Evidentiary Tier 5
Interpretive and Normative Assessment
17 entries
The 2025 Tariff Regime: Economists Called It the Largest Tax Increase in Decades as Markets Crashed and Consumer Costs Surged
Financial Fraud and Manipulation | 2025 - 2025
Beginning in his second term in January 2025, President Donald Trump imposed a series of tariffs on imported goods that economists across the political spectrum described as the largest effective tax ...
Undermining the Peaceful Transfer of Power: Second Inauguration as an Act of Political Dominance (January 2025)
Democratic Norm Violations | 2025 - 2025
On January 20, 2025, Donald Trump was inaugurated for a second term as President of the United States. The inaugural address and the executive actions that followed departed from the historical norms ...
Allen Weisselberg's Serial Legal Proceedings and the Unanswered Question: Why No Trump Family Member Was Individually Charged Despite Organizational Convictions
Criminal Matters | 2021 - 2024
Allen Weisselberg, the longtime chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, was the central figure in three separate criminal proceedings between 2022 and 2024, each of which raised questions a...
Obstruction of the Peaceful Transfer of Power: Trump's Refusal to Concede in 2020-2021 Contrasted with Biden's Full Cooperation in 2024
Democratic Norm Violations | 2020 - 2025
The peaceful transfer of presidential power following an election is one of the foundational norms of American democracy, observed in every transition since John Adams yielded the presidency to Thomas...
Using the State of the Union for Partisan Spectacle: The Rush Limbaugh Medal of Freedom and the Erosion of Bipartisan Ceremony in 2020
Abuse of Official Power | 2020 - 2020
On February 4, 2020, President Donald Trump delivered his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress. The evening was marked by several departures from the traditional bipartisan charac...
Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017: Legislation Marketed as Worker Relief That Primarily Benefited Corporations and the Wealthy
Labor, Contractor, and Employment Abuses | 2017 - 2025
On December 22, 2017, President Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) into law, the most significant overhaul of the federal tax code since 1986. Trump and congressional Republicans promoted t...
The Unprecedented Scope of Criminal Charges Among Trump Associates: A Pattern of Convictions, Pardons, and Obstruction Across Multiple Investigations
Criminal Matters | 2017 - 2024
Between 2017 and 2024, an extraordinary number of people in Donald Trump's political and business orbit were criminally charged, convicted, or pleaded guilty to federal and state crimes. No prior Amer...
Refusal to Participate in Traditional Presidential Functions: Skipping the Kennedy Center Honors and Using Ceremonies for Political Purposes
Democratic Norm Violations and Institutional Erosion | 2017 - 2019
During his first term, Donald Trump declined to attend the Kennedy Center Honors for three consecutive years, from 2017 through 2019, becoming the only president in the ceremony's history since its in...
Boycotting the White House Correspondents' Dinner: Trump Broke a 36-Year Presidential Tradition and Ordered Administration Officials to Stay Away
Democratic Norm Violations | 2017 - 2019
During his first term, President Donald Trump refused to attend the White House Correspondents' Dinner in 2017, 2018, and 2019, becoming the first president to skip the event since Ronald Reagan misse...
Executive Orders Used to Bypass Congress: Implementing Policy Through Unilateral Presidential Action
Democratic Norm Violations | 2017 - 2021
During his first term in office, Donald Trump signed executive orders at a pace that exceeded most of his modern predecessors, using presidential directives to implement policies that Congress had dec...
The Normalization of Presidential Dishonesty: How 30,573 False Claims in One Term Changed the Relationship Between the Presidency and Truth
Democratic Norm Violations | 2017 - 2026
The Washington Post Fact Checker maintained a database of false or misleading claims made by Donald Trump throughout his first presidential term, from January 20, 2017, through January 20, 2021. The f...
The Phantom Infrastructure Plan: Four Years of Promised Investment That Never Materialized
Documented Falsehoods | 2016 - 2021
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly promised a massive infrastructure investment plan. In an October 2016 speech in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, he outlined a plan to "launch a...
Veterans Fundraiser as Debate Alternative: Using a Charitable Event for Political Advantage
Charitable and Philanthropic Abuse | 2016 - 2016
On January 28, 2016, Donald Trump boycotted the Fox News Republican presidential primary debate in Des Moines, Iowa, citing what he called biased treatment by debate moderator Megyn Kelly. As an alter...
Erosion of Church-State Separation: Bible Photo Op, 'Chosen One' Declaration, and Transactional Alliance with Christian Nationalism
Abuse of Official Power | 2016 - 2024
Throughout his political career, Donald Trump cultivated a relationship with evangelical Christian leaders and the Christian nationalist movement that blurred the constitutional boundary between churc...
The Degradation of Presidential Discourse: Profanity, Personal Insults, and the Collapse of Rhetorical Norms from the Presidential Platform
Democratic Norm Violations and Institutional Erosion | 2015 - 2026
Donald Trump introduced a level of profanity, personal insult, and crude language into the presidential platform that is without precedent in the modern era. Academic researchers, linguists, and presi...
Charity as a Stage: Trump Used Others' Philanthropic Events for Self-Promotion and Steered Charity Donations to Mar-a-Lago
Charitable and Philanthropic Abuse | 2005 - 2017
Over more than a decade, Donald Trump exhibited a documented pattern of inserting himself into other organizations' charitable activities for personal publicity, while simultaneously using his private...
The Giving Pledge Gap: Trump's Pattern of Promised Donations and Undelivered Charitable Commitments
Charitable and Philanthropic Abuse | 2001 - 2021
Despite publicly claiming a net worth of $10 billion or more throughout his presidential campaigns and presidency, Donald Trump never signed the Giving Pledge, the public commitment created in 2010 by...