FREE SPEECH

President Trump has consistently asserted that his defeat in the 2020 election was a direct consequence of a conspiracy orchestrated by social media and Big Tech companies to suppress conservative voices and stifle free speech. Consequently, in his second term, the President’s inclination has been to leverage the instruments of federal power to restrict the speech of ordinary Americans and even foreigners seeking entry into the United States. In September, Donald Trump signed National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), a directive compelling federal law enforcement and intelligence analysts to target "anti-American" activities, including "tax crimes" perpetrated by extremist groups defrauding the IRS. Journalist Ken Klippenstein’s extensive reporting reveals that the directive’s primary focus targets individuals expressing "opposition to law and immigration enforcement; extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders; adherence to radical gender ideology," as well as "anti-Americanism," "anti-capitalism," and "anti-Christianity." Earlier this month, Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a memo directing the FBI to compile a list of Americans whose activities "may constitute domestic terrorism." Bondi also mandated the establishment of a "cash reward system" to incentivize public reporting of suspected domestic terrorist activities. The memo explicitly defines domestic terrorism to include "opposition to law and immigration enforcement" or support for "radical gender ideology." Furthermore, the Trump administration is implementing social media restrictions for tourists, a move that aligns with the President’s escalating travel limitations for foreign visitors. According to a notice from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), tourists from nations including Britain, Australia, France, and Japan will soon be required to submit five years of their social media history. CBP will also collect "several high value data fields," encompassing applicants’ email addresses from the past decade, telephone numbers used in the last five years, and details of family members. Wired reported in October that the CBP conducted more device searches at the border in the first three months of the year than in any preceding quarter. These new CBP requirements reinforce Executive Order 14161, which, under the guise of combating "foreign terrorist and public safety threats," grants extensive new authority that civil liberties groups fear could facilitate a revived travel ban and broader visa denials or deportations based on perceived ideology. Critics argue that the order’s ambiguous language regarding "public safety threats" allows for the targeting of individuals based on political views, national origin, or religion. At present, at least 35 nations are subject to some form of U.S. travel restrictions.

CRIME AND CORRUPTION

In February, President Trump ordered executive branch agencies to cease enforcing the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, effectively halting foreign bribery investigations and even permitting "remedial actions" for past enforcement measures deemed "inappropriate." The White House also dismantled the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative and the KleptoCapture Task Force—units instrumental in corruption cases and the seizure of assets from sanctioned Russian oligarchs—and redirected resources away from investigating white-collar crime. Also in February, Attorney General Pam Bondi dissolved the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force, an entity established during Trump’s first term to counter foreign government influence on American politics. In March 2025, Reuters reported that several U.S. national security agencies had suspended coordinated efforts to counter Russian sabotage, disinformation, and cyberattacks. Former President Joe Biden had previously directed his national security team to establish working groups to monitor these issues, prompted by U.S. intelligence warnings of escalating Russian cyber warfare against Western nations. In a significant test of prosecutorial independence, Trump’s Justice Department directed prosecutors to drop the corruption case against New York Mayor Eric Adams. The repercussions were immediate: multiple senior officials resigned in protest, the case was reassigned, and the Southern District of New York (SDNY), historically one of the nation’s most aggressive offices for pursuing public corruption, white-collar crime, and cybercrime, was plunged into chaos. Regarding cryptocurrency, the administration has shifted the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from enforcement to promoting an industry rife with scams, fraud, and rug-pulls. In 2025, the SEC systematically retreated from enforcement actions against cryptocurrency operators, dropping major cases against Coinbase, Binance, and others. Perhaps the most alarming instance involves Justin Sun, the Chinese-born founder of the cryptocurrency company Tron. In 2023, the SEC charged Sun with fraud and market manipulation. Sun subsequently invested $75 million in the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial (WLF) tokens, became the top holder of the $TRUMP memecoin, and secured an invitation to an exclusive dinner with the President. In late February 2025, the SEC dropped its lawsuit. Sun promptly took Tron public through a reverse merger arranged by Dominari Securities, a firm with Trump family ties. Democratic lawmakers have urged the SEC to investigate what they term "concerning ties to President Trump and his family" as potential conflicts of interest and foreign influence. In October, President Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the founder of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. In 2023, Zhao and his company pleaded guilty to failing to prevent money laundering on the platform. Binance paid a $4 billion fine, and Zhao served a four-month sentence. As CBS News noted last month, shortly after Zhao’s pardon application, he was central to a major deal that propelled the Trump family’s WLF into prominence. "Zhao is a citizen of the United Arab Emirates in the Persian Gulf and in May, an Emirati fund put $2 billion in Zhao’s Binance," 60 Minutes reported. "Of all the currencies in the world, the deal was done in World Liberty crypto." SEC Chairman Paul Atkins has explicitly articulated the agency’s new stance on crypto, stating, "most crypto tokens are not securities." Concurrently, President Trump has directed the Department of Labor and the SEC to expand 401(k) access to private equity and crypto—assets that regulators have historically restricted for retail investors due to high risk, fees, opacity, and illiquidity. The executive order explicitly prioritizes "curbing ERISA litigation" and reducing fiduciary accountability while shifting risk onto ordinary workers’ retirement savings. At the White House’s behest, the U.S. Treasury in March suspended the Corporate Transparency Act, a law that required companies to disclose their beneficial owners. Financial experts warned that the suspension would reintroduce shell companies and "open the flood gates of dirty money" through the U.S., including funds from drug cartels, human traffickers, and fraud rings. Trump’s clemency decisions have fostered a pattern of freed criminals committing new offenses. Jonathan Braun, whose sentence for drug trafficking was commuted during Trump’s first term, was found guilty in 2025 of violating supervised release and faces new charges. Eliyahu Weinstein, who received a commutation in January 2021 for operating a Ponzi scheme, was sentenced in November 2025 to 37 years for orchestrating a new Ponzi scheme. The administration has also granted clemency to an increasing number of white-collar criminals, including David Gentile, a private equity executive sentenced to seven years for securities and wire fraud (functionally a Ponzi-like scheme), and Trevor Milton, the Nikola founder sentenced to four years for defrauding investors over electric vehicle technology. The implicit message is that financial crimes against ordinary investors are not a serious concern. At least 10 of the January 6 insurrectionists pardoned by President Trump have already been rearrested, charged, or sentenced for other crimes, including plotting the murder of FBI agents, child sexual assault, possession of child sexual abuse material, and reckless homicide while driving drunk. The administration also imposed sanctions against the International Criminal Court (ICC). On February 6, 2025, Executive Order 14203 authorized asset freezes and visa restrictions against ICC officials investigating U.S. citizens or allies, primarily in response to the ICC’s arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over alleged war crimes in Gaza. Earlier this month, the President launched the "Gold Card," a visa scheme established by an executive order in September that offers wealthy individuals and corporations expedited paths to U.S. residency and citizenship in exchange for $1 million for individuals and $2 million for companies, plus ongoing fees. The administration indicates plans to offer a "platinum" version of the card providing special tax breaks for a $5 million investment.

