Pennsylvania’s richest man contributed an undisclosed amount to President Donald Trump’s presidential transition, which raised slightly more than $14 million.
Jeffrey Yass, a billionaire GOP megadonor, appeared on a list of 46 individuals — obtained by the New York Times and published Wednesday — who helped bankroll Trump’s transition. The publication of the list came a full year after Trump publicly promised to disclose the donors.
The transition team said it spent $13.7 million, according to the Times.
Yass’ name appearing on the list of donors was not shocking, as the billionaire has frequently used his financial capital to support Republican candidates both in Pennsylvania and nationally.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who cochaired Trump’s transition team and is Haverford College’s largest donor, also donated to the transition.
“President Trump greatly appreciates his supporters and donors; however, unlike politicians of the past, he is not bought by anyone and does what’s in the best interest of the country,” Danielle Alvarez, a spokesperson for the Trump transition, said in a statement to the Times. “Any suggestion otherwise is simply false.”
There had been a back-and-forth as to whether the Trump transition team would release the names of the donors, and transition officials refused to sign an agreement that caps individual donations at $5,000 and prohibits foreign donations. The agreement with the General Services Administration would have required the publication of names of contributors and donation amount within 30 days of the inauguration.
Prior administrations, including the first Trump administration, had signed this agreement.
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker unveiled her planning process for the future of Market East earlier this month to a room packed with many of the city’s top developers, lobbyists, and business leaders.
Her news conference followed the announcement that the alliance between the Philadelphia 76ers and Comcast had plans to demolish buildings on the 1000 block of Market Street, without saying what they plan to do with the soon-to-be vacant space.
A Comcast executive’s promise to “turbocharge” development on the beleaguered corridor did not quiet dissent in the packed room from a group of historic preservationists who stood solemnly holding signs reading “No More Holes On Market Street” and “No Plan, No Demo.”
The moment captured a recurring dynamic in modern Philadelphia, a city where over 70% of buildings reportedly date to before 1960 but only 4.4% of them have a degree of protection from demolition by the Historical Commission.
Now two bills in City Council would require property owners to get a building permit for a new structurebefore they move forward with demolition.
“This bill is about putting commonsense guardrails in place,” said Councilmember Jeffery “Jay” Young, who represents much of North Philadelphia and part of Center City.
His bill, which covers his entire district, requires a building permit before a property owner can demolish a structure, with exceptions for dangerous buildings.
“It ensures property owners are prepared to move forward responsibly and that residents aren’t stuck living beside another empty lot with no timeline or plan,” Young said in a statement.
“This isn’t about slowing down development; it’s about preventing speculative demolition that destabilize blocks. This is about preserving communities,” Young said.
Councilmember Jamie Gauthier’s bill would enact similar rules for parts of University City, where higher education institutions are dominant, as part of a larger package of land-use regulations.
Builder and developer advocacy groups say the legislation is a potential new burden on a key economic sector that’s been flagging in recent years.
The Building Industry Association (BIA), the trade association for residential developers, cautioned that new regulations were especially unwelcome in a time of higher interest rates and high construction material prices, especially as Parker makes housing a centerpiece of her agenda.
“I’m not sure why Council would create more barriers for delivering new homes,” said Sarina Rose, president of the BIA and an executive with the Post Brothers development firm. “It’s a really bad time to do that. Unfortunately, some old buildings simply are not good fits for adaptive reuse.”
The BIA and its allies are backing legislation that would make it easier to demolish some older buildings for new construction.
Councilmember Mark Squilla introduced legislation the week before Thanksgiving that would weaken protections for structures nominated to the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places.
At the same time, Parker promises to pursue legislation in the next year to prompt adaptive reuse or demolition of underused buildings by offering a 20-year property tax abatement.
Demolition policy in other cities
In a city as old as Philadelphia, razing buildings is often a fraught process.
Currently the only safeguards against demolition come with a successful nomination to the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places, and in the handful of neighborhoods protected by conservation zoning overlays, property owners have to get building permits before demolition (a template for Gauthier and Young’s bills).
But given the city’s economic and demographic doldrums in the second half of the 20th century, municipal government enacted most of the demolitions of unsafe and abandoned buildings, usually in lower-income neighborhoods.
Mayor John F. Street’s Neighborhood Transformation Initiative, the centerpiece of his administration, spent half its $300 million (in George W. Bush-era dollars) on demolishing thousands of buildingsin the early 2000s.
That dynamic changed in the last decade, as low interest rates and a surge of new residents juiced real estate development to levels not seen in the city for generations. The private sector began to regularly outpace city government in demolition permits, as developers cleared the way for new projects.
Preservationists pushed back. Under Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration (2016-24), the movement demanded new policies such as a demolition review requirement. Before an applicable building could be razed, municipal authorities reviewed its historic merits and adaptive potential.
Similar policies of varying strength exist in cities from Santa Monica, Calif., to Chicago. In the latter case, it applies to buildings from before 1940 that were included in a citywide survey of historic places.
Demolition of New Light Beulah Baptist Church at 17th and Bainbridge Streets, a block below South Street.
During Kenney’s administration, a preservation task force called for a survey and demolition delay as in Chicago, but no elected officials championed the ideas.
Laws like the ones Gauthier and Young are proposing are less common but are used in municipalities like Spokane, Wash., and Pasadena, Calif. Similarregulationsexist for properties in Philadelphia’s conservation districts.
In Spokane, the regulations apply to buildings in the downtown core, those along commercial corridors and buildings on the National Register of Historic Places, which is more of an honorary designation that affords protections.
“You have to have that building permit in hand, plus you have to show us that you have the financial backing to build that replacement building,” said Megan Duvall, Spokane’s historic preservation officer. “If you also can’t show us that you have the construction loan in hand, we won’t allow you to demolish that building.”
Why City Council is acting now
The sudden renewal of interest in demolition policy began when St. Joseph’s University sold much of its West Philadelphia campus, acquired through a merger with University of the Sciences in 2022, to a charter school operator founded by student housing mogul Michael Karp.
After the sale, Gauthier proposed placing controls on the sprawling higher education footprint in her district.
As higher education comes under acute financial and demographic pressure, she fears that building sales by struggling universities could result in demolition and resale of newly vacant lots to developers without the wherewithal to complete projects or speculators with no desire to build quickly.
