The Democracy Index

February 14, 2025

The news is swirling this week, but that doesn’t mean we need to be. We’ve been watching closely to see what this administration is up to, what’s working for them, and what’s not. As they attempt to rattle the foundations of our democracy, we’re keeping a firm eye on:

• How the courts are holding up to Republican challenges to judicial review;

• The lawlessness of DOGE;

• Kleptocracy and the red carpet rollout for foreign influence; and

• Thursday’s injustices inside the Department of Justice.

The Courts

Last weekend, Vice President JD Vance, a Yale-educated lawyer, suggested that federal judges could not “control the executive's legitimate power.” It was part of a prolonged attack by MAGA on the legitimacy of judicial review, a cornerstone of American democracy.

Quick to echo Vance was Elon Musk, who proposed firing 1% of federal judges (who receive life tenure under the Constitution) every year to eliminate “corruption.”

That’s where The Democracy Index launches this week, with the federal judiciary under attack. How must Chief Justice John Roberts, who has much to answer for when it comes to Donald Trump’s second presidency, be feeling?

The federal judiciary punched back. On Monday morning, Chief Judge John McConnell in Rhode Island issued an order admonishing the administration for failing to comply with his order, temporarily ending the administration’s freeze on federal spending. And Judge Leo Sorokin in Boston and U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante in New Hampshire became the third and fourth federal judges to block the executive order against birthright citizenship. In Baltimore, Judge Brendan Hurson blocked an executive order that had shut down access to gender-affirming medical care for transgender people under the age of nineteen. In Washington, D.C., Judge John Bates ordered the CDC, HHS, and FDA to restore pages they had removed from their websites to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order on “gender ideology and extremism.” Judges are standing for the rule of law and against overreach by the executive branch.

Following the attacks on the judiciary by Vance, Musk, and other Senators, something previously unseen happened. A few Republican Senators decided that attacking judicial review was a bridge too far. They spoke up to say something that would have been unremarkable in any other area—that parties (including the government) who disagree with a judge’s decision can appeal it, but they must obey the orders of the courts:

• Senator Josh Hawley told Business Insider, “‘Oh, we’re just going to completely ignore the decision?’ That, I think you can’t do.”

• Senator Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley stated, “We’ve got a system of checks and balances, and that’s what I see working…I learned in eighth grade civics about checks and balances, and I just expect the process to work its way out.”

• Senate Majority Leader John Thune acknowledged to CNN that the judiciary serves to resolve differences between executive and legislative branches, and that he expects federal courts to play “the important role of ensuring that the laws in the country are followed.”

These GOP responses provide encouraging signs of life, especially when viewed in concert with the majority of orders emerging from the judiciary. They are important gains for our rule of law. But we cannot be confident that they will be the final word. Any discussion of disregarding the courts is a profound concern and has the potential to move us closer to autocracy than democracy.

All of the cases challenging Trump’s executive branch actions are still at a very early stage. Judges are freezing the status quo so litigation can proceed without irreparable harm to plaintiffs. As the cases move forward, Trump will win some, and he will lose some. The expectation is that courts will stand for the rule of law, and that presidents—who are not kings—will do things by the book, especially when that means seeking Congress’s approval…instead of assuming they have it with the stroke of a Sharpie.

DOGE

Despite Musk’s claims that he and his band of boys are looking for waste and fraud, he’s sent coders into agencies, not forensic accountants or investigators. It defies belief that in a couple of days, he and his tech apprentices have uncovered significant fraud. Instead, it seems increasingly likely that DOGE is a front for bulldozing parts of the federal bureaucracy that have run afoul of Trump or Musk’s sensitivities. For instance, there have been allegations USAID was conducting an investigation into Musk’s Starlink.

There are now multiple lawsuits challenging DOGE’s activities. But the complaints about alleged unconstitutional conduct are coming from the lawyers and the left. Trump’s party has remained hushed, even as Musk and DOGE have intruded into the Department of the Treasury payment system and the Office of Personnel Management’s sensitive personnel records, while advocating for wholesale firings of career government employees and closure of entire agencies because of “waste.”

Foreign Influence

Meanwhile, a flurry of seemingly unconnected actions, when viewed together, are sending a lucid message to foreign leaders and businesses. These actions nudge the democracy-to-autocracy needle in the wrong direction. It wouldn’t be wrong to suggest the Trump administration appears to be sending engraved invitations to foreign individuals and governments to engage in corruption with the United States. In rapid succession, we’ve seen:

• The dismantling of FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force and the Department of Justice National Security Division’s Corporate Enforcement Unit

• Reduced enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registrations Act

• The disbanding of the KleptoCapture Task Force, the Department's Kleptocracy Team, and the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative

• A pause on Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement at the Department of Justice. This effective nullification halts federal enforcement of anti-bribery laws that prohibit U.S. companies from paying off foreign officials—paving the way for unrestricted corporate corruption in international dealings

• Staffers placed on administrative leave at the nation’s cybersecurity agency (CISA), whose work includes protecting our election systems from ransomware attacks and the physical security of election workers

• The firing of the USAID Inspector General and the blocking USAID IG staff from working

• The shuttering of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

• The removal of veteran DOJ and FBI national security experts from threats briefing with the Deputy Attorney General

In sum, these actions signal that the Trump administration will turn a blind eye to foreign entities engaging in election interference, will not concern itself with foreign individuals or governments bribing U.S. companies or officials, that fraud, waste and abuse will not be monitored, and that the true national security threats to the American people will be assessed through a political lens.

Countries like Russia, Turkey, or Belarus are no doubt paying attention to the dismissal of charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams, and taking notes. It telegraphs that “we’re open for business” in the United States. It’s a classic authoritarian move.

Injustice Inside Justice

Thursday, news surfaced that the acting United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York resigned rather than comply with an order from Washington, D.C. to dismiss her office’s case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. She wrote a long letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, explaining why dismissing the case would violate her obligations as a federal prosecutor. She received a letter back from acting Deputy Attorney and former Trump Lawyer Emil Bove, chastising her for her principles and accepting her resignation.

That wasn’t the end of it. Reporting indicated Bove said he would transfer the case to new lawyers in the Public Integrity Section of the Criminal Division in Washington. Those prosecutors weren’t having it, either. In an extraordinary example of integrity and courage, the head of the Section, most of his deputies, and the senior career official in the Criminal Division resigned by the end of the day. Rather than violate the oaths they took by following orders they could not abide by, they gave up their jobs, their incomes, and their benefits. It’s no small thing to forgo medical insurance when you’ve been living on a prosecutor’s salary and have given up your job with scant warning on a Thursday afternoon in February.

That’s the kind of courage that inspires us, and we hope it will inspire you, too. We have to stand up for what we believe in and what is right. We have to maintain our fight for democracy. It is up to us.