Is That Legal? A Guide to Trump’s Big Moves So Far.

In his first month in office, President Trump has ordered a radical set of changes to the federal government. Some are within the traditionally understood scope of a president’s power, but many appear to purposely violate statutes, setting up tests of whether limits imposed by Congress on the White House are constitutional.

The bounds of presidential power can be hazy, and the Republican-appointed supermajority on the Supreme Court could expand them. Still, so many of Mr. Trump’s actions have defied apparent legal limits that some scholars say the country is approaching a constitutional crisis.

Here are 38 of the Trump administration’s biggest moves so far.

Reading the list

⚠️ Actions that appear to conflict with specific statutes or to violate the Constitution.

🚫 Actions that have been temporarily blocked by a judge, either partly or completely.

Actions without these symbols appear more likely to fall within mainstream understandings of presidential power, but may still be unusual or subject to legal challenges.

Staffing, firings and DOGE

• ⚠️🚫 Accessed sensitive data systems at the Treasury Department. States have sued, arguing that this effort by Elon Musk and an initiative called the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, violates the Administrative Procedure Act, the Privacy Act of 1974 and other statutes. Mr. Musk’s team has also sought access to vast amounts of data across the government, including at the Internal Revenue Service and the Social Security Administration, prompting lawsuits. (A federal judge has temporarily restricted Mr. Musk’s team and Mr. Trump’s political appointees from accessing Treasury Department data.)

• ⚠️🚫 Moved to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, including by placing thousands of employees on leave. A union of federal workers has sued, arguing that only Congress can dissolve the agency and fold its remnants into the State Department, as Mr. Trump is trying to do. (A judge has blocked parts of this.)

• ⚠️🚫 Fired the head of an office that protects whistle-blowers and fired members of the National Labor Relations Board, the Merit Systems Protection Board, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. Congress created those agencies to be independent of the White House, and it has been understood that presidents cannot summarily fire their leaders before their terms are up without a cause like misconduct. That limit is explicit in some of their statutes. Several fired officials have sued, setting up potential Supreme Court tests of those limits. (Judges have ordered some of those officials reinstated for now.)

• ⚠️ Enabled agency heads to summarily fire some career federal employees without obeying civil-service protections. Mr. Trump’s executive order instantly nullified a regulation by the Biden administration to impede such firings, but the order may have violated the Administrative Procedure Act. (That’s a law that governs the executive branch’s rule-making authorities.) A union representing federal employees has sued.

• ⚠️ Offered buyouts to federal workers. The offer said workers would be placed on administrative leave and paid through the end of September, but it may conflict with laws about leave and severance payments for federal workers. Congress also hasn’t appropriated money for buyouts. (A judge paused the program, but then lifted the pause, for technical reasons.)

• ⚠️ Ordered Consumer Financial Protection Bureau staffers to stop most work. Congress created the agency, so it would take congressional action to close it. A union representing federal employees has sued, saying that staff members now can’t fulfill the agency’s mission as written into law.

• ⚠️ Fired as many as 18 inspectors general. A law requires giving Congress 30 days’ notice and detailed, case-specific reasons in writing for any removal of an inspector general, but Mr. Trump ignored it. Several of them have filed a lawsuit, saying the firings “violated unambiguous federal statutes.”

• ⚠️ Fired more than two dozen Justice Department prosecutors. There are laws aimed at protecting the civil service and its senior career officials, and they require certain processes.

• ⚠️ Empowered Elon Musk to overhaul the executive branch. Several lawsuits have been filed arguing that Mr. Musk and DOGE lack legitimate legal authority to undertake the sweeping effort to downsize and dismantle federal agencies.

• Established DOGE. In general, establishing a new unit is within Mr. Trump’s power. Previous presidents have regularly created new units within the executive office of the president. DOGE is not a Cabinet-level department; it was technically a renaming and repurposing of the United States Digital Service, which was itself created by President Barack Obama.

• Ordered the F.B.I. to turn over a list of everyone who worked on Jan. 6 cases. Agents have sued, saying they believe the administration intends to reveal their identities, which could put them and their families in danger. (A judge has temporarily blocked the public release of names.)

• Froze federal hiring. Previous administrations have frozen hiring.

• Ordered security clearances for some people without typical vetting, and stripped them from others. The president has authority to issue and revoke security clearances.

• Fired the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the head of the Transportation Security Administration and the commandant of the Coast Guard. Congress created these positions to serve fixed terms that would not necessarily turn over at the moment a new president takes office. But the president nevertheless has authority to remove people in such jobs.

• Dismissed thousands of probationary workers across the federal work force. Probationary workers — often but not always in the first year of their jobs — don’t have the full protections that other civil service workers do.