“The safety and quality-of-life in our neighborhoods should not be disrupted by incomplete or uncertain projects,” Gauthier said in a statement. “I believe requiring responsible development practices is a commonsense approach in today’s uncertain development market.”
Jeffery “Jay” Young outside Independence Hall.
Young’s bill covering much of North Philadelphia and parts of Center City followed the introduction of Gauthier’s legislation. Neither bill has been passed by City Council.
According to the Philadelphia Planning Commission, from January 2022 through November 2025 approximately 580 demolition permits were issued in Young’s district. The Department of Licenses and Inspections said that with a few tweaks, his proposed bill would be enforceable.
Young says his legislation was inspired by frequent calls from constituents who hate the vacant lots that dot their neighborhoods and are frustrated with promised development that never comes to fruition. Both bills exempt buildings in poor condition that are considered dangerous.
While welcoming this spate of demolition regulation, preservationists would prefer citywide policies, not district by district.
“These bills are important first steps, and this is the moment to build them into a modern, citywide framework consistent with approaches already used in several peer cities,” said RePoint, the preservation advocacy group that protested the mayor’s Market East announcement, in an unsigned statement.
Real estate industry backlash
At the same time, Philadelphia’s development industry is embarking on its own campaign to ease existing preservation rules and to push back against these new bills. Both Gauthier’s and Young’s bills have been critiqued by business groups and by the zoning lawyers who often represent developers.
“This is one-tenth of the city of Philadelphia, just based upon a political subdivision [that] changes every 10 years,” Matthew McClure, a prominent zoning attorney, said in testimony about Young’s bill before the Planning Commission. “It’s the exact opposite of planning.”
Groups including the Building Industry Association are backing a new bill from Squilla that the Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia fears will stoke more demolitions.
It would require a new 30- to 60-day window before a building nominated to the local register of historic places could be given protection, which critics believe will incentivize owners to tear down empty buildings quickly.
The mayor’s proposed 20-year property tax abatement proposal for adaptive reuse projects also allows room for demolition if buildings are considered unadaptable, which preservationists fear will bring back the wrecking ball-forward incentives of the city’s earlier abatement policies.
In the last week, groups like the Preservation Alliance have pivoted from thinking about new demolition regulations to playing defense.
“We’re still trying to wrap our heads around it all,” said Paul Steinke, the Preservation Alliance’s executive director. “It’s a lot to take in, and it’s happening after a decade or so of a building boom where we lost a chunk of the historic fabric.”
Bucks County’s 2026 proposal for a $516 million operating budget does not include tax increases for residents, but they are not off the table as county commissioners look to combat a projected $16.4 million deficit.
“There’s no question” that a tax increase is a possibility, Democratic Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia told The Inquirer on Wednesday, noting the budget proposal is currently a “work in progress.”
“The biggest thing that I’m going to be looking at, besides cutting and seeing what we can do, is if we were to have to increase taxes, to make it, you know, pennies, as small as we can, so that it’s not impacting people,” said Ellis-Marseglia, the board’s vice chair.
The county’s expenses are projected to increase by 3.2% — more than $16.2 million, according to the budget proposal released Wednesday.
The increase is driven by requests for required upgrades and replacements of public safety resources, funding for capital improvement projects, and financial support for the county’s library system and Bucks County Community College, according to a county news release.
Revenue is projected to drop by a little more than $531,000, or roughly 0.1%, according to the proposal.
“Bucks County residents deserve stability, fiscal security and a high level of service from their County government,” said Jeannette Weaver, the county’s chief financial officer, in the news release. “Over the next few weeks, we will continue working with our many departments and row officers to present a budget that meets those demands.”
“It will likely mean that this county will have to consider a tax increase because we need to meet the needs of” residents, Bob Harvie, who chairs the Bucks County commissioners and is running for Congress, told The Inquirer earlier this month.
Counties were formulating their budget proposals as Pennsylvania was grappling with its state budget impasse and the federal government underwent its longest shutdown in history.
“We are facing the same thing everybody is facing,” Ellis-Marseglia said. “But inflation is everywhere. Energy costs are up. Everybody’s having a tough time. So, of course, so is county government, trying to make ends meet.”
The Bucks CountyBoard of Commissioners will hold a public hearing on Dec. 4 at 2 p.m. for residents to ask questions and provide comments. The commissioners will vote on the final budget on Dec. 17.
Jean E. Corrigan, 70, of Roslyn, Montgomery County, retired fleet and operations manager for the Montgomery County Department of Assets and Infrastructure, onetime constituent services representative for then-State Rep. Josh Shapiro, hair salon owner and operator,disability services advocate,and award-winning volunteer, died Saturday, Nov. 22, of non-alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver at her home.
A lifelong resident of Glenside and nearby Roslyn, Mrs. Corrigan was vice chair of the Abington-Rockledge Democratic Committee from 1995 to 2013, and served as Gov. Shapiro’s constituent service agent when he represented the 153rd Legislative District in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from 2004 to 2012.
“Jean was the very first volunteer on my very first campaign,” Shapiro recalled. “We knocked doors together, met our neighbors together, and, after winning, served our community together.”
In addition to breaking down bureaucratic delays and solving all kinds of constituent problems for Shapiro, Mrs. Corrigan doggedly championed fair wages, reproductive freedom, increased funding for special education and disability services, and improved healthcare. Colleagues called her a “super volunteer” and a “campaign mom” because she helped so many candidates win elections.
Gov. Shapiro said Mrs. Corrigan “made her neighbors’ lives better.”
She hosted visiting campaign workers at her home for years, took charge of distributing lawn signs and sample ballots, and organized other preelection events at her dining room table. She was named the local committee’s Democrat of the Year in 2002 and earned several awards from community service organizations.
“Through that work, I got to see just how much of herself she gave to others,” Shapiro said. “Where there was a need in the community, she worked to address it. When someone needed help, she lent a hand. She made her neighbors’ lives better, and I will forever be grateful for her life of service.”
In 2001, Mrs. Corrigan ran unsuccessfully for Abington Township commissioner, finishing second among three candidates and losing to a long-entrenched incumbent. In a preelection profile in The Inquirer, she listed “responsible growth” as a top value and “maintain integrity of Abington Township” as a main goal.
“Jean was passionate about serving others,” her family said in a tribute. “She believed that politics and civic activism could make a positive difference in people’s lives.”
Mrs. Corrigan was called a “super volunteer” by colleagues and friends.
At work, Mrs. Corrigan managed Montgomery County’s fleet of vehicles from 2015 to her retirement in 2022. She joined the county’s assets and infrastructure department in 2012 as operations manager for public property and supervised the county’s building services, construction carpenters, project collaboration, and computer-aided design.
She studied beauty science and hair styling in high school, attended the Willow Grove Beauty Academy, and ran her own salon called Shears to You from 1993 to 2001. As a volunteer, she was one-time president of the Abington School District Special Education Parent Advisory Council, copresident of the Abington Junior High School parent-teacher organization, and chair and vice chair of several Abington Township community initiatives.
She raised funds for school events and served on the board of the Abington YMCA. “Jean was selfless, empathetic, blunt, affectionate, caring, plainspoken, honest, and incredibly hard-working,” her family said. “There was no ego, no vanity.”
Jean Elizabeth Fanelli was born Aug. 30, 1955, in Abington Township. She grew up with a brother, Angelo, and graduated from Abington High School in 1973. She was interested in clothing design as well as beauty culture and took classes at Temple University.
Mrs. Corrigan stands with her husband, Peter, and son David
After a brief marriage to Bruce Cunningham was annulled, she married Peter Corrigan — an usher at her first wedding — in 1977, and they had sons Joseph and David and a daughter, Pauline. They lived in Glenside for decades, in the same house in which she grew up, and moved to Roslyn a few years ago.
Mrs. Corrigan enjoyed shopping trips with her daughter and baking holiday cookies. She liked to entertain and cook for everybody.
She doted on her two granddaughters and spent memorable summers near Arrowhead Lake in the Pocono Mountains. She could talk to anybody, her family said.
“She was a wonderful mother,” her daughter said. “I learned to have respect and manners from her.”
Mrs. Corrigan (front right) enjoyed time with her family.
Her son David said: “She taught me to be considerate and understanding of everyone I encounter, a lesson I will never forget.”
Her son Joseph said: “She was incredibly generous with her time and resources. She could build relationships, and a theme of her life was caring for people.”
Her husband said: “She was one of a kind.”
In addition to her husband, children, granddaughters, and brother, Mrs. Corrigan is survived by other relatives.
A private celebration of her life is to be held later.
Donations in her name may be made to Hedwig House Inc., 1920 Old York Rd., Abington, Pa. 19001.
Mrs. Corrigan’s smile could light up a room, her family said.
President Donald Trump has argued with the architect he handpicked to design a White House ballroom over the size of the project, reflecting a conflict between architectural norms and Trump’s grandiose aesthetic, according to four people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal conversations.
Trump’s desire to go big with the project has put him at odds with architect James McCrery II, the people said, who has counseled restraint over concerns the planned 90,000-square-foot addition could dwarf the 55,000-square-foot mansion in violation of a general architectural rule: don’t build an addition that overshadows the main building.
A White House official acknowledged the two have disagreed but would not say why or elaborate on the tensions, characterizing Trump and McCrery’s conversations about the ballroom as “constructive dialogue.”
“As with any building, there is a conversation between the principal and the architect,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. “All parties are excited to execute on the president’s vision on what will be the greatest addition to the White House since the Oval Office.”
McCrery declined an interview request through a representative who declined to answer questions about the architect’s interactions with Trump in recent weeks.
Trump’s intense focus on the project and insistence on realizing his vision over the objections of his own hire, historic preservationists and others concerned by a lack of public input in the project reflect his singular belief in himself as a tastemaker and obsessive attention to details. In the first 10 months of his second term, Trump has waged a campaign to remake the White House in his gilded aesthetic and done so unilaterally – using a who’s-going-to-stop-me ethos he honed for decades as a developer.
Multiple administration officials have acknowledged that Trump has at times veered into micromanagement of the ballroom project, holding frequent meetings about its design and materials. A model of the ballroom has also become a regular fixture in the Oval Office.
The renovation represents one of the largest changes to the White House in its 233-year history, and has yet to undergo any formal public review. The administration has not publicly provided key details about the building, such as its planned height. The 90,000-square-foot structure also is expected to host a suite of offices previously located in the East Wing. The White House has also declined to specify its plans for an emergency bunker that was located below the East Wing, citing matters of national security.
On recent weekdays, a bustling project site that is almost entirely fenced off from public view contained dozens of workers and materials ready to be installed, including reinforced concrete pipes and an array of cranes, drills, pile drivers and other heavy machinery, photos obtained by The WashingtonPost show.
Plans for the addition as of Tuesday had not been submitted to the National Capital Planning Commission, a 12-member board charged by Congress with overseeing federal construction projects and now led by Trump allies. A preliminary agenda for the commission’s next meeting, scheduled for Dec. 4, does not include the ballroom project under projects expected to be covered at the meeting or reviewed by the body in the next six months. White House officials say that the administration still plans to submit its ballroom plans to the commission at “the appropriate time.”
The administration’s rapid demolition of the East Wing annex and solicitations from companies and individuals to fund the new construction have caused controversy over the project, which Trump believes the White House needs to host special events. Democrats, historical preservation groups and some architects have criticized the project’s pace, secrecy and shifting specifications. The White House initially said this summer that the ballroom would cost $200 million and fit 650 people, while Trump in recent weeks asserted that it could cost $300 million or more and would fit about 1,000 people.
McCrery has kept his criticism out of the public eye, quietly working to deliver as Trump demanded rushed revisions to his plans, according to two of the people with knowledge of the conversations. The president – a longtime real estate executive who prides himself on his expertise – has repeatedly drilled into the details of the project in their Oval Office meetings, the people said.
McCrery has wanted to remain with the project, worried that another architect would design an inferior building, according to a person with knowledge of his thinking.
McCrery, a classical architect and the founder and principal of McCrery Architects, had designed works like the U.S. Supreme Court bookstore and the pedestal for President Ronald Reagan’s statue in the U.S. Capitol. The ballroom was the largest-ever project for his firm, which has specialized in designing churches, libraries and homes.
Trump hired McCrery for the project on July 13. Eighteen days later, the White House announced the ballroom project, with officials promising to start construction within two months and finish before the end of Trump’s second term.
