Accountability of candidates and elected officials Protect Democracy advocates for maintaining a strong separation between the White House and the
Justice Department. In 2020, the group collected letters from hundreds of DOJ alumni, calling for former Attorney General
William Barr to step down. The DOJ alumni also claimed the
Mueller report presented enough evidence to charge former President
Donald Trump with
obstruction of justice. Protect Democracy has criticized both
Democrats and
Republicans over resisting
congressional oversight. In 2021, the group represented 66 former members of Congress, including two dozen Republicans, challenging Trump’s efforts to block the
January 6th Select Committee from accessing his presidential records. During the
2020 election, Bassin urged then-candidate
Joe Biden to reverse course after declaring he would defy a subpoena if called to testify in
Trump’s first impeachment. Biden eventually backed off his comments. Following the
January 6th Capitol riots, Protect Democracy represented
Capitol Police officers suing Trump under the
Klan Act for his role in inciting the crowd. In February 2022, the Court denied Trump’s motion to dismiss the case. In an amicus brief filed in the case, the DOJ rejected Trump’s claim to have blanket
immunity from civil liability for his conduct in office. In December 2023, a three-judge panel of the
D.C. Circuit ruled that Trump was not immune from prosecution for his actions on January 6. Protect Democracy also represented
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman in a case against former Trump aides and allies, accusing them of intimidating and retaliating against him for testifying against Trump during his first impeachment. The group sued the 2016 Trump campaign on behalf of Jessica Denson, a former Trump campaign staffer, in an attempt to invalidate the
non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) that she and other staffers were made to sign. Denson got her own NDA overturned in 2021, and two years later, a judge ruled that her victory extends to all who signed the NDA.
Work to maintain a nonpartisan civil service Protect Democracy represented the
Federal Trade Commission's
Kelly Slaughter in a 2025 case over whether the president is allowed to fire members of an independent commission created by Congress. The Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in the case. The group was also part of a lawsuit on behalf of a coalition of labor unions, nonprofit organizations, and local governments in which they argued that the
Trump administration's mass firings (known as "RIFs) of the federal workforce were illegal. The preliminary injunction that the plaintiffs won paused dozens of RIFs across several agencies.
First Amendment work Protect Democracy’s litigation has advocated on behalf of
First Amendment rights. In 2019, the organization filed a lawsuit on behalf of Reverend
Kaji Douša, challenging a previously secret
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) surveillance operation that targeted activists, journalists, lawyers, and faith leaders, all of whom spoke out against the Trump administration. In 2023, a federal judge in California ruled that
U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the DHS violated Douša’s rights by retaliating against her for ministering to migrants and refugees. In another 2023 lawsuit filed on behalf of
Penguin Random House,
PEN America, and individuals in Florida, Protect Democracy worked with
Ballard Spahr to challenge the constitutionality of the
Escambia County School District’s removal and restriction of books discussing race, racism, or
LGBTQ issues from public school libraries. A third lawsuit, filed on behalf of several businesses in Florida, challenged the state’s
Stop WOKE Act. In March 2024, a three-judge panel of the
11th U.S. Circuit of Appeals upheld a lower court’s injunction blocking enforcement of the law, ruling that Florida businesses' speech rights were improperly restricted. In 2025, the group worked with Tech Freedom to file a petition on behalf of seven former
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairs and board members advocating for the revocation of the "news distortion" policy. In the petition, the FCC members argued that “the current leadership of the Commission is abusing the news distortion policy to directly advance the interests of the White House.”
Law for Truth The group also launched "Law for Truth", which uses
defamation law to impose accountability on those who spread election disinformation. Law for Truth has brought lawsuits on behalf of Ruby Freeman and
Wandrea' ArShaye Moss, two election workers in Georgia, and a
postmaster in Pennsylvania, who suffered online and offline threats to their safety due to false media stories about their alleged involvement in election fraud. Freeman and Moss, who sued
One America News Network,
Rudy Giuliani and
The Gateway Pundit, were awarded the
Presidential Citizens Medal for their defense of the 2020 election. In July 2023, Giuliani conceded that the statements he made about Freeman and Moss were false. In December of that year, a federal court ordered Giuliani to pay Freeman and Moss $148 million in compensatory and punitive damages. Protect Democracy's case representing Robert Weisenbach, the Republican postmaster in Pennsylvania, was settled out of court by
Project Veritas and
James O'Keefe. In another lawsuit, the group represents
Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, who sued former Arizona gubernatorial candidate
Kari Lake for defamation over claims she made about Richer’s role in the
2022 Arizona gubernatorial election. In 2024, Richer and Lake reached a private settlement in the case. The group also sued the makers and promoters of the film
2,000 Mules, representing Mark Andrews, a voter who legally placed his ballot and those of his family into a dropbox ahead of the 2020 election. In May 2024,
Salem Media Group (one of the parties being sued) issued a statement apologizing to Andrews and announcing that Salem had removed the film from its platforms.
