List of times Trump violated the Constitution
Executive summary
A growing body of reporting, court rulings, and watchdog reports documents multiple instances where courts, legal experts, and congressional investigators have found President Trump’s actions to violate constitutional protections — especially First, Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights and separation-of-powers constraints [1] [2] [3]. This account lists prominent, documented episodes where those findings have been made or where authoritative scholars and institutions say the President’s moves raise clear constitutional problems, noting where courts or other institutions disagreed or limited remedies.
1. Executive orders targeting lawyers and firms: a judicial finding of viewpoint retaliation
Federal judges have blocked and criticized executive directives aimed at law firms such as Perkins Coie, with one court saying the administration “used the powers of the federal government to target lawyers” in a manner that violated the First Amendment (retaliation and viewpoint discrimination), the Fifth Amendment (equal protection and due process), and the Sixth Amendment (right to counsel) [1] [2]. Legal challenges and temporary restraining orders followed, and legal advocacy groups interpreted these rulings as concrete examples of unconstitutional executive targeting [4] [1].
2. Birthright citizenship: an EO blocked as “blatantly unconstitutional”
The administration’s executive order purporting to end birthright citizenship was enjoined by federal judges as unconstitutional, and multiple legal analyses describe the move as a direct conflict with the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment; courts and commentators called the order “blatantly unconstitutional” while litigation continued [5] [4] [2]. Congress, courts, and constitutional scholars have been central to the pushback documented in litigation trackers and organization reports [4] [6].
3. Use of the Alien Enemies Act and summary removals: due process concerns
The administration’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to justify summary removals or extraordinary deportation authority has prompted legal criticism that such uses bypass constitutional due process protections guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment — a point emphasized in reporting and legal commentary questioning AEA use in peacetime for alleged gang members [2] [1]. Courts and scholars flagged the risk that re-purposing antiquated wartime statutes in this way would undercut procedural safeguards [1].
4. Deployment and domestic use of military or federal force: Posse Comitatus and separation-of-powers alarms
Multiple observers, including constitutional scholars and civil liberties groups, warned that attempts to deploy federal military or National Guard forces in domestic policing roles risk violating the Constitution’s civil-military boundaries and statutes such as the Posse Comitatus framework; local officials and some judges said proposed deployments lacked legal justification [7] [8] [9]. Committee reports and news outlets documented instances where mayors and courts contested the legal bases for federal deployments [8] [3].
5. Firing inspectors general and reprogramming funds: structural departures from statutory limits
Early and later actions to remove inspectors general without statutorily required notice, and attempts to freeze or reprogram funds without following the Impoundment Control Act procedures, drew sharp criticism from legal centers and judges who described those moves as breaching statutory checks designed to protect separation of powers and congressional appropriations authority [5] [9] [10]. Reports cataloging hundreds of lawsuits against the administration document repeated judicial rebukes for overreach [3] [6].
6. Attempts to overturn or interfere with elections, and the mixed record on presidential immunity
Allegations that the President sought to interfere with the 2020 election process have produced criminal prosecutions and constitutional debate about official-act immunity; the Supreme Court’s 2024 decision recognized absolute immunity for core official acts and no immunity for unofficial acts, leaving many prosecutions and constitutional claims to be sorted in lower courts — a legally consequential but contested limit on accountability [11]. Scholars differ on whether that ruling narrows constitutional remedies for misconduct, even as prosecutors press cases [11].
Conclusion and limitations
Congressional reports, civil‑liberties groups, and courts have identified and in many cases enjoined or condemned specific practices of the Trump administration as unconstitutional — from EO-driven targeting of lawyers and attempts to strip birthright citizenship, to misuse of wartime statutes, domestic military deployments, removal of inspectors general, and contested actions around elections and immunity — but the record is contested, fluid, and often litigated in numerous pending cases and appeals [1] [2] [3] [6]. This summary relies on the cited reporting and court findings; it does not attempt an exhaustive catalogue beyond what those sources document and acknowledges that different courts, the Supreme Court, and some legal commentators have reached divergent conclusions in particular matters [11] [6].