Trump also appointed McCrery in 2019 to serve a four-year term on the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, which provides advice to the president, Congress and local government officials on design matters related to construction projects in the capital region.
Democrats have pressed the White House and its donors for more details on the planned construction and what was promised to financial contributors. The ballroom is being funded by wealthy individuals and large companies that have contracts with the federal government, including Amazon, Lockheed Martin and Palantir Technologies. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Post.)
Several donors have cast the decision in statements as an investment in the future of a building that belongs to the American people, pushing back on the suggestion that their largesse sought to curry favor with Trump.
A donor list released by the White House of 37 businesses and individuals who underwrote the ballroom is not comprehensive, administration officials acknowledged, leaving open the possibility that millions of dollars have been funneled toward the president’s pet project with no oversight.
“Billionaires and giant corporations with business in front of this administration are lining up to dump millions into Trump’s new ballroom – and Trump is showing them where to sign on the dotted line,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) said in a statement last week. Warren andhercolleagues also introduced legislation that would impose restrictions on White House construction and require more transparency from donors.
WASHINGTON – A prosecutor on Wednesday dropped all criminal charges in Georgia against U.S. President Donald Trump for interference in the 2020 presidential election, ending a high-profile racketeering case that once seemed like a significant threat to the Republican.
The decision by Peter Skandalakis, a state official who recently took over the prosecution, was a stinging defeat for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who brought the case in 2023 but then lost control of it amid ethics complaints by defense lawyers.
It was one of four criminal prosecutions that Trump faced in the years since losing his 2020 presidential re-election bid to Democrat Joe Biden. Only one of them — a New York case over a hush-money payment to a porn star during his 2016 campaign — went to trial. Trump was found guilty in that case but has asked for it to be thrown out.
The dismissal highlighted how Trump’s return to the White House this year, a political comeback unparalleled in U.S. history, dismantled a thicket of legal cases that once seemed set to define his post-presidency era.
Trump’s political career had appeared to be over after his false claims of election fraud led a mob of supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in a failed bid to overturn his 2020 defeat.
Skandalakis said in a court filing that “there is no realistic prospect that a sitting President will be compelled to appear in Georgia to stand trial,” so it would be “futile and unproductive” to push forward with the case.
Skandalakis said his decision, which was approved by a judge on Wednesday morning, “is not guided by a desire to advance an agenda but is based on my beliefs and understanding of the law.”
Steve Sadow, a lawyer for Trump, praised the dismissal, saying the case should have never been brought.
Willis had brought the case against Trump and 18 co-defendants, charging a sweeping criminal conspiracy to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results after a recording surfaced in the media of Trump asking Georgia’s top electoral official to “find” him enough votes to win the state.
The co-defendants included former Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, who like Trump pleaded not guilty.
An appeals court removed Willis, an elected Democrat in Atlanta, from the case last year. The court said she had created an “appearance of impropriety” by having a romantic relationship with the special prosecutor she had hired to lead the case.
Skandalakis heads the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, a government agency that supports the state’s local prosecutors. Earlier this month, he appointed himself to lead the case, saying he had been unable to find another prosecutor willing to take it over.
Anthony Michael Kreis, a Georgia State University law professor, said Skandalakis’s decision to drop the charges was not surprising. The agency he oversees does not have the resources to prosecute such a complex case with several co-defendants, Kreis said.
In his second term, Donald Trump has turned a campaign pledge to punish political opponents into a guiding principle of governance.
What began as a provocative rallying cry in March 2023 — “I am your retribution” — has hardened into a sweeping campaign of retaliation against perceived enemies, reshaping federal policy, staffing and law enforcement.
A tally by Reuters reveals the scale: At least 470 people, organizations and institutions have been targeted for retribution since Trump took office — an average of more than one a day. Some were singled out for punishment; others swept up in broader purges of perceived enemies. The count excludes foreign individuals, institutions and governments, as well as federal employees dismissed as part of force reductions.
The Trump vengeance campaign fuses personal vendettas with a drive for cultural and political dominance, Reuters found. His administration has wielded executive power to punish perceived foes — firing prosecutors who investigated his bid to overturn the 2020 election, ordering punishments of media organizations seen as hostile, penalizing law firms tied to opponents, and sidelining civil servants who question his policies. Many of those actions face legal challenges.
At the same time, Trump and his appointees have used the government to enforce ideology: ousting military leaders deemed “woke,” slashing funds for cultural institutions held to be divisive, and freezing research grants to universities that embraced diversity initiatives.
Reuters reached out to every person and institution that Trump or his subordinates singled out publicly for retribution, and reviewed hundreds of official orders, directives and public records. The result: the most comprehensive accounting yet of his campaign of payback.
The analysis revealed two broad groups of people and organizations targeted for retaliation.
Members of the first group – at least 247 individuals and entities – were singled out by name, either publicly by Trump and his appointees or later in government memos, legal filings or other records. To qualify, acts had to be aimed at specific individuals or entities, with evidence of intent to punish. Reuters reporters interviewed or corresponded with more than 150 of them.
Another 224 people were caught up in broader retribution efforts – not named individually but ensnared in crackdowns on groups of perceived opponents. Nearly 100 of them were prosecutors and FBI agents fired or forced to retire for working on cases tied to Trump or his allies, or because they were deemed “woke.” This includes 16 FBI agents who kneeled at a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020. The rest were civil servants, most of them suspended for publicly opposing administration policies or resisting directives on health, environmental and science issues.
Most common were punitive acts, such as firings, suspensions, investigations and the revocation of security clearances.
Reuters found at least 462 such cases, including the dismissal of at least 128 federal workers and officials who had probed, challenged or otherwise bucked Trump or his administration.
The second form was threats. Trump and his administration targeted at least 46 individuals, businesses and other entities with threats of investigations or penalties, including freezing federal funds for Democratic-led cities such as New York and Chicago.
Trump openly discussed firing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell for resisting interest rate cuts, for instance. Last week, he threatened to have six Democratic members of Congress tried for sedition – a crime he said is “punishable by DEATH” – after the lawmakers reminded military personnel they can refuse “illegal orders.” This week, the Defense Department threatened to court-martial one of them, U.S. Senator Mark Kelly, a former Naval officer.
