prosecuting and seeking to imprison opponents. They are deploying thousands of masked agents to abduct “immigrants” (and people they think look or sound like certain kinds of immigrants). They are putting heavily armed military personnel on our nation’s streets to intimidate American citizens. They are in effect extorting the media, major law firms, and universities. They are conducting illegal military strikes that they seem hellbent on turning into a reckless and unconstitutional war. They are forcing through unprecedented congressional gerrymanders and actively undermining the voting rights of millions of citizens.

The Trump regime has stripped healthcare from 17 million people to fund even more tax cuts for the ultra wealthy, blocked job-creating investments in renewable energy and showered benefits on Big Oil, all but shuttered the agency designed to protect consumers from financial ripoffs, gutted our public health institutions, and buddied up to the Big Tech goliaths it once claimed to oppose.

Along the way, Trump and his family have cashed in on the presidency to add billions to their personal wealth. Trump tore down an entire wing of the White House — which had stood for almost 125 years — so that he can erect a gilded ballroom sponsored by corporate titans eager to prostrate themselves before a wannabe king.

In one particularly obnoxious and revealing example of Trump’s perception of himself as some kind of “great leader,” he has affixed his name to the storied Kennedy Center here in Washington, D.C. It’s the kind of thing you associate with Big Brother from George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

We could go on about the countless cruel, stupid, and destructive things that the Trump regime — along with its adherents in other branches of government at the national, state, and local levels — are doing, or attempting to do, as they try to distort America into a grotesque version of what it could and should be.

Public Citizen is marshalling all our resources in a multifaceted, interdisciplinary, “soup to nuts” strategy to prevent a worsening authoritarian slide and to pave the way for a more democratic, just, and sustainable future.

CONFRONTING THE AUTHORITARIAN MOMENT

This is a scary time. It helps to acknowledge that. But it is also a time when we can’t let our fears overwhelm us or lead us to withdraw, become isolated, or give up. We must combine a strategic savvy with an empowering hopefulness.

As we meet the authoritarian challenge, these are some of our guiding principles:

1. There is no single, definitive solution to defeat authoritarianism and defend democracy. We need lots of approaches.

2. Authoritarians are driven and so too must we be persistent, relentless, and resilient. We won’t win every battle, but even those we lose can serve to further inform and inspire our broader resistance.

3. Like authoritarians before them, key figures in the Trump regime are spreading fear, despair, and hopelessness with the intent to isolate, divide, and disempower pro-democracy forces. Our job must be to bring people together — figuratively and, as much as possible, literally — so that we feel our collective strength and power.

4. Our anti-authoritarian, pro-democracy movement needs as many people — and as many different kinds of people, from all sectors of society — as we can possibly get.

5. Political leadership is vital, but politicians tend to follow more than lead. It is up to us to make our political leaders stand strongly against Trump’s authoritarianism.

6. Our values and policies are not just moral, they are also good politics, supported by overwhelming majorities of Americans (even if it sometimes feels otherwise).

7. Solidarity is perhaps our most important virtue in confronting authoritarianism. That means aggressively supporting those targeted by the regime, building unified responses to authoritarian impositions, and being fully committed to caring for each other.

These understandings underpin our anti-authoritarian program, which aims to wield the considerable strengths of Public Citizen in every way we can to defend democracy.

TAKING THE TRUMP REGIME TO COURT AGAIN AND AGAIN

We are challenging a lawless regime that disregards the Constitution with a bevy of lawsuits to uphold basic American values and the rule of law. Public Citizen has unmatched expertise and skill in areas relating to constitutional and administrative law. We are responding to the moment with an aggressive litigation strategy.

To date, we have filed 23 lawsuits against the administration since Trump returned to power (with several more imminent). These lawsuits have:
Others of our cases aim to preserve the jobs of the independent members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission; protect the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; block wrongful sharing of immigrants’ personal information between the IRS and the Department of Homeland Security; preserve the civil rights office at the Department of Homeland Security; and more.

We have many more cases in the works, and we are prepared to litigate against the just-beginning deregulatory blitz involving everything from environmental to worker safety protections.

As we look to the coming year, we anticipate filing even more lawsuits than we did in 2025.

Of course, exactly what we do will follow from the administration’s abuses, but these are some of the areas we are monitoring for more litigation, investigation, and advocacy:

Trump’s Grift
Trump’s shady business dealings in this term are even more egregious than in his first term. We are exploring litigation opportunities around a range of schemes that benefit Trump and his family financially, including a possible plan to siphon off a share of government drug purchases.

