Staff Reports
President Trump said he was “not surprised” after The Center Square published what it says is a confidential “common interest” agreement showing Democratic state attorneys general planning multistate lawsuits against the Trump Administration well before the election. If the document is real, it deserves hard questions — and the media should stop treating this like garden-variety lawyering and start treating it like politics dressed up as process.
What The Center Square reports about the “Project for Federal Accountability”
The Center Square says it obtained a PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL agreement that uses the label “Project for Federal Accountability.” The reporting claims nearly two dozen state attorneys general coordinated plans months before President Trump was reelected. Offices like California Attorney General Rob Bonta, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, and Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown are named in public tallies of cases. Independent trackers show dozens — even hundreds — of suits against the federal government, but The Center Square’s scoop is different: it says these particular moves were planned in advance, not merely reactions to policy decisions.
Why this alleged coordination matters
There is a big difference between suing after a law or rule is passed and plotting lawsuits before an administration acts. If Democratic attorneys general did wire a plan to litigate in advance, that looks less like enforcing the law and more like pre-emptive political warfare. Yes, state AG offices often cooperate. Yes, lawyers use “common interest” agreements all the time. But calling a multi-state plan the “Project for Federal Accountability” and drafting it before election day crosses from routine legal strategy into organized political opposition. Taxpayers end up footing the bills. Courts end up as political battlefields. The question voters should ask: who is running the show — justice or politics?
What reporters and officials must do next
This isn’t the time for gentle curiosity. Reporters should demand the document and publish it. Ask the named AGs to say who signed it, what it authorized, and when it was signed. Ask the White House for the press briefing tape where President Trump commented and let readers judge the tone for themselves. Get an independent legal expert to explain how a “common interest” claim does — or doesn’t — shield planning from public view. If these plans were truly hatched months before the election, that’s a story about how power is used in Washington and in state capitals, not a footnote about litigation.
Call it what it is: if proven, this is politics weaponized into litigation. President Trump’s line — that the country has been “weaponized” — may be theatrical, but the worry is real. Voters deserve to know whether their state attorneys general are defending law and order or coordinating a political campaign dressed up as lawyering. The next move should be transparency, not spin. And if these AGs were plotting long before an election, taxpayers have a right to ask why their money is being used as campaign fuel.
