Donald Trump is deploying the powers of the presidency like he’s dispensing midterm party favors. In the last six weeks, Trump’s crass transactionalism has been on full display: signing pardons at a campaign podium, promising every adult $5,000 if his party keeps Congress, timing government payments to arrive in mailboxes weeks before the Nov. 3 election, tying federal investments and disaster aid to his party’s electoral success, and dispatching his attorney general to introduce him at political rallies.
The pardon power, the federal Treasury, and the Justice Department belong to the American people, not to any president’s campaign. Handing out favors and public funds from the rally stage to buy votes is a profound abuse of executive power.
Here’s what you need to know:
Pardons as Rally Props
At an Oct. 13 rally in Wasilla, Alaska, Trump called two auto shop owners onstage, told an aide “Bring me the pardons!” and signed clemency papers at the podium for men who’d pleaded guilty to violating the Clean Air Act by stripping emissions controls from diesel trucks.
Moments later, one of the newly pardoned men grabbed the microphone and urged the crowd to re-elect the state’s Republican incumbents.
The pardon power can be used to correct injustice and extend mercy, but Trump’s using it as a crowd-pleaser at a campaign event.
Checks With Strings Attached
At the RNC’s midterm convention on Sept. 9, Trump promised a $5,000 “Trump Dividend” to every adult citizen, but only if Republicans hold both the House and the Senate. The promise would cost over $1 trillion of taxpayer money.
Other payments are timed directly to the election calendar. The administration mailed $500 Obamacare “refund” checks to nearly 1 million people on Oct. 1 with a letter touting Trump’s record. More than 20 million seniors received $90 Medicare payments on Oct. 8 from a fund no previous administration has tapped this way.
At a Kansas rally on Oct. 19, Trump announced $8 billion in farm aid to offset costs driven up by his own tariffs and war with Iran, then told the crowd, “When the Republicans win, we will pass even more funding for our farmers.”
Yet his track record says the checks are bait. Trump’s $2,000 tariff dividend and promised DOGE savings refunds never materialized, and the $200 Medicare drug cards he promised before the 2020 election were never distributed. Now he is threatening veterans exposed to toxic water at Camp Lejeune that their claims will go unpaid if Republicans lose: “If we don’t win, there’s no money.”
Taxpayer Dollars As Political Rewards
Trump is promising executive actions only if his party wins: a $100 million Pentagon investment in a Kentucky plant, the Space Force Academy for Ohio, and year-round E-15 gasoline sales if his preferred Senate candidate in Kansas prevails.
He has bundled disaster relief into candidate endorsements for Iowa, Kentucky, and Wisconsin, and “joked” about withholding Hurricane Helene recovery funds from North Carolina unless his party’s Senate candidate won. And at an Oct. 5 rally in Nebraska, he signed an executive order onstage, then told a Kansas crowd that “when you’re president, you have a little bit of an advantage.”
Disaster aid and Pentagon contracts belong to the American public. Trump is treating them as tools to punish his opponents and prizes for political loyalty.
The Justice Department on the Campaign Trail
Attorney General Todd Blanche introduced Trump at a Senate campaign rally in North Carolina in September and spoke at the RNC’s midterm convention.
A new DOJ ethics memo now lets the attorney general address political gatherings, endorse or oppose candidates, eliminating long-standing guidance that discouraged attorneys general from appearing in a state shortly before its elections.
At an Oct. 20 rally in Greenville, N.C., Trump promised that if Republicans keep both chambers, “I am directing the Department of Justice to settle all remaining legitimate claims” at Camp Lejeune.
The nation’s top law enforcement officer is supposed to remain independent from electoral politics. Instead, Blanche is warming up Trump’s crowds.
The Not Above the Law coalition is co-chaired by Lisa Gilbert, Co-President of Public Citizen; Praveen Fernandes, Vice President of the Constitutional Accountability Center; Kelsey Herbert, Campaign Director at MoveOn; and Brett Edkins, Managing Director for Policy and Political Affairs at Stand Up America.
For questions about our work to hold Trump accountable or to request an interview with a Not Above the Law coalition leader, please email press@focalpointstrategygroup.com.