Health Care
We are adding staff to monitor the chaos at the Department of Health and Human Services under Robert F. Kennedy Jr. We anticipate even more health policy-focused litigation in the coming year. We are tracking efforts to weaken Medicare and shovel money to for-profit insurers, among other key issues.

Corporate Subsidies
The cronyism of the Trump regime and its readiness to deploy taxpayer dollars to subsidize allied corporations knows no bounds. We are monitoring a major new initiative to throw massive subsidies at coal plants, tech companies, and more.

Immigrant Rights
The regime’s rabid cruelty toward immigrants means that anti-immigrant animus is informing all kinds of governmental activity — not just involving ICE, but also at the IRS, the Department of Education, the Department of Labor, and more. We’ll build on our existing docket of cases challenging the administration’s illegal and unconstitutional actions targeting immigrants.

Open Government
We expect to file a significant number of lawsuits under the Freedom of Information Act, forcing the disclosure of information that the regime is trying — illegally — to keep secret.

In the almost two dozen cases we have filed so far, we have a strong record of success at the district court level and a more mixed record on appeal. We know we are going to lose cases we should win, and we know it would not be enough even if we won every case.

At the same time, we know these cases make a difference. We are scoring substantive wins that mitigate the authoritarian overreach perpetrated by the administration, protecting rights, blocking deregulation, overcoming censorship, and preserving agencies.

Along with the substantive wins, these lawsuits are inspiring hope — hope that authoritarianism can be stopped, that fighting makes a difference, that something can be done. In this way, our litigation is about more than the cases themselves. It is about overcoming fear, isolation, and hopelessness — so that people connect and mobilize and build the power we need to defeat Trump and Trumpism.

MOBILIZING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

Some 7 million people took part in over 2,700 “No Kings” rallies in October. Millions and millions more were there in spirit and participating remotely by watching coverage on television or online. It was, remarkably, the largest single day of protest in American history.

Public Citizen played a central role in making it happen, as one of the core “No Kings” organizing groups. We did everything from identify and assist local protest leaders to recruit co-sponsoring organizations (nearly 300!). We helped develop the protest themes, drive turnout, manage logistics, and speak to the national media.

This was just one of more than a dozen national days of action we have helped lead, plan, and coordinate — including the two previous major nationwide mobilizations against Trump’s authoritarianism, “Hands Off” (in April) and the initial “No Kings” (in June).

We provided the organizational backbone for the July 17 “Good Trouble Lives On” actions on the anniversary of Rep. John Lewis’s death. More than 100,000 people participated in 1,600 events across the nation. We played similar roles for worker-led Labor Day actions, nationwide protests against Texas’s extreme gerrymandering, snap events around the country to support the demand for health care and an end to illegal impoundments in the government shutdown fight, and more.

In parallel, we are carrying out other organizing activities. These include a “Disappeared in America” campaign around people kidnapped by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, state-based efforts to win policies pushing back against Trump’s authoritarianism, and the mobilization of health workers.

As we look toward the coming year, we are coordinating with allies on nascent plans for new mobilizations that will demonstrate the growing power, energy, and reach of the anti-authoritarian movement.

We are also organizing to energize and mobilize diverse sectors of society in the fight against authoritarianism through all kinds of creative approaches. We have invested in a new campus organizing effort, with the objectives of massively increasing visible youth opposition to the Trump regime and of pressing universities not to capitulate to Trump’s authoritarian demands. We are coordinating with faith leaders, attorneys, veterans, farmers, and more to display their communities’ opposition to Trump.

Does all this organizing and protesting matter? You bet it does.

We know that organization and mobilization are crucial to building and expressing opposition to authoritarianism; to creating a sense of empowerment, hope, and solidarity; to pressing elected officials and civil society leaders to stand stronger against authoritarian encroachments.

With “No Kings” and other actions, the American people are showing that resistance to the Trump regime is coming from every corner of this great country. We are demonstrating our commitment to nonviolence, our patriotism, our anger at the needless harm Trump is inflicting on the nation, our rejection of his dictatorial ambitions, and — not least — our sense of humor.

The Trump regime wants to intimidate opponents and chill dissent. They want people to be scared and isolated. With “No Kings” and other actions, we join together to feel, and feed, our power — in overwhelming numbers.

Politicians pay attention. The nationwide demonstrations increasingly stiffen their spines to resist Trump. Even the politicians who kiss up to Trump are starting to have doubts, because they know the massive turnout and overwhelming energy demonstrates the growing rejection among the American people of Trump and the MAGA agenda.

Ultimately, mass mobilizations remind us of the power of solidarity and love. We have great challenges ahead to defeat Trump’s authoritarianism. But — animated by the spirit and energy of “No Kings” — we will prevail.

BUILDING MASSIVE NATIONWIDE COALITIONS

One of Public Citizen’s strengths is as a convening organization — we help bring together and spearhead literally dozens of coalitions, with the understanding that we build power when we join together. This has never been more important than it is right now.

We are one of the co-founders of the Not Above the Law coalition with 150-plus organizations. And we co-founded and house staff for the Declaration for American Democracy (DFAD) coalition, which comprises over 260 organizations. The Not Above the Law coalition brings together not only advocacy organizations and grassroots activists, but policy experts, legal minds, faith organizations, and others from across the political landscape to lead the charge against authoritarianism. DFAD is helping lead efforts against Trump’s schemes to subvert elections and is one of the key groups laying plans to win transformative democracy legislation.

We have helped to bring groups together to stand in solidarity against the Trump regime’s efforts to attack nonprofits that oppose authoritarianism. Under the guise of attacking “domestic terrorism” and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), the White House has issued presidential proclamations signaling plans to strip away tax-exempt status, cancel government grants, and even criminally prosecute organizations opposing it. In response, with other leading organizations, we created a solidarity statement that over 3,700 discrete organizations joined — demonstrating that nonprofit groups will stand together against threats from the regime. It stands in notable contrast — unfortunately — to the responses from some law firms, universities, and others.

Other examples of our coalition work include wide-ranging efforts to educate and organize allies around deregulatory plans of the administration; to coordinate among multiple tables opposing the tax and budget reconciliation bill; and to challenge an administration proposal to enable churches to participate directly in electoral politics.

As we move into the next year, and Trump’s authoritarianism intensifies, our coalitions will be more important than ever. We will invest in and strengthen these diverse coalitional efforts across and connecting multiple sectors. At a time when no organization alone can hope to do enough and when isolation equals vulnerability, these permanent and ad hoc coalitions and networks build civil society power and enable coordination and solidarity.

EXPOSING AND CONFRONTING CORRUPTION

Impeccable investigative research is a Public Citizen calling card. And there has never been more to investigate than there is now. Our research team is laser focused on administration conflicts of interest and corruption, as well as the soft treatment given to corporate wrongdoers. Our intent is to pierce Trump’s populist facade.

We’ve published cutting-edge investigative reports showing (just to list a few examples):
In November, we released a blockbuster report on the corporate and mega-wealthy “donors” to Trump’s ballroom bonanza. That report showed, among other things, that the 24 known corporate sponsors of the ballroom received a combined $279 billion in federal contracts in the previous five years. This was a front-page story in The Washington Post and reverberated nationwide.

The importance of these investigative efforts is that they illustrate the lie of the Trump administration (and authoritarians generally). Trump is not fighting for everyday Americans. He is advancing an agenda of cronyism and corruption, in service of himself and his super-rich donors.

AN AGENDA FOR EVERYDAY AMERICANS

Alongside our efforts to counter Trump’s authoritarianism, corruption, and cronyism, Public Citizen is zooming forward with our traditional, pre-Trump campaigns on issues like:
We have detailed work plans in each one of these areas and dozens more.

Part of Trump’s appeal has been his claim that he understands people’s economic pain and sense of disempowerment. His remedies are a fraud, but he is tapping into a legitimate sense that the system is rigged against everyday Americans. We need to provide a real and heartfelt agenda — policies, tone, and messaging — that recognizes the pain and offers real solutions.

IN CONCLUSION

This is a moment with no parallel in American history. Not only are the stakes as high as they could possibly be, but there is also no proven script to follow. We hope this note helps you get a sense of our plans and our ongoing work, but of course we can only do so much in a single (very long) email.

Please know that our team is working relentlessly across more projects, on more issues, and in more coalitions than we can recount here. We face this moment humbly but also with a sense of gravity and recognition that Public Citizen — that’s the two of us, our staff, and over a million fellow Americans from all walks of life and every corner of this country — can make, and is making, a real difference.

What you and Public Citizen are doing together matters. What hundreds of other organizations, big and small, are doing matters. What millions upon millions of our fellow Americans are doing matters. We believe that to our core. We take solace in that. And we draw inspiration from that. We hope you do, too.

Since this is the most critical time of the entire year for the online fundraising that is essential to a nonprofit organization like Public Citizen, please consider donating today if you can.

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If you’ve donated to Public Citizen already, thank you. If a donation is not right, we understand. Either way, thank you for being part of Public Citizen — including by reading emails like this one.

For progress,

- Lisa Gilbert & Robert Weissman, Co-Presidents of Public Citizen
 
 
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