Washington, DC – In the four weeks since Donald Trump took office, Democratic Attorneys General have demonstrated that their months of preparation for potentially unlawful and unconstitutional actions taken by the Trump administration are already producing results.

“For nearly a year, Democratic attorneys general — the chief law enforcement officers in 22 states, plus D.C. — have been planning for this moment,” wrote The Washington Post’s Karen Tumulty. “They have now put themselves at the front line of resistance to a reelected Donald Trump.”

Key highlights:

• “The Democratic attorneys general are not new to this. They acted collectively — and effectively — during Trump’s chaotic first term. They got courts to block, among other actions, his ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries entering the United States and family separations at the border.”
• “The attorneys general are acting selectively, they say, filing suits…where they can show the specific harm that Trump’s actions are having on the people in their states.”

• “Their approach is working — so far. Since Trump’s inauguration four weeks ago, attorneys general have scored a streak of courtroom wins, starting with their challenge to his executive order blocking birthright citizenship to children of people who are in the United States illegally.”
• “The attorneys general have since convinced courts to temporarily block the administration’s spending freeze on programs for which Congress had appropriated money, its cuts to National Institutes of Health fundingin 22 states and the access of billionaire Elon Musk and his minions to the personal and financial data of millions of Americans kept at the Treasury Department.”
• “…state attorneys general have become crucial national players.”
• “The Democratic attorneys general have been taking a noticeably more aggressive stance against the president than have the Democratic governors…”
• “But others are more measured. ‘We are being stress tested, but we’re durable,’ said California’s Rob Bonta, ‘and a critical part of it is unapologetic AGs who take you to court no matter who you are, an everyday American or a president, when you violate the law in the Constitution and hold you accountable to the bedrock, core principles of our country.’”

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