How We’re Fighting for Democracy on America’s 250th Birthday

The United States is turning 250 this year. It has been two and a half centuries since the summer of 1776, when the founders penned the Declaration of Independence and established a new democratic country. As we mark this anniversary, it is worth returning to the ideals in the document itself — especially as many of our leaders champion the authoritarianism that our founders fought so hard to escape.

Just after the Declaration of Independence’s most famous line — “we hold these truths to be self-evident” — is a note about how governments are supposed to work. “Governments … deriv[e] their just powers from the consent of the governed,” it says. “Whenever any form of Government becomes destructive … It is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it.”

The federal government only has power because its citizens give it power. If the government does not work in the people’s interest, they have the right — the responsibility — to challenge it.

Today, the Trump administration is not acting in most Americans’ interests. Let’s go over some of the ways the Trump administration has tried to consolidate power, and how American Oversight is fighting to hold it accountable.

Access to presidential records

In April, DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) issued a sweeping opinion that claimed the Presidential Records Act (PRA) is unconstitutional. The PRA is essential for holding the president accountable: It makes it possible for Americans to understand what is happening behind the scenes in the president’s office. As it stands, OLC’s opinion could block public access to hundreds of millions of records, including more than 700 million White House emails. That would make it harder to track corruption, conflicts of interest, and abuses of power — all things the public needs to know to hold their president accountable.

We, along with the American Historical Association, quickly filed suit to stop the administration from disregarding the PRA. In May, a judge granted an emergency order in that case, which could prevent the destruction or loss of presidential records. The partial injunction requires the White House Office, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and all advisers to the president to comply in full with the PRA.

Protecting free elections

Trump has peddled conspiracy theories around elections for years, and he has been clear that he wants to change the rules of elections to ensure Republican wins in the future. He is trying to make it harder for people to vote, installing election deniers in positions of power, and undermining faith in our elections. Bad actors on the state level are also helping carry out this agenda, skirting or modifying election laws to suit their goals.

We’re using public records requests to uncover attempts at election subversion, especially the Trump administration’s plans to use the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database to remove people from voter rolls. We’ve uncovered emails that show the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) wanted to incorporate all states’ driver’s license data into SAVE, and obtained an agreement between DHS and the Texas secretary of state that allows the Texas office to use SAVE to verify voters’ citizenship.

We’re also using litigation to stop bad actors. After years of undermining elections in Georgia, a member of that state’s election board resigned following our lawsuits. We are also suing to learn more about the conspiracy theorist Heather Honey’s work on “election integrity” at DHS. In 2025, we sued DHS, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the Social Security Administration for records that could reveal how the administration and the agencies are using and coordinating on SAVE.

Making sure Americans can dissent

Trump has been using his office and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to attack the people who stand up to him. He has deployed the National Guard to half a dozen cities to quash protests, and he pushed for investigations and indictments of numerous officials who have either opposed his policies or investigated his actions. These attacks undermine our democratic principles: Protests are protected by the first amendment, and investigations into abuses of power are essential to ensure representatives are acting in the best interests of the people who elected them.

We’ve filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and litigation to investigate Trump’s use of the federal government to attack his opponents. We’ve submitted dozens of FOIA requests about deployment of the National Guard to cities, and obtained some internal documents about the impact in Washington, D.C. and Memphis, Tenn.

We have used requests and lawsuits to learn more about the people in the Trump administration who are using their positions to go after Trump’s perceived enemies. Last year, following reports that DOJ attorney Ed Martin concealed or destroyed official communications to hide the activities of the Weaponization Working Group, we demanded urgent federal action. We also filed multiple FOIA requests with DOJ for communications, directives, and text messages involving Martin. When the agency refused to grant expedited processing for those requests, we sued.

In August 2025, we sued the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) for failing to release records that could shed light on the Trump administration’s firing of Lisa Cook, the first Black woman confirmed to the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors. That lawsuit could also provide important answers about whether FHFA director Bill Pulte used his position to accuse the president’s critics, including Cook, of mortgage fraud.

Tracking surveillance

The Trump administration has pursued aggressive surveillance policies — like data sharing, social media tracking, and facial recognition software — to target immigrants and suppress protests. This threatens freedoms that are written into our founding documents: The Declaration of Independence establishes a fundamental right to privacy, and the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution protects Americans from unreasonable searches and seizures.

People need to know what information the government is collecting and how it is using it. This March, we teamed up with the Campaign Legal Center to sue the Trump administration for failing to release records on its policies targeting visa holders’ social media activity and restricting voter registration access at naturalization ceremonies. Last year, following reports that DOGE employees were using AI to monitor the communications of government employees, we sent DOGE multiple FOIA requests for its communications, guidance, and policies surrounding its use of AI surveillance programs. We’ve also sent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) multiple FOIA requests to learn more about how it is using facial recognition and other mass surveillance technologies.

Fighting for vulnerable communities

For as long as the U.S. has existed, we have fought about who is included when we say there should be “liberty and justice for all.” Immigrants and LGBTQ+ people have felt this acutely in recent years as the Trump administration has targeted different facets of life for each community.

Immigrants

The second Trump administration aggressively targeted immigrants since day one, increasing ICE funding by 800 percent and escalating arrest and deportation efforts. ICE is now detaining tens of thousands of individuals, raising serious concerns about conditions, abuse, and deaths in custody.

We have uncovered details about the dramatic increase in force, including the unreported death of a U.S. citizen who is now known to be Ruben Ray Martinez. We are suing the administration for information on its practice of using federal law enforcement officers to conduct checks on unaccompanied immigrant children, and for records reflecting recent deaths in immigration custody. We’ve also filed FOIA requests for information about any directives or protocols held by ICE or Customs and Border Patrol regarding immigration enforcement and deportation efforts, including at sensitive locations.

We are also tracking the way the Trump administration is sharing government data with ICE to target immigrants, including Medicaid data from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), taxpayer data from the Internal Revenue Service, and traveler data from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). The HHS and TSA cases are still pending, but in the IRS case we were able to force the government to reveal the data it was sharing. A federal judge later barred the practice. 

LGBTQ+ people

Trump campaigned to return to the White House on promises to roll back LGBTQ+ people’s rights and protections and, since returning to office, has issued multiple executive orders and directives focused on that goal. He has targeted transgender rights by mandating the official government recognition of only two unchangeable biological sexes, banning transgender people’s participation in the military, and rescinding access to gender-affirming health care or some insurance coverage for those services.

We’ve been investigating these attacks on LGBTQ+ rights, including the lack of gender-affirming care in prisons, the regulatory crackdown on products like chest binders, the rollback of anti-discrimination protections, and the ban on using federal funding for gender affirming care for kids. We have uncovered records that provide a behind-the-scenes look at how these measures have created confusion and impacted existing programs. 

250 years ago, the United States was founded with a bold and important vision. Today, it’s up to us to fight to make sure that vision isn’t taken away by any presidential administration. American Oversight will continue to fight for accountability and to protect our democracy.