FEDERAL CYBERSECURITY

President Trump, campaigning for a second term, insisted the previous election was marred by fraud and stolen from him. Shortly after taking the oath of office for a second time, he dismissed the head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Chris Krebs, for publicly stating that the 2020 election was the most secure in U.S. history. Mr. Trump revoked Krebs’s security clearances, ordered a Justice Department investigation into his election security work, and suspended the security clearances of employees at SentinelOne, the cybersecurity firm where Krebs served as chief intelligence and public policy officer. This executive order marked the first direct presidential action against a U.S. cybersecurity company. Krebs subsequently resigned from SentinelOne, telling The Wall Street Journal he was leaving to push back against Trump’s efforts "to go after corporate interests and corporate relationships." The President also dismissed all 15 members of the Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB), a nonpartisan government entity established in 2022 to investigate security failures behind major cybersecurity events, likely due to the inclusion of Chris Krebs among its advisors. At the time, the CSRB was compiling a report on the root causes of Chinese government-backed digital intrusions into at least nine U.S. telecommunications providers. In a related move, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) swiftly rolled back a previous ruling that mandated stricter cybersecurity measures for U.S. telecom carriers. Meanwhile, CISA has experienced a significant reduction in its workforce, losing approximately one-third of its staff due to mass layoffs and deferred resignations. The government shutdown in October led to further layoffs at CISA and furloughs for 65 percent of the remaining staff, leaving only 900 employees working without pay. Additionally, the Department of Homeland Security has reassigned CISA cyber specialists to support the President’s deportation agenda. As Bloomberg reported earlier this year, CISA employees were given a week to accept the new roles or resign, with some reassignments involving relocation to different geographic areas. The White House has indicated plans to cut an additional $491 million from CISA’s budget next year, primarily targeting programs focused on international affairs and countering misinformation and foreign propaganda. The President’s budget proposal justified these cuts by reiterating debunked claims of CISA engaging in censorship. The Trump administration has implemented a similar reorganization at the FBI. The Washington Post reported in October that a quarter of all FBI agents have been reassigned from national security threats to immigration enforcement. Reuters reported last week that the replacement of seasoned leaders at the FBI and Justice Department with Trump loyalists has resulted in an unprecedented number of prosecutorial missteps, leading to a 21 percent dismissal rate of criminal complaints by the D.C. U.S. attorney’s office over an eight-week period, compared to a mere 0.5 percent dismissal rate over the preceding decade. "These mistakes are causing department attorneys to lose credibility with federal courts, with some judges quashing subpoenas, threatening criminal contempt and issuing opinions that raise questions about their conduct," Reuters reported. "Grand juries have also in some cases started rejecting indictments, a highly unusual event since prosecutors control what evidence gets presented." In August, the DHS banned state and local governments from using cyber grants for services provided by the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC), an organization that for over 20 years has shared critical cybersecurity intelligence across state lines and provided software and resources at no or heavily discounted rates. Specifically, DHS barred states from spending funds on services offered by the Elections Infrastructure ISAC, which was effectively shuttered after DHS withdrew its funding in February. Cybersecurity Dive reports that the Trump administration’s significant workforce reductions, combined with widespread mission uncertainty and a persistent leadership void, have disrupted federal agencies’ efforts to collaborate with businesses and local utilities responsible for healthcare facilities, water treatment plants, energy companies, and telecommunications networks. The publication noted that these changes followed the U.S. government’s elimination of CIPAC, a framework that allowed private companies to share cyber and threat intelligence without legal penalties. "Government leaders have canceled meetings with infrastructure operators, forced out their longtime points of contact, stopped attending key industry events and scrapped a coordination program that made companies feel comfortable holding sensitive talks about cyberattacks and other threats with federal agencies," wrote Cybersecurity Dive’s Eric Geller. Both the National Security Agency (NSA) and U.S. Cyber Command have been without leaders since Trump dismissed Air Force General Timothy Haugh in April, allegedly for disloyalty to the President and at the suggestion of far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer. The nomination of Army Lt. Gen. William Hartman for the same position failed in October. The White House has ordered the NSA to cut 8 percent of its civilian workforce, totaling between 1,500 and 2,000 employees. As The Associated Press reported in August, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) plans to dramatically reduce its workforce and cut its budget by over $700 million annually. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard stated these cuts were warranted because ODNI had become "bloated and inefficient, and the intelligence community is rife with abuse of power, unauthorized leaks of classified intelligence, and politicized weaponization of intelligence." The firing or forced retirement of numerous federal employees has benefited foreign intelligence agencies. Chinese intelligence agencies, for instance, reportedly moved swiftly to capitalize on the mass layoffs, utilizing a network of front companies to recruit laid-off U.S. government employees for "consulting work." Former employees of the Defense Department’s Defense Digital Service, who resigned en masse earlier this year due to DOGE encroaching on their mission, have been approached by the United Arab Emirates to work on artificial intelligence for its armed forces, reportedly with the blessing of the Trump administration.

PRESS FREEDOM

President Trump has initiated multi-billion dollar lawsuits against several major news outlets over news segments or interviews that allegedly portrayed him negatively, suing networks such as ABC, the BBC, CBS parent company Paramount, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times, among others. The President signed an executive order aimed at slashing public subsidies for PBS and NPR, citing "bias" in their reporting. In July, Congress approved Trump’s request to cut $1.1 billion in federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the nonprofit entity that funds PBS and NPR. Brendan Carr, the President’s appointee to lead the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), initially pledged to "dismantle the censorship cartel and restore free speech rights for everyday Americans." However, on January 22, 2025, the FCC reopened complaints against ABC, CBS, and NBC concerning their coverage of the 2024 election. The previous FCC chair had dismissed these complaints as attacks on the First Amendment and an attempt to weaponize the agency for political purposes. In February, President Trump seized control of the White House Correspondents’ Association, the nonprofit entity that determines which media outlets gain access to the White House and the press pool that accompanies the President. The President invited an additional 32 media outlets, predominantly conservative or right-wing organizations. According to the journalism group Poynter.org, these include three religious networks with conservative leanings, a mix of outlets such as a legacy newspaper, television networks, and an AI-powered digital outlet. Trump also barred The Associated Press from the White House over their refusal to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. Under Trump appointee Kari Lake, the U.S. Agency for Global Media moved to dismantle Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and other networks that have for decades served as credible news sources behind authoritarian lines. While courts have blocked shutdown orders, the damage continues through administrative leave, contract terminations, and funding disputes. President Trump this term has fired most of the personnel involved in processing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for government agencies. FOIA is an indispensable tool used by journalists and the public to request government records and hold leaders accountable. Petitioning the government, especially when requests are ignored, often necessitates legal challenges against federal agencies. However, this becomes significantly more difficult if prominent law firms begin to avoid cases that might involve confronting the President and his administration. On March 22, the President issued a memorandum directing the heads of the Justice and Homeland Security Departments to "seek sanctions against attorneys and law firms who engage in frivolous, unreasonable and vexatious litigation against the United States," or in matters before federal agencies. The Trump administration announced increased vetting of applicants for H-1B visas for highly skilled workers, with an internal State Department memo stating that anyone involved in "censorship" of free speech should be considered for rejection. Executive Order 14161, issued in 2025 and concerning "foreign terrorist and public safety threats," granted broad new authority that civil liberties groups warn could enable a renewed travel ban and expanded visa denials or deportations based on perceived ideology. Critics contend that the order’s vague language regarding "public safety threats" allows for the targeting of individuals based on political views, national origin, or religion.

