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Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections
The Russian government conducted foreign electoral interference in the 2016 United States elections with the goals of sabotaging the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, boosting the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, and increasing political and social discord in the United States. According to the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC), the operation—code named "Project Lakhta"—was ordered directly by Russian president Vladimir Putin. The "hacking and disinformation campaign" to damage Clinton and help Trump became the "core of the scandal known as Russiagate".
Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 5, 2024. The Republican ticket of former president Donald Trump and Ohio junior senator JD Vance defeated the Democratic ticket of incumbent vice president Kamala Harris and Minnesota governor Tim Walz.
The incumbent president, Joe Biden of the Democratic Party, initially ran for re-election, easily sweeping aside a challenge from Democratic representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota in the Democratic primaries to become the party's presumptive nominee.
Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election
After Democratic nominee Joe Biden won the 2020 United States presidential election, Republican nominee and then-incumbent president Donald Trump pursued an unprecedented effort to overturn the election, with support from his campaign, proxies, political allies, and many of his supporters. These efforts culminated in the January 6 Capitol attack, described by multiple sources as a self-coup d'état attempt. Trump and his allies used the "big lie" propaganda technique to promote false claims and conspiracy theories asserting that the election was stolen by means of rigged voting machines, electoral fraud and an international conspiracy.
The Durham special counsel investigation (aka Report on Matters Related to Intelligence Activities and Investigations Arising Out of the 2016 Presidential Campaigns) began in 2019 when the U.S. Justice Department designated federal prosecutor John Durham to review the origins of an FBI investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Durham was given authority to examine the government's collection of intelligence about interactions between the 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump and Russians, and to review government documents and request voluntary witness statements.
In December 2020, Attorney General William Barr announced that he had elevated Durham's status and authority by appointing him as a special counsel, allowing him to continue the investigation after the end of the Trump presidency.
The State of Georgia v. Donald J. Trump, et al. was a criminal case against Donald Trump, the 45th and eventually-47th president of the United States, and 18 co-defendants.
Project 2025 (also known as the 2025 Presidential Transition Project) is a political initiative published in April 2023 by the Heritage Foundation with the goal of reshaping the U.S. federal government by consolidating executive power in favor of right-wing policies. It constitutes a policy document that suggests specific changes to the federal government, a personnel database for recommending vetting loyal staff in the federal government, and a set of proposed executive orders for the U.S. president to implement those policies.
The project's policy document Mandate for Leadership calls for the replacement of federal civil service workers by people loyal to "the next conservative president" and for taking partisan control of the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Commerce (DOC), and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
Election law and voting rights under the second Trump administration
The second Trump administration has issued executive orders and other presidential directives instituting federal department and agency actions that have impacted election administration by state governments, federal election security and campaign finance agencies, and offices within the U.S. Justice Department for enforcing voting rights protections. The administration's actions on election law and voting rights have occurred alongside the administration's targeting of political opponents and Republican Party efforts to disrupt voting after the 2024 presidential election. Election lawyers at the Brennan Center for Justice and Democracy Docket have described the administration's actions as election subversion, while surveys of U.S. political scientists conducted after Trump returned to office have found a consensus that the United States is transitioning towards illiberal democracy and competitive authoritarianism.