Which investigations into Donald Trump remain active or unresolved as of December 2025?
Executive summary
Multiple strands of inquiry touching Donald Trump remained active or unresolved in December 2025, but the landscape is fragmented: some earlier criminal prosecutions tied to Special Counsel Jack Smith were abandoned or dismissed while a broad set of new political, administrative and oversight probes — including into crypto deals, alleged “weaponization” of the Justice Department, and retaliatory investigations of critics — were ongoing or developing [1] [2] [3]. Reporting shows both open inquiries and deliberate pauses or dismissals driven by political appointments and pardons, making the net picture one of active scrutiny mixed with significant uncertainty about outcomes [4] [2].
1. Federal criminal cases: what was abandoned, what remains contested
Former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s two high-profile criminal investigations led to charges that were later described in congressional testimony and media reporting as “since-abandoned,” and Smith defended his prosecutorial decisions before lawmakers while asserting his team had developed evidence beyond a reasonable doubt about efforts to overturn the 2020 election [1] [5]. At the same time, courts had dismissed at least some prosecutions tied to politically charged appointments and alleged improper prosecutor appointments, leaving the legal status of those matters unresolved and subject to further review or political maneuvering [2].
2. Claims of “weaponization” and new DoJ investigative apparatus
Early in Trump’s second term the administration created a “Weaponization Working Group” at the Department of Justice to scrutinize law-enforcement officials who previously investigated him, a development that critics say signals a wave of politically motivated probes into former investigators; the IBA reported indictments of figures such as Letitia James and James Comey that followed politically fraught personnel moves and were later dismissed by judges amid questions about the legality of prosecutor appointments [2]. Civil-rights and watchdog groups, and reporting in December 2025, characterize many of these actions as retaliatory and note they remain active or in flux, tracked by organizations monitoring retaliatory prosecutions [2] [6].
3. Financial and foreign-interest inquiries — crypto and beyond
Congressional Democrats and oversight offices pressed the State Department and inspectors general to investigate potential conflicts of interest around Trump family crypto ventures and administration officials tied to foreign AI and crypto deals, with senators Elizabeth Warren and Elissa Slotkin urging full probes after New York Times reporting on Emirati connections; those IG referrals and requests were active as of December 2025 and had been referred into offices of investigation [3]. Simultaneously, watchdogs flagged that many corporate and regulatory probes — especially in cryptocurrency and white‑collar enforcement — were being paused or scuttled, creating unresolved questions about whether alleged wrongdoing will be fully examined [4].
4. State and special investigations: a mixed patchwork of indictments and probes
State-level actions and special inquiries added complexity: reports document indictments of state officials such as New York Attorney General Letitia James on mortgage-related charges and other mortgage‑fraud inquiries reportedly opened around public figures, while some parallel investigations into administration critics or officials were ongoing or had stalled; tracking organizations report a mix of active cases, newly opened inquiries and politically driven targets that leave many matters unresolved [7] [6].
5. The investigative environment: secrecy, political pressure, and open questions
Multiple outlets and watchdogs in December 2025 warned that structural changes — executive orders, pardons, personnel shifts, and legislative moves such as mandating release of certain files — have reshaped which investigations move forward and which evaporate, producing an environment where some probes remain actively pursued while others are effectively frozen or legally vulnerable to dismissal, and where independent oversight bodies have been asked to step in on matters like foreign crypto ties [4] [8] [3]. Reporting shows clear alternative interpretations: defenders of the administration frame the changes as accountability for prior abuses of power, while critics see them as retaliation and erosion of the rule of law [2] [6].
6. Bottom line: active, unresolved, and politically entangled
As of December 2025, there was no single tidy list of open “Trump investigations” that produced imminent criminal liability; instead the record shows a patchwork: some high‑profile criminal prosecutions tied to the post‑2020 effort were dismissed or abandoned yet remain politically and legally contentious [1] [5], oversight inquiries into crypto and foreign entanglements were actively being pushed into inspector-general investigations [3], and a newly empowered Justice Department apparatus was pursuing or threatening a range of retaliatory probes that advocacy groups and courts are still sorting through [2] [6] [4]. Available reporting documents active inquiry and unresolved legal questions but does not provide a definitive accounting of every open grand jury or investigative lead beyond these public threads [3] [2].