The third form was coercion. In at least a dozen cases, organizations such as law firms and universities signed agreements with the government to roll back diversity initiatives or other policies after facing administration threats of punishment, such as security clearance revocations and loss of federal funding and contracts.
It’s a campaign led from the top: Trump’s White House has issued at least 36 orders, decrees and directives, targeting at least 100 individuals and entities with punitive actions, according to the Reuters analysis.
Trump openly campaigned on a platform of revenge in his latest run for the presidency, promising to punish enemies of his Make America Great Again movement. “For those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution,” he said in a March 2023 speech. Weeks later, while campaigning in Texas, he repeated the theme. “I am your justice,” he said.
Today, the White House disputes the idea that the administration is out for revenge. It describes recent investigations and indictments of political adversaries as valid course corrections on policy, necessary probes of wrongdoing and legitimate policy initiatives.
“This entire article is based on the flawed premise that enforcing an electoral mandate is somehow ‘retribution.’ It’s not,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said. There is no place in government for civil servants or public officials “who actively seek to undermine the agenda that the American people elected the president to enact,” she added. Trump is abiding by campaign promises to restore a justice system that was “weaponized” by the Biden administration, Jackson said, and “ensure taxpayer funding is not going to partisan causes.”
Trump’s actions have been cheered by his staunchest backers. Right-wing commentator and former Trump advisor Steve Bannon told Reuters the use of government power to punish Trump’s enemies is “not revenge at all” but an attempt to “hold people accountable” for what he said were unfair investigations targeting Trump. More is on the way, he said.
“The people that tried to take away President Trump’s first term, that accused him of being a Russian asset and damaged this republic, and then stole the 2020 election – they’re going to be held accountable and they’re going to be adjudicated in courts of law,” he said in an interview. “That’s coming. There’s no doubt.” There’s no evidence the 2020 election was stolen.
Trump’s allies point to actions former President Joe Biden took upon taking office. After Trump’s supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, in a failed bid to overturn his election loss, Biden revoked Trump’s access to classified information, a first for any former president. Biden also won a court battle to dismiss Senate-confirmed directors of independent agencies serving fixed terms, such as the Federal Housing Finance Authority, and removed scores of Trump-era appointees from unpaid advisory boards.
Yet the scale and systematic nature of Trump’s effort to punish perceived enemies marks a sharp break from long-standing norms in U.S. governance, according to 13 political scientists and legal scholars interviewed by Reuters. Some historians say the closest modern parallel, though inexact, is the late President Richard Nixon’s quest for vengeance against political enemies. Since May, for instance, dozens
of officials from multiple federal agencies have been meeting as part of a task force formed to advance Trump’s retribution drive against perceived enemies, Reuters previously reported.
“The main aim is concentration of power and destruction of all checks against power,” said Daron Acemoglu, Nobel laureate in economics and a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which faces an ongoing federal investigation for embracing diversity and equity programs. “Retribution is just one of the tools.”
Dozens of Trump’s targets have challenged their punishments as illegal. Fired and suspended civil servants have filed administrative appeals or legal challenges claiming wrongful termination. Some law firms have gone to court claiming the administration exceeded its legal authority by restricting their ability to work on classified contracts or interact with federal agencies. Most of those challenges remain unresolved.
Investigating foes of Trump
The administration has moved aggressively against officials in the government’s legal and national security agencies, institutions central to investigations of Trump’s alleged misconduct during and after his first term.
At least 69 current and former officials were targeted for investigating or sounding alarms about Russian interference in U.S. elections. U.S. intelligence agencies concluded soon after the 2016 election that Moscow sought to tilt the race toward Trump, a finding later affirmed by a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report in August 2020. Acts of retribution tied to the Russia probe include the September 25 indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, a break from Justice Department norms meant to shield prosecutions from political influence.
Comey, who led the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s 2016 campaign, was charged after Trump demanded his prosecution. The Justice Department has cast the case as a corruption crackdown. Comey and his lawyers said in court documents that the case was “vindictive” and motivated by “personal animus.” Comey, who pleaded not guilty, declined to comment. A federal judge dismissed the case on Monday, ruling that Trump’s handpicked prosecutor had been unlawfully appointed.
Acts of retribution tied to the Russia probe include the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey. His lawyers say he is the target of a “vindictive” prosecution.
At least 58 acts of retribution have targeted people Trump viewed as saboteurs of his election campaigns, including Chris Krebs, the top cybersecurity official during his first term. Trump fired him in 2020 for disputing claims that the election was rigged. In April, Trump stripped Krebs’ security clearance and ordered a federal investigation into his tenure. Krebs, still asserting that Trump’s defeat was valid, has vowed to fight the probe. He did not respond for this story.
Reuters documented 112 security clearances revoked from current and former U.S. officials, law firms and state leaders – credentials needed for work that involves classified information. In August, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced she was revoking 37 clearances.
In a response to Reuters posted on X, an agency spokesperson said Gabbard and Trump are working “to ensure the government is never again wielded against the American people it is meant to serve.” She added: “President Trump said it best, ‘Our ultimate retribution is success.’”
Leon Panetta, CIA director and defense secretary under former President Barack Obama, had his security clearance revoked in January along with others who signed an October 2020 letter suggesting Russia may have been behind reports about emails on Hunter Biden’s laptop. At the time, Joe Biden — Hunter’s father — was Trump’s Democratic rival in the 2020 election. An executive order Trump signed in January claimed: “The signatories willfully weaponized the gravitas of the Intelligence Community to manipulate the political process and undermine our democratic institutions.” Panetta has said he stands by signing the letter.
Panetta told Reuters he had already surrendered his clearance after leaving government nearly a decade ago. Trump’s retribution campaign is hurting CIA morale and wrecking the bipartisan trust that allows Washington to function, Panetta said. “What I worry about is that our adversaries will look at what’s happening and sense weakness,” he said. “This kind of political retribution leads to a loss of trust, which ultimately leads to a failure of governing.” The CIA did not respond to a request for comment.
Former CIA director Leon Panetta had his security clearance revoked along with others who signed a letter suggesting Russia may have been behind reports about emails on Hunter Biden’s laptop.
The revenge effort also reaches deep into the civil service, punishing employees who speak out against Trump’s policies and turning forms of dissent that were tolerated by past administrations into grounds for discipline.
This summer, hundreds of Environmental Protection Agency staffers wrote an open letter protesting deep cuts to pollution control and cleanup programs. The fallout was swift. More than 100 signers who attached their names were placed on paid leave. At least 15 senior officials and probationary employees were told they would be fired. The rest were informed they were under investigation for misconduct, leading to at least 69 suspensions without pay. Many remained out of work for weeks.
“They followed all the rules” of conduct for civil servants, said Nicole Cantello, one of the signers and an officer with the American Federation of Government Employees, a union that represents many affected workers. She called the punishments an attempt to “quell dissent,” stifle free speech and “scare the employees.” In a statement, the EPA said it has “a zero-tolerance policy for career officials using their agency position and title to unlawfully undermine, sabotage, and undercut” administration policy.
At the Federal Emergency Management Agency, about 20 staffers were put on leave and now face misconduct investigations after signing a letter criticizing the agency’s decision to scrap bipartisan reforms adopted years ago to speed disaster relief.
Cameron Hamilton, a Republican who served briefly as acting head of FEMA, was fired in May, a day after telling Congress he didn’t believe the agency should be shut down, contradicting the administration.
Hamilton told Reuters he still supports Trump. But he said too many senior officials are firing people in the name of retribution, trying to impress the White House. “They want to find ways to really launch themselves to prominence and be movers and shakers, to kick ass and take names,” said Hamilton. “They’re trying to show the president ‘look at what I am doing for you.’”
In a statement to Reuters, the Department of Homeland Security, which includes FEMA, said it is building a “new FEMA” to fix “inefficiency and outdated processes.” Employees “resisting change” are “not a good fit,” the statement said.
Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, former head of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, sees her firing in October — three weeks after filing a whistleblower complaint alleging politicization of research and vaccine policy — as a warning shot. She told Reuters the administration’s purge of dissenting health officials is breeding “anticipatory obedience” — a reflex to comply before being asked. “People know if they push back … this is what happens,” she said. The effect, she says, is an ecosystem of fear: those who stay in government self-censor; those who speak out are branded “radioactive, too hot to handle.”
The Department of Health and Human Services, the agency that oversees NIAID, did not respond to a request for comment.
Federal agency leaders have dismissed a wide array of officials they deemed out of step with Trump’s MAGA agenda, including employees involved in diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and those working on transgender issues.
David Maltinsky, a Federal Bureau of Investigation employee, says he was fired by Director Kash Patel for displaying a Pride flag at work — one of at least 50 bureau personnel dismissed on Patel’s watch. Maltinsky sued the FBI and Justice Department, alleging violations of his constitutional rights and seeking reinstatement. The Justice Department has yet to file a formal response.
In his 2023 book, “Government Gangsters,” Patel named 60 people that he said were members of an “Executive Branch deep state” that opposed Trump, including former Democratic government officials and Republicans who served in Trump’s first administration but eventually broke with him. He called for firings and said that anybody who abused their authority should face prosecution. In his 2025 confirmation hearing before Congress, Patel denied that it was an “enemies list.”
Under FBI Director Kash Patel’s watch, at least 50 FBI personnel have been dismissed. In this photo, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff speaks in front of an image of Patel at a Senate hearing on FBI oversight.
Reuters found that at least 17 of the 60 people on Patel’s list have faced some sort of retribution, including firings and stripping of security clearances. The FBI did not respond to a request for comment.
Against perceived foes in the private sector, the administration has wielded financial penalties as leverage. At least two dozen law firms faced inquiries, investigations or restrictions on federal contracting, often for employing or representing people tied to past cases against Trump. Eight struck deals to avoid further action.
Nine media organizations have faced federal investigations, lawsuits, threats to revoke their broadcast licenses and limits on access to White House events. Trump has also suggested revoking broadcast licenses for networks whose coverage he dislikes.
The targets include universities, long cast by the president and his allies as bastions of left-wing radicals.
Officials froze more than $4 billion in federal grants and research funding to at least nine schools, demanding policy changes such as ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs, banning transgender athletes from women’s sports and cracking down on alleged antisemitism amid pro-Palestinian protests. Five universities have signed agreements to restore funding. Harvard University successfully sued to block a freeze on $2.2 billion in federal aid for the school, which Trump accused of “pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired” dogma. Harvard declined to comment.
The administration has described the funding freezes and other efforts to force policy changes at colleges and universities as a necessary push to reverse years of leftward drift in U.S. education. “If Reuters considers restoring merit in admissions, reclaiming women’s titles misappropriated by male athletes, enforcing civil rights laws, and preventing taxpayer dollars from funding radical DEI programs ‘retribution,’ then we’re on very different planes of reality,” said Julie Hartman, a spokesperson for the U.S. Education Department.
A historical parallel: Nixon’s enemies
It’s impossible to predict, of course, how far the Trump revenge campaign will go, or whether it will be affected by a recent slide in popular support. Trump has been hurt by public frustration with the high cost of living and the investigation into late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Nixon resigned in 1974 over the Watergate scandal, in which aides to his re-election campaign broke into Democratic Party headquarters and the president himself later directed a cover-up. While in office, he kept a list of more than 500 enemies. But while Trump has conducted his retribution campaign in the open, historians note, Nixon’s enemies list was conceived as a covert tool.
John Dean, chief counsel in the Nixon White House, wrote a confidential memo in 1971 addressing “how we can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.” The planned methods included tax audits, phone-tapping, the cancellation of contracts and criminal prosecution. Yet the execution faltered: IRS Commissioner Donald Alexander refused to conduct mass audits, and most targets escaped serious punishment.
Other recent presidents, to be sure, have been accused of seeking to punish opponents, though on a smaller scale. The Obama administration pursued “aggressive prosecution of leakers of classified information,” the Committee to Protect Journalists said in a 2013 report. Two IRS employees alleged they were retaliated against during the Biden administration for raising concerns about the handling of the tax-compliance investigation of Hunter Biden.
Nixon’s plotting remained a secret until the Watergate hearings exposed it, turning his enemies list into a symbol of presidential abuse. The secrecy reflected a political culture in which retaliation was whispered, not broadcast, and where institutional checks blunted many of Nixon’s ambitions.
Trump’s approach reverses that pattern, historians say. He has openly named his perceived enemies, urged prosecutions in public and framed vengeance as a campaign vow. Some say today’s “enemies list” politics are in that sense farther-reaching than Nixon’s, possibly signaling a shift toward a normalization of retribution in American political life.
Corey Brettschneider, a political science professor at Brown University who has written a book on power grabs by American presidents, said Nixon was ultimately checked and forced to resign by Congress, including members of his own Republican Party. “That’s just not happening now,” he said.
President Donald Trump accused six Democratic members of Congress of committing sedition,a claim that his administration has stuck to amid a fierce national debate that began when the lawmakers urged military and intelligence personnel to “refuse illegal orders.”
The Democratic members, who are all veterans or members of the intelligence community, shared a video online last week in whichthey accused Trump’s administration of pitting service members against American citizens andwarned against orders that would violate the Constitution.
The lawmakers did not reference specific orders, but members have spoken against strikes in the Caribbean and Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in American cities — both of which have faced legal scrutiny — as cause for concern.
Trump first responded to the video with a string of posts on his social media platform, Truth Social, calling for the lawmakers to be arrested and put on trial for sedition, “punishable by DEATH,” and sharing posts against them, including one that called for them to be hanged.
Two of the members represent Pennsylvania: U.S. Reps. Chrissy Houlahan (D., Chester), an Air Force veteran, and Chris Deluzio (D., Allegheny), a Navy veteran.
On Monday, the Department of Defense announced that it would investigate Sen. Mark Kelly (D., Ariz.), a former naval officer and the one veteran in the video who is still obligated to follow military laws because he served long enough to become a military retiree. The announcement threatened to call Kelly back to active duty for court-martial proceedings.
On Tuesday, a Justice Department official told Reuters that the FBI has requested interviews with the Democrats who appeared in the video, which some of the lawmakers publicly corroborated. The FBI declined to comment when reached by The Inquirer.
As the debate over the video escalates in the wake of Trump’s sedition accusation and his administration’s actions, a rarely used charge and the intricacies of military law have been thrown into the spotlight.
What is sedition, and is it punishable by death?
Sedition is an incitement of a rebellion or encouragement of attacking authority, or, in other words, the intent to overthrow the government, according to legal and military experts. When acting with others, it is called seditious conspiracy.
For civilians, sedition is a violation of federal law and carries prison time. It is not punishable by death.
Active-duty military, however, must follow the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). While the military law has overlap with civilian law, it is more expansive, controlling, and strict, said Sean Timmons, a Houston-based attorney specializing in military law who previously served as an active-duty U.S. Army captain in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General (JAG) program.
“In the civilian world you have a lot more defenses, and you have full First Amendment protections,” said Timmons, a managing partner at Tully Rinckey PLLC. “Whereas in the military, your First Amendment rights are quite limited.”
The maximum punishment for active military is death, but it can be far lower, he said.
Service members must be on active duty to be prosecuted under the UCMJ, but the conduct does not have to have taken place during active duty. This means that retirees like Kelly can be recalled for active duty to face UCMJ prosecution over their behavior while they were not on active duty.
What is an illegal order?
Members of Trump’s administration have pointed to the UCMJ rule that says members must follow lawful orders and orders should be presumed to be lawful. Service members can be punished for not following orders.
However, military rules also prohibit service members from following orders that are undoubtedly illegal — a point the lawmakers get at in their video — and they can be punished for doing so.
But whether orders are legal is supposed to be up to officers, not rank-and-file members, Timmons said.
“If you don’t comply, you could be charged with failure to follow orders and other crimes,”hesaid.
The exceptions (those obviously illegal crimes) would be war crimes like raping prisoners, deliberating killing civilians without justification, or torture, not day-to-day acts that would break the law, he explained.
Take the example of burning down an enemy’s structure.
“If your military unit says to burn it down because it’s part of the military objective, that’s a lawful order, even though it’s an illegal act,” he said. “It’s a war crime if it’s to burn down adaycare with kids inside.”
The boat strikes in the Caribbean have been in a legalgray area, he said, but “if your command says it’s legal, you’re supposed to execute.”
“The military system is harsh, cruel, and unfair … but it’s the system we have in place, and it’s designed that way to ensure discipline, obedience, and compliance,” he added.
Did the lawmakers commit sedition?
Claire Finkelstein, founder and faculty director of the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law at the University of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law School and an expert in military ethics, said accusing the lawmakers of sedition “makes absolutely no sense, especially in a case in which they’re just reminding servicemen of their obligation not to follow illegal orders, which is a fundamental part of the UCMJ.”
“One has to really work hard to fill in the blanks here,” she said.
Timmons said five out of the six lawmakers have their freedom of speech to relyon as a protection.
“Just having divergent political views that the commander-in-chief doesn’t like, for civilians, there’s no liability, there’s no repercussions,” he said.
That doesn’t mean Trump’s administration cannot investigate them for “seditious behavior” anyway.
Kelly, on the other hand, was “on thin ice” by participating in a video that seems to undermine Trump’s authority, he said, and it’s not “totally crazy” to argue he engaged in seditious behavior under military law.
That being said, prosecutors would have to prove that his intent was to “cause a revolt within the ranks,” which would be “very hard,” he said.
“But could they make him miserable and humiliate him and charge him? Yes,” he said.
“Is that politically wise? Absolutely not. Is it reckless? Of course. But, technically, can they do it? Yes,” he added.
What are members of Trump’s administration saying?
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Monday the White House supports the investigation into Kelly and accused him of trying to “intimidate” active-duty members with the video.
“Sen. Mark Kelly well knows the rules of the military and the respect that one must have for the chain of command,” she said.
“You can’t have a functioning military if there is disorder and chaos within the ranks, and that’s what these Democrat members were encouraging,” she added.
In a social media post on Monday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called the lawmakers the “seditious six.”
“Encouraging our warriors to ignore the orders of their Commanders undermines every aspect of ‘good order and discipline,’” he wrote. “Their foolish screed sows doubt and confusion — which only puts our warriors in danger.”
How has Kelly responded?
Kelly, also a former astronaut, played down the impact of the threats against him on The Rachel Maddow Show Monday night.
“Is it stressful? I’ve been stressed by, you know, things more important than Donald Trump trying to intimidate me into shutting my mouth and not doing my job,” he said. “He didn’t like what I said. I’m going to show up for work every day, support the Constitution, do my job, hold this administration accountable.”
He also denounced the president’s rhetoric, calling it “inciteful.”
“He’s got millions of supporters,” Kelly said. “People listen to what he says more so than anybody else in the country, and he should be careful with his words. But I’m not going to be silenced here.”
He said he and his wife, former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords (D., Ariz.), who survived a 2011 assassination attempt in which she was shot in the head, “know what political violence is, and we know what causes it, too.”
What response have Houlahan and Deluzio gotten?
Houlahan and Deluzio, the two Pennsylvania lawmakers in the video, both reported bomb threats at their district offices on Friday following the president’s posts.
But they have also gotten messages of support.
Houlahan shared voice recordings of veterans from all over the country who left messages of support for her office and thanked her for her advocacy.
“Keep pushing it,” one said. “I’m with you, I’m behind ya,” another said.
“I am so proud of all six of you for making that video,” said another.
Gov. Josh Shapiro signed the CROWN Act into law Tuesday, a landmark bill that prohibits discrimination based on a person’s hair type, texture, or style.
The act, which stands for Create a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair, applies to every Pennsylvanian, but is especially impactful to Black men and, particularly, women who have been discouraged from or marginalized by wearing natural or protective styles at school or in their places of work.
At the Island Design Natural Hair StudioTuesday, where Shapiro signed the bill into law, studio owner Lorraine Ruley said her clients have asked to change their hairstyles because of their workplace or upcoming job interviews. In one instance, Ruley said she had a client who asked to cut their locks because their workplacedeemed it “unprofessional.”
“The experience has been really heartbreaking, but I thank God for the opportunity to be here,” Ruley said. “And I just want to say natural hair rock.”
At the West Philly salon, Shapiro was flanked by primestate sponsor of the CROWN Act, state Rep. La’Tasha D. Mayes (D., Allegheny), and prime cosponsor House Speaker Joanna McClinton (D., Phila), who were overjoyed that their years of fighting for these protections were finally paying off and supported in a bipartisan fashion. The Pennsylvania Senate passed the bill 44-3 last week after it was stuck in committee for years.
Gov. Josh Shapiro (front center) holds up the signed CROWN Act during a news conference at Island Design Natural Hair Studio, in West Philadelphia Tuesday.
“This is going to help people by making sure that wherever you work, or wherever you’re applying for a job, they can’t look at your hair and size you up, not based on your qualifications and all of the professional development you have and all of your education,” McClinton said. “They will not look at your hair and decide you can’t work here.”
Shapiro said the bill is about delivering “real freedom” for Pennsylvanians to protect them against hair discrimination that may at times be subtle.
Pennsylvania is the 28th state to pass anti-hair discrimination laws. New Jersey signed the CROWN Act into law in 2019. And both Philadelphia and Pittsburgh passed ordinances in 2020 to ban such discrimination, but this law will ensure protections for all Pennsylvanians.Incidents of discrimination can be reported to the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission.
For some Black women, the price of trying to conform to a prejudiced setting could come at a risk to their health. There have been some concerns in recent years that frequent use of chemical straighteners, which some women use to more permanently straighten their hair, could increase the risk of cancers of the reproductive system.
“With an undeniable correlation between the use of chemical relaxers and the increased likelihood of developing uterine fibroids and cancer, the cost of conformity is simply too expensive,” said Adjoa B. Asamoah, a Washington, D.C.-based Temple graduate and architect of the CROWN Act, at the bill signing Tuesday.
The state House passed the bill once again in March, and McClinton worked with Republican Senate president pro tempore Kim Ward to get the bill to the Senate.
When asked about the prospects of a bill similar to the CROWN Act becoming federal law, especially under the Trump administration, which has railed against diversity, equity, and inclusion practices, Asamoah said she is hopeful that it will become the law of the land andshe “will not rest” until it does. Asamoah added that the bill is crafted carefully to “withstand any judicial scrutiny.”
Shapiro, for his part, said: “This is law. I don’t care what Donald Trump says. We make the laws here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and we will protect the Crown Act.” Those gathered clapped and interjected with affirmations.
And it became clear at the beginning of Tuesday’s bill signing event that the salon likes itwhen Shapiro wades into national political discourse.
The FBI is seeking interviews with the six Democratic members of Congress, including two from Pennsylvania, who released a video calling on members of the military and intelligence community to “refuse illegal orders.”
A U.S. Justice Department official said the FBI has requested interviews with the six Democratic lawmakers, who are all veterans or members of the intelligence community.
The move came a day after the Pentagon threatened to recall Sen. Mark Kelly (D., Ariz.), a Navy veteran and one of the six lawmakers, to active duty potentially to face military charges. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday described the video as“seditious” and “despicable, reckless, and false” after President Donald Trump went on a social media rant against the lawmakers last week.
U.S. Reps. Chrissy Houlahan of Chester County, an Air Force veteran, and Chris Deluzio of Allegheny County, a Navy vet, both took part in the video.
Houlahan said in a statement Tuesday that Trump “is using the FBI as a tool to intimidate and harass Members of Congress.”
She said the FBI contacted the House and Senate sergeants at arms on Monday to request the interviews.
“No amount of intimidation or harassment will ever stop us from doing our jobs and honoring our Constitution,” Houlahan said.
The lawmaker said that members of Congress took an oath to the Constitution that “lasts a lifetime, and we intend to keep it.”
“We will not be bullied. We will never give up the ship,” she added.
The six members of Congress urged service members not to “give up the ship” in their video released last week, which drew fierce attacks from Trump. They did not refer to specific orders as illegal in the video, but some have cited military strikes against boats in the Caribbean that experts have questioned as well as Trump’s efforts to deploy the National Guard in U.S. cities.
In a string of posts last week on his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump called the Democrats “traitors” who committed sedition “punishable by DEATH.” He reshared similarly aggressive posts from supporters, including one calling for the lawmakers to be hanged.
The Department of Defense announced Monday that it “has received serious allegations of misconduct” against Kelly, a retired Navy captain, and that “a thorough review of these allegations has been initiated.”
Kelly is subject to military rules while the other veterans who partook in the video are not because he retired from the military. That means he earns a pension and can be recalled to active duty.
His colleagues in the video did not serve long enough to qualify for retirement, so they are not subject to military laws, as he is.