National Task Force on Election Crises In 2019, Protect Democracy also convened the nonpartisan "National Task Force on Election Crises," a cross-ideological group of more than 50 experts on elections, security, public health, and other areas. The Task Force issues analyses and reports, holding press briefings on how the electoral system is supposed to work for the purpose of building resiliency against efforts to subvert the electoral process.
Preventing executive abuses of power Protect Democracy represented
El Paso County, Texas and the
Border Network for Human Rights in a 2019 lawsuit, alleging that Trump’s declaration of a national emergency to build a wall on the southern border violated federal statutes, including the
National Emergencies Act and
Consolidated Appropriations Act. The lawsuit was ultimately rendered moot by the
Supreme Court after changes in policy under the Biden administration. The group has written
amicus briefs focused on executive overreach in relation to two of the Supreme Court’s cases involving deliberations over presidential emergency powers: A Trump administration migration restriction in
Arizona v. Mayorkas and the Biden administration’s student debt cancellation program in
Biden v. Nebraska. The group argued that both cases together represented an opportunity to “[propose] a standard for how the Court should consider challenges to executive actions based on congressional delegations of emergency powers.” In 2025, Protect Democracy filed a lawsuit in response to the tactics used as part of "Operation Midway Blitz", the Trump administration's deployment of federal agents in Chicago, Illinois. In response, a federal judge issued a temporary injunction, saying that the use of force by federal agents "shocks the conscience." That same year, the group sued the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Health and Human Services, arguing that over $1 billion in research grant cuts had been canceled illegally. A federal judge ruled in June 2025 that the cuts were illegal.
Advocating recusals from elected officials running their own elections Protect Democracy has challenged Republican and Democratic officials over claims that they were misusing their offices to improperly interfere in elections. In 2018, Protect Democracy sued then-
Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, seeking his
recusal from overseeing a
recount in an election in which he was also a candidate. The group also filed a lawsuit against then-Florida Governor
Rick Scott, claiming the Constitution sets limits on an elected official’s ability to exercise governmental powers over their own election. Protect Democracy later challenged
Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, a
Democrat, for appearing to use his governmental position to advance his own candidacy for governor.
Preventing voter suppression The organization has also pushed back on efforts to impinge the
right to vote. In 2022, the group filed a lawsuit against individuals and organizations conspiring to intimidate Arizona voters who were using drop boxes to deliver their ballots in the 2022 election. Days later, a federal court issued an order barring the defendants in the case from confronting, photographing, and
doxing voters, in addition to carrying guns and wearing body armor near drop boxes. In 2023, Protect Democracy was one of the groups that filed a lawsuit challenging Virginia’s lifetime ban on voting for anyone convicted of any
felony. The suit argues that Virginia’s disenfranchisement provision violates a little-known
federal law: The Virginia Readmission Act, a
Reconstruction-era statute designed to protect the newly-enshrined rights, including the right to vote, of formerly enslaved citizens. After the 2024 election, Protect Democracy represented a group of North Carolina voters who had their votes invalidated in a closely contested Supreme Court race. The invalidation of their votes was ultimately overturned, and Democrat Allison Riggs (who narrowly won the election) assumed the seat.
Accountability for political violence Protect Democracy has filed two lawsuits aimed at deterring voter intimidation and political violence. The cases involved Biden-Harris campaigners and a bus driver who were on a campaign bus in October 2020, when they were ambushed by a “Trump Train” in Texas. One case,
Davis v. Cisneros, targeted the drivers of the “Trump Train” for harassment and intimidation. The second case,
Cervini v. Stapp, was filed against San Marcos law enforcement officials who allegedly failed to provide a police escort during the attack. The city of San Marcos and three of its police officials agreed to a monetary settlement, admitting in the settlement agreement of falling short of their policing standards. In the agreement, they also committed to institute police training on responding to political violence and voter intimidation.
Electoral Count Act Protect Democracy advocated for passage of the
Electoral Count Act (ECA), which was passed into law in 2022. According to
Washington Post columnist Greg Sargent, the group “wrote one of the earliest blueprints on how to reform [the] ECA.” == Reports ==