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How many lawsuits have been filed against Trump during his presidency?
Executive Summary
Donald Trump’s presidency produced hundreds of legal challenges to federal actions and far more than a single, simple tally can capture; authoritative trackers count at least 233 active administration-related cases and dozens more multistate or state-filed suits, while separate compilations of Trump’s personal and business litigation list thousands of total cases across decades [1] [2] [3]. No single number in the available sources neatly answers “how many lawsuits were filed against Trump during his presidency” because different trackers count distinct categories—administration actions, multistate suits, state attorney general cases, and Trump’s personal or business cases—using different inclusion rules [1] [4] [2] [3].
1. Why counting lawsuits is surprisingly complicated and what the leading tracker records
Counting lawsuits against a president requires defining the scope: do you count only challenges to federal actions taken by the administration, or all lawsuits naming the president personally, his agencies, or his businesses? The Trump Administration Litigation Tracker compiles suits challenging administration actions and reports at least 233 active cases when district and appeals filings are treated as a single case, plus 19 suits the administration filed against states or localities and several Supreme Court actions and rulings summarized separately [1]. That tracker focuses on litigation over policy and administrative action, so its 233 figure documents litigation targeting governmental acts, not personal or preexisting business litigation, making it a conservative but policy-focused measure [1].
2. State and multistate confrontations pushed the total higher during the first term
States and coalitions of attorneys general were prolific litigants during Trump’s first term, producing at least 156 multistate lawsuits against federal action between 2017 and 2021, with many suits brought by Democratic attorneys general over immigration, environmental rules, and health care matters [2]. California alone sued the Trump administration 123 times in that window, focusing on environmental rules, immigration enforcement, and healthcare, and California reported winning about two-thirds of those cases, underscoring how state-level litigation materially increased the total count of suits aimed at the administration [4]. These state-filed and multistate suits are partly what raises aggregate counts well beyond single-tracker tallies that focus solely on administration-targeted cases [4] [2].
3. Media trackers and interactives capture many cases but differ in methods and coverage
News organizations produced interactive trackers to follow litigation trends during the Trump presidency; an AP News project documented lawsuits against the administration and assembled reporting teams to track cases, but these media trackers vary in what they include and how they count appeals, consolidated suits, or procedural events, meaning an AP-style tracker does not yield a single authoritative numeric total without reviewing its inclusion criteria [5]. The variation in methodology leads to divergent headline numbers: administrative-action trackers, multistate compilations, and news interactives can each report different totals even when covering overlapping litigation, which explains why sources often report different figures despite documenting the same litigation wave [5].
4. Personal and business litigation dwarfs administration-targeted suits when aggregated over time
Donald Trump’s personal and business legal history is far broader than litigation tied solely to presidential actions: compilations of Trump’s legal affairs record over 4,000 legal cases in federal and state courts spanning decades, including defamation suits, business disputes, tax cases, and other matters [3]. Those thousands of cases are not all “filed against Trump during his presidency,” but they illustrate that if one includes personal and corporate cases filed while Trump was president, the numeric total rises drastically, and distinguishing whether a suit targets Trump as an individual, the administration, or an affiliated business is essential to any accurate count [3].
5. Bottom line: the best answer is a qualified one and depends on definitions
The most defensible, narrowly defined number for suits challenging Trump administration actions is the at least 233 active cases documented by a dedicated litigation tracker, supplemented by numerous state and multistate suits—including California’s 123 suits and at least 156 multistate actions—that push the broader total considerably higher [1] [4] [2]. If one expands the scope to include personal and business litigation, comprehensive counts reach into the thousands, reflecting historical legal activity separate from—but sometimes overlapping with—presidential litigation [3]. Any precise answer must state the category counted and cite the tracker or compilation used; without that, headline numbers risk conflating distinct types of litigation and producing misleading totals [1] [2] [3].