CONSUMER PROTECTION, PRIVACY

At the beginning of the year, President Trump instructed staffers at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to cease most of its operations. Established by Congress in 2011 as a clearinghouse for consumer complaints, the CFPB has filed lawsuits against some of the nation’s largest financial institutions for violating consumer protection laws. The CFPB reports that its actions have returned nearly $18 billion to Americans in the form of monetary compensation or canceled debts, and imposed $4 billion in civil money penalties against violators. The Trump administration announced plans to dismiss up to 90 percent of all CFPB staff, but a recent federal appeals court ruling in Washington overturned an earlier decision that would have permitted these firings. Reuters reported this week that an employee union and others have contested this in court for ten months, during which the agency has been largely inactive. The CFPB’s acting director is Russell Vought, a key architect of the GOP policy framework Project 2025. Under Vought’s direction, the CFPB quietly withdrew a data broker protection rule in May that was intended to limit the ability of U.S. data brokers to sell personal information on Americans. Despite the Federal Reserve’s own post-mortem explicitly blaming Trump-era deregulation for the 2023 Silicon Valley Bank collapse, which triggered a rapid crisis requiring emergency weekend bank bailouts, Trump’s banking regulators in 2025 doubled down. They loosened capital requirements, narrowed definitions of "unsafe" banking practices, and removed specific risk categories from supervisory frameworks, creating conditions ripe for another banking crisis requiring taxpayer intervention. The Privacy Act of 1974, one of the few significant federal privacy laws, was founded on the principles of consent and separation in response to abuses of power revealed during the Watergate era. The law stipulates that when an individual provides personal information to a federal agency for a specific service, that data must be used solely for its original purpose. Nevertheless, it was revealed in June that the Trump administration has established a central database of all U.S. citizens. According to NPR, the White House intends to utilize this new platform in upcoming elections to verify the identity and citizenship status of U.S. voters. The database was developed by the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Governmental Efficiency and is being rolled out in phases to U.S. states.

DOGE

Arguably the most significant unreported story of 2025 involves the internal workings of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and the fate of the personal, financial, and other sensitive data accessed by its workers. President Trump appointed Elon Musk to lead the newly established department, which was largely staffed by current and former employees of Musk’s various technology companies, including a former member of the cybercrime community known as "the Com." It soon became apparent that the DOGE team was employing artificial intelligence to surveil communications within at least one federal agency for any signs of hostility towards Mr. Trump and his agenda. DOGE employees gained access to and synthesized data from a large number of previously separate and highly guarded federal databases, including those at the Social Security Administration, the Department of Homeland Security, the Office of Personnel Management, and the U.S. Department of the Treasury. DOGE staff achieved this primarily by circumventing or dismantling security measures designed to detect and prevent misuse of federal databases, such as standard incident response protocols, auditing, and change-tracking mechanisms. For instance, an IT expert with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) alleges that DOGE employees likely downloaded gigabytes of data from agency case files in early March, using short-lived accounts configured to leave minimal network activity traces. The NLRB whistleblower stated that the large data outflows coincided with multiple blocked login attempts from Russian IP addresses, which attempted to use valid credentials for a newly created DOGE user account. The stated objective of DOGE was to reduce bureaucracy and drastically cut costs, primarily by eliminating funding for numerous federal initiatives already approved by Congress. The DOGE website claimed these efforts reduced "wasteful" and "fraudulent" federal spending by over $200 billion. However, multiple independent reviews by news organizations determined that the actual "savings" achieved by DOGE were off by a couple of orders of magnitude, likely closer to $2 billion. Concurrently with DOGE’s program cuts, President Trump fired at least 17 inspectors general at federal agencies—the very individuals tasked with identifying and preventing waste, fraud, and abuse at the federal level. This included several agencies (such as the NLRB) that had ongoing investigations into one or more of Mr. Musk’s companies for alleged non-compliance with protocols designed to protect state secrets. In September, a federal judge ruled that the President had unlawfully fired the agency watchdogs, but none have been reinstated. Where is DOGE now? Reuters reported last month that, from the White House’s perspective, DOGE no longer exists, despite technically having over half a year left on its charter. Meanwhile, who exactly retains access to federal agency data that DOGE funneled into AI tools remains unknown. KrebsOnSecurity wishes to thank the anonymous researcher NatInfoSec for their assistance with the research for this story.