{"id":754,"date":"2025-03-21T08:53:59","date_gmt":"2025-03-21T08:53:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/03\/21\/with-orders-investigations-and-innuendo-trump-and-g-o-p-aim-to-cripple-the-left-the-new-york-times\/"},"modified":"2025-03-21T08:53:59","modified_gmt":"2025-03-21T08:53:59","slug":"with-orders-investigations-and-innuendo-trump-and-g-o-p-aim-to-cripple-the-left-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/03\/21\/with-orders-investigations-and-innuendo-trump-and-g-o-p-aim-to-cripple-the-left-the-new-york-times\/","title":{"rendered":"With Orders, Investigations and Innuendo, Trump and G.O.P. Aim to Cripple the Left – The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The president and his allies in Congress are targeting the financial, digital and legal machinery that powers the Democratic Party and much of the progressive political world.<\/p>\n

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\"President<\/picture><\/div>
President Trump and his allies have taken a series of highly partisan official actions that threaten to hobble Democrats\u2019 ability to compete in elections for years to come.<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Al Drago for The New York Times<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

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Executive actions intended to cripple top Democratic law firms. Investigations of Democratic fund-raising and organizing platforms. Ominous suggestions that nonprofits aligned with Democrats or critical of President Trump should have their tax exemptions revoked.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump and his allies are aggressively attacking the players and machinery that power the left, taking a series of highly partisan official actions that, if successful, will threaten to hobble Democrats\u2019 ability to compete in elections for years to come.<\/p>\n

So far, the attacks have been diffuse and sometimes indiscriminate or inaccurate. But inside the administration, there are moves to coordinate and expand the assault.<\/p>\n

A small group of White House officials has been working to identify targets and vulnerabilities inside the Democratic ecosystem, taking stock of previous efforts to investigate them, according to two people familiar with the group\u2019s work who requested anonymity to describe it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Scott Walter, president of the conservative watchdog group Capital Research Center, which monitors liberal money in politics, recently briefed senior White House officials on a range of donors, nonprofit groups and fund-raising techniques. The White House group is said to be exploring what more can be done within the law.<\/p>\n

It is not unusual for partisans in Congress or their outside allies to push for investigations into political groups on the other side of the aisle.<\/p>\n

But using the levers of government to target the opposition has long been considered an abuse of power, sometimes leading to prosecution. Mr. Trump himself was impeached<\/a> in 2019 for pressuring the Ukrainian government to investigate the Bidens.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump\u2019s continued willingness to defy that norm \u2014 including in a grievance-filled speech<\/a> at the Justice Department on Friday, during which he name-checked a litany of critics and called them \u201chorrible people,\u201d \u201cthugs\u201d or \u201cscum\u201d \u2014 has Democrats sounding the alarm.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe breadth is breathtaking,\u201d said Cole Leiter, executive director of Americans Against Government Censorship, a coalition of progressive groups and labor unions created last year to defend against an anticipated Republican assault. Taken together, Mr. Leiter said, the efforts amounted to an attempt \u201cto cut the legs out from their opposition.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It may \u201csound conspiratorial,\u201d Mr. Leiter added, \u201cbut the reality is it\u2019s a sober description of what they\u2019re trying to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Across the country and at all levels, the Democratic Party uses the ActBlue donation platform to fund virtually all its activities.<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Desiree Rios for The New York Times<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman, did not directly address the accusation that the administration\u2019s actions were aimed at crippling the left. \u201cThe Democrats don\u2019t need President Trump to dismantle the Democratic Party,\u201d he said in a statement. \u201cThey are self-destructing with their radical policies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Undermining the left would amount to follow-through on Mr. Trump\u2019s campaign promises to seek \u201cretribution<\/a>\u201d against his perceived enemies.<\/p>\n

The sentiment has been echoed and expanded upon by some of Mr. Trump\u2019s closest advisers.<\/p>\n

The billionaire Elon Musk, the top Trump donor leading the administration\u2019s cost-cutting initiative<\/a>, has appeared to encourage investigations of institutions that form the financial backbone of the left. They include ActBlue, the donation platform that helps fund virtually the entire Democratic Party<\/a> and that congressional Republicans are already probing, and Arabella Advisors, a consulting firm that manages difficult-to-trace \u201cdark money\u201d groups<\/a> that collectively have spent billions of dollars helping Democrats and their causes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cSomething stinks about ActBlue,\u201d Mr. Musk wrote<\/a> March 7 in one of several social media posts about the platform. A day later<\/a>, he claimed without evidence that ActBlue was funded by Democratic megadonors including Herb Sandler, who died in 2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n

(Megan Hughes, an ActBlue spokeswoman, denied that the group was funded by the people Mr. Musk named, living or dead. \u201cThe only funders that ActBlue has are small-dollar donors that work sacrificially to fund worthy campaigns and causes,\u201d she said in a statement.)<\/p>\n

At the recent White House briefing, according to a person familiar with it, Mr. Walter presented research about ActBlue and major Democratic donors, leaving behind materials including copies of a book he published last year about Arabella.<\/p>\n

Congressional officials say the Trump administration has signaled that it intends to throw its weight behind investigations of ActBlue in the House. And Senator Ted Cruz of Texas has suggested that ActBlue might have criminal exposure. He has also demanded documents from and threatened to subpoena another key company providing digital infrastructure for the left, Bonterra, which runs a crucial Democratic voter database system<\/a> and supplies much of the party\u2019s organizing software.<\/p>\n

Some of the president\u2019s allies have welcomed the moves as payback for Democratic congressional investigations<\/a> of Mr. Trump and Republican political networks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cDemocrats ran breathless investigations of Republican dark money for years, and I hope that this is a concerted effort to go after the left\u2019s dark money,\u201d said Mike Davis, a former Republican congressional aide who founded a group using what he calls brass-knuckle tactics<\/a> to assail Mr. Trump\u2019s critics.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Elon Musk has appeared to encourage investigations of institutions that form the financial backbone of the left, including ActBlue.<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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For now, Republicans are making wild claims about illegal activity at ActBlue with little to no evidence. But congressional Republicans believe the Trump administration will be far more cooperative in providing financial records to fuel their investigations than the Biden administration was.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not a partisan issue,\u201d said Jonathan Wilcox, deputy chief of staff for Representative Darrell Issa of California, \u201cand we\u2019re optimistic this Treasury Department will demonstrate a completely different commitment to public transparency and government oversight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last week, several Republican lawmakers urged Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to investigate ActBlue or to help them do so. Mr. Issa sought information<\/a> on claims that ActBlue had assisted groups accused of supporting terrorism. Representatives James Comer of Kentucky, Nick Langworthy of New York and Bryan Steil of Wisconsin requested reports<\/a> about suspicious activity related to ActBlue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Treasury Department did not respond when asked if it was cooperating with the Republican congressmen.<\/p>\n

But the terrorism accusation \u2014 even without evidence \u2014 is notable. A bill<\/a> that passed the House over objections from most Democrats and many in the nonprofit world would have allowed the Treasury secretary to strip a charitable group of its tax-exempt status if it was deemed a \u201cterrorist-supporting\u201d organization.<\/p>\n

The F.B.I. declined to say if it was acting on a request<\/a> last week by Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona for an investigation of whether ActBlue had allowed Democrats \u201cto skirt the integrity of federal campaign finance laws,\u201d including by processing donations that originated in hostile foreign countries. But Kash Patel, the new F.B.I. director, a Trump loyalist, has reportedly expressed willingness<\/a> to work aggressively to comply with Republican congressional oversight, and a close Trump ally predicted<\/a> Monday at an event with Donald Trump Jr. that the F.B.I. would take action \u201csoon\u201d on ActBlue.<\/p>\n

The group has denied Republican claims of wrongdoing. Ms. Hughes said ActBlue was \u201cmeeting this moment with the same resilience and determination that have fueled our work for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Democrats worry that ActBlue may offer a harbinger of what\u2019s in store for other important Democratic institutions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr. Musk last week highlighted a Fox News segment<\/a> that accused the billionaire-backed groups managed by Arabella Advisors of falsely portraying themselves as a grass-roots resistance to Mr. Trump.<\/p>\n

In an appearance on Mr. Cruz\u2019s podcast<\/a> that was filmed inside the White House, Mr. Musk claimed that Arabella\u2019s groups and ActBlue were part of a \u201cleft-wing N.G.O. cabal\u201d that was organizing and funding protests of his electric automaker Tesla<\/a>. He called the protests, which have included vandalism of Tesla dealerships and charging stations, \u201cterrorist activity,\u201d and Mr. Cruz suggested it should be prosecuted.<\/p>\n

Arabella said in a statement that it simply provided \u201coperational and administrative support to philanthropists and organizations\u201d and that it did not \u201chave donors, make grants or engage in political activity.\u201d The firm added that it \u201chas no connection to violent protests or vandalism against Musk or his businesses. Any suggestion to the contrary is false.\u201d<\/p>\n

While some Republican students of left-wing political financing have been puzzled by Mr. Musk\u2019s claims, they are hoping to harness his interest to generate more sustained investigations by the Trump White House and Congress.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, has demanded documents from and threatened to subpoena Bonterra, a company that runs a Democratic voter database system and supplies much of the party\u2019s organizing software.<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Eric Lee\/The New York Times<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Mr. Trump himself appeared to call into question the charitable tax-exempt status of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, a Democratic-aligned watchdog group<\/a> that has long been among the more aggressive litigants against him and is currently suing to force the release of records related to Mr. Musk\u2019s cost-cutting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cCREW is a charitable organization, and that\u2019s a political thing,\u201d Mr. Trump said on Friday at the Justice Department, singling out Norm Eisen, a former board member, as a \u201cvicious and violent\u201d person who has \u201cbeen after me for nine years.\u201d (Mr. Eisen\u2019s new group, State Democracy Defenders Fund, has also fought some of the new administration\u2019s actions in court.)<\/p>\n

Jordan Libowitz, a CREW spokesman, declined to comment on Mr. Trump\u2019s mention of the group.<\/p>\n

Personal grievance also figured heavily into directives Mr. Trump recently issued restricting access to government information and contracts for lawyers at firms associated with his critics.<\/p>\n

The targeted firms include Perkins Coie<\/a>, which was paid about $5 million<\/a> by the Democratic National Committee and other party committees during the 2024 elections. It had earned Mr. Trump\u2019s ire by facilitating funding<\/a> for since-discredited research on behalf of Hillary Clinton\u2019s 2016 campaign and the D.N.C. into his team\u2019s dealings with Russia.<\/p>\n

Covington & Burling, which received nearly $8.6 million<\/a> from the D.N.C. and former Vice President Kamala Harris\u2019s campaign in the 2024 campaign cycle, was targeted by a presidential memorandum<\/a> stripping security clearances from lawyers who represented Jack Smith, the former special counsel who pursued two separate indictments of the president in 2023.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The D.N.C. declined to comment on Mr. Trump\u2019s moves against the law firms and its vendors, including ActBlue.<\/p>\n

A third law firm, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, was the subject of an executive order<\/a> Friday restricting its business activities because one of its lawyers, Mark F. Pomerantz, had tried to build a criminal case against Mr. Trump several years ago when Mr. Pomerantz worked at the Manhattan district attorney\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

Perkins Coie has lost \u201csignificant revenue\u201d as a result of the order, lawyers for the firm said in a lawsuit<\/a> that prompted a judge to halt parts of the order.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Mr. Trump singled out Mr. Pomerantz and Marc Elias, a former Perkins Coie lawyer who had been the firm\u2019s point person on the Russia research<\/a>. Calling them \u201cradicals\u201d and \u201creally bad people,\u201d Mr. Trump confusingly claimed that the lawyers had \u201ctried to turn America into a corrupt Communist and third world country.\u201d<\/p>\n

On MSNBC afterward, Mr. Elias said, \u201cI\u2019d be an idiot not to be worried.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he vowed to continue battling Mr. Trump. \u201cThe question is not whether we are worried,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cThe question is what do we do.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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Kenneth P. Vogel is based in Washington and investigates the intersection of money, politics and influence. More about Kenneth P. Vogel<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A version of this article appears in print on \u00a0<\/span>, Section <\/p>\n

A<\/p>\n

, Page <\/p>\n

1<\/p>\n

of the New York edition<\/p>\n

with the headline: <\/p>\n

G.O.P. Assault Aims to Hobble The Democrats. Order Reprints<\/a> | Today\u2019s Paper<\/a> | Subscribe<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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