President Trump announced a lawsuit against the Center for American Progress after the left-leaning think tank published a report claiming National Guard deployments to American cities had no effect on violent crime, a finding Trump called a politically motivated fraud.
Trump disclosed the legal action on Truth Social, saying a lawsuit against CAP is "being drawn now" and that he is "strongly considering adding some of the contributors to this Fake Organization" to the case. The announcement followed a television appearance by Chandler Hall, CAP's associate director of public safety, who argued on C-SPAN that sending National Guard troops to cities including Washington, D.C., had no impact on crime, the Washington Examiner reported.
The dispute centers on a CAP report that examined homicide, violent crime, and gun victimization data in cities where the administration deployed or threatened to deploy troops. CAP's own numbers, however, