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jan 6 insurrection
Trump's Lawless, Insidious Insurrection Continues
Creation of a $1.776 billion fund to compensate individuals who claim to have been victims of the government’s “weaponization” of law represents the culmination of the president’s six-year effort to claim that he won an election that he so clearly lost.
May 26, 2026
During the past week, the Trump administration announced three separate but connected decisions that are so outrageous they may lead to his comeuppance. Collectively, they reward lawlessness and undermine the very foundations of our democracy.
The first of these was the announcement by the Department of Justice that a $1,776,000,000 fund was being established to compensate “victims” of the previous administration’s “weaponization” of the law by “unfairly investigating and punishing them.” As a quid pro quo, Mr. Trump agreed to drop his questionable $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service for what he charged was their role in failing to stop a contractor from leaking one of his tax returns to the media in 2019. To cap off the president’s trifecta, the DOJ added an amendment to the “victims’ fund” stating: “The United States releases, waives, and forever discharges [Trump, his family, his business] and is hereby forever barred and precluded from prosecuting or pursuing, any and all claims [that] have been or could have been asserted [by the IRS against them or] related or affiliated individuals.”
As problematic as each of the three may be, it’s the ways they are connected that is most troubling. The Trump lawsuit against the IRS was set to be dismissed by the judge who was hearing the case. She had argued that it was improper for the White House to sue a federal agency it controlled, as this put the administration in the position of being both plaintiff and defendant. The decision was to be announced by May 20th, forcing the White House to act to drop their suit before it was dismissed. It was, therefore, no coincidence that the DOJ announced on May 18th and 19th both the “victims’ fund” and the ban on any future IRS action against the president.
But the story doesn’t end there as serious questions must be asked about the entire IRS affair. The contractor who leaked the document has already been arrested and convicted for his crime. There was no connection between his admittedly criminal act and the IRS as an institution. Therefore, the president’s lawsuit against the institution and the $10 billion award in damages he was seeking was both unwarranted and excessive. Like many of Mr. Trump’s previous suits against media outlets, it was meant to intimidate in order to seek some sort of settlement.
The DOJ’s handling of the matter validated the judge’s concern that the head of government couldn’t sue an agency he oversees (not to speak of trying to secure a massive payout from that agency). It simply didn’t pass the smell test. Finally, the DOJ addendum giving the president, his family, and business a free pass from any further tax audits, investigations, or prosecution for any claims against them raises the obvious question: What tax problems are they covering up?
The creation of the $1.776 billion fund to compensate individuals who claim to have been victims of the government’s “weaponization” of law represents the culmination of the president’s six-year effort to go beyond just defending the violent insurrectionists of January 6th, 2021. This is important to Mr. Trump, because by defending them he is defending his claim that he won the 2020 election and, therefore, the violent mobs that stormed the Congress weren’t lawbreakers. They were heroes and persecuted martyrs who deserve compensation.
In this regard, it’s important to examine what Trump has done.
Just over six years ago we witnessed the horrifying scenes of violent mobs storming the US Capitol in an effort to stop Congress from certifying outcome of the 2020 election. They struck out at Capitol police who were doing their jobs protecting the members of Congress and the building itself. Some were injured; a few died. The scenes of what these rioters did were broadcast to a shocked nation.
Because the president egged on the mob, he was impeached by Congress. Ten Republican members of Congress voted to impeach Trump and seven Republican senators voted to convict and remove him from office.
After Mr. Trump’s relentless campaign mobilizing his supporters to demand loyalty, most of the 17 senators and representatives who voted against him are gone. They either resigned because the heat was too great or were defeated by Trump loyalists.
And the polls tell this story. In 2021, most Republicans were outraged by the mob violence. A poll from January of 2021 found that 78% of Trump supporters disapproved of the insurrection. A more recent poll reveals a dramatic shift that has taken place. When asked to describe the events of January 6th, 2021, 60% of Republicans say they were “people participating in legitimate political discourse.” Only 18% said that it was “people participating in a violent insurrection.”
Believing that he had set the stage to allow for his complete rewriting of history, the president, who had already commuted the sentences and/or pardoned more than 2,000 of the insurrectionists, now felt emboldened to have the government reward them for their blind loyalty to him. But in doing so, he may have pushed too far. Republican senators who consider themselves law-and-order, fiscal conservatives recoiled in horror over what a few called “utterly stupid,” “morally wrong,” and an abuse of power. Instead of acting to pass some of Mr. Trump’s legislative priorities, they criticized the president’s actions and took an early recess.
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From Jan. 6th to Maduro Kidnapping, the Threat Trump Poses Is Existential
Trump’s blatant lawlessness will haunt America and the world for a long, long time.
Jan 06, 2026
Trump’s domestic and foreign policies — ranging from his attempted coup against the United States five years ago, to his incursion into Venezuela last weekend, to his current threats against Cuba, Colombia, and Greenland — undermine domestic and international law. But that’s not all.
They threaten what we mean by civilization.
The moral purpose of civilized society is to prevent the stronger from attacking and exploiting the weaker. Otherwise, we’d be permanently immersed in a brutish war in which only the fittest and most powerful could survive.
This principle lies at the center of America’s founding documents: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. It’s also the core of the post- World War II international order championed by the United States, including the UN Charter — emphasizing multilateralism, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.
But it’s a fragile principle, easily violated by those who would exploit their power. Maintaining the principle requires that the powerful have enough integrity to abstain from seeking short-term wins, and that the rest of us hold them accountable if they don’t.
Every time people or corporations or countries that are richer and more powerful attack and exploit those that are not, the fabric of civilization frays. If such aggression is not contained, the fabric unravels. If not stopped, the world can descend into chaos and war. It has happened before.
We now inhabit a society and world grown vastly more unequal. Political and economic power are more concentrated than ever before. This invites the powerful to exploit the weaker because the powerful feel omnipotent.
Every time people or corporations or countries that are richer and more powerful attack and exploit those that are not, the fabric of civilization frays. If such aggression is not contained, the fabric unravels. If not stopped, the world can descend into chaos and war. It has happened before.
The wealth of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, Charles Koch, and a handful of others is almost beyond comprehension. The influence of Big Tech, Big Oil, and the largest aerospace and defense corporations extends over much of the globe. AI is likely to centralize wealth and power even more. The destructive power of the United States, China, and Russia is unmatched in human history.
Trump — enabled by cowardly congressional Republicans and a pliant majority on the Supreme Court — has turned the U.S. presidency into the most powerful and unaccountable agent of American government in history.
Put it all together and you see the threat.
A direct line connects Trump’s attempted coup five years ago to his capture of Nicolas Maduro last weekend. Both were lawless. Both were premised on the hubris of omnipotence.
That same line extends to Trump’s current threats against Cuba, Colombia, and Greenland.
You see much the same in Putin’s war on Ukraine. In Xi’s threats against Taiwan. In global depredation and monopolization by Big Tech and Big Oil. In Russian, Chinese, and American oligarchs who have fused public power with their personal wealth.
But unfettered might does not make right. It makes for instability, upheaval, and war.
History shows that laws and norms designed to constrain the powerful also protect them. Without such constraints, their insatiable demands for more power and wealth eventually bring them down — along with their corporations, nations, or empires. And threaten world war.
Trump’s blatant lawlessness will haunt America and the world — and civilization — for years to come.
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FBI Purge Includes Official Who Tried to Protect Jan. 6 Investigators
"These firings are part of a broader campaign to weaponize federal law enforcement and replace highly experienced public servants with political hacks eager to carry out Trump's retribution agenda," said one coalition.
Aug 07, 2025
This is a developing story… Please check back for possible updates...
Amid accusations that U.S. President Donald Trump is turning the Department of Justice into his "personal weapon," multiple media outlets reported Thursday that his administration is ousting at least three top officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The FBI purge includes Brian Driscoll, who served as acting director earlier this year; Walter Giardina, a special agent involved in the investigation of Trump's ex-trade adviser, Peter Navarro; and Steven Jensen, acting director in charge of the Washington Field Office, unnamed sources told outlets including The Associated Press, The New York Times, and Fox News.
Jensen was involved in investigating the Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and Driscoll—as head of the FBI before Trump's appointee, Kash Patel, was confirmed—resisted the adminsitration's demand that he turn over a list of agents who worked on probes of the insurrectionists, who were promptly pardoned when Trump returned to power.
Highlighting that battle over the list of agents, the AP detailed:
Emil Bove, the then-senior Justice Department official who made the request and was last week confirmed for a seat on a federal appeals court, wrote a memo accusing the FBI's top leaders of "insubordination."
Responding to Bove's request, the FBI ultimately provided personnel details about several thousand employees, identifying them by unique employee numbers rather than by names.
The three men were reportedly told to leave the FBI by Friday. According to Fox, one source described the removals as "retribution," and multiple people told the outlet that "more ousters are expected at the bureau by the end of the week, though the exact number of personnel included, or their roles at the bureau, are unclear."
The Times noted that "the fresh ousters reflect, in part, a long-running effort by senior Trump administration officials to dismiss agents and prosecutors who worked on cases related to the president. Those have included the investigation into his 2016 campaign's ties to Russia during his first term, the investigation into his handling of classified documents after he left office, the investigation into his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and the investigations of rioters at the Capitol."
The Not Above the Law coalition's co-chairs—Brett Edkins of Stand Up AmericaPraveen Fernandes of the Constitutional Accountability Center, Lisa Gilbert of Public Citizen, and Kelsey Herbert of MoveOn—issued a statement blasting Trump and Patel.
The reported ouster "shows just how far they are willing to go to punish anyone who they deem disloyal," the coalition leaders said. "The end result will be an FBI that puts settling political scores ahead of combating crime and protecting our rights."
"These firings are part of a broader campaign to weaponize federal law enforcement and replace highly experienced public servants with political hacks eager to carry out Trump's retribution agenda," they added. "The message to remaining FBI personnel is chilling: Bend the knee to Trump, or you're next."
The reporting came on the same day that U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) announced that Patel approved his "request for the FBI to assist state and local law enforcement in locating" Democratic state legislators who fled Texas to block the approval of a gerrymandered map for the 2026 cycle sought by Trump.
Earlier this week, The Guardian spoke with scholars and former prosecutors who sounded the alarm about the president and Attorney General Pam Bondi, whom legal experts have accused of "serious professional misconduct that threatens the rule of law and the administration of justice."
The Department of Justice, which includes the FBI, "is now being used as a personal weapon on behalf of Trump to a degree that is without precedent," said Peter Shane, who teaches constitutional law at New York University. "Trump has a team of sycophants and enablers at DOJ. They're not behaving the way office holders sworn to uphold the Constitution are expected to behave."
Randall Eliason, a former federal prosecutor now at George Washington University, similarly told the newspaper that "Trump is using the Justice Department to target his perceived enemies and pursue his political goals."
"The guiding principle for any DOJ prosecutor has always been loyalty to the Constitution and the rule of law," Eliason added. "Under this administration, it appears that the primary job requirement for any DOJ prosecutor, up to and including the attorney general, is loyalty to Donald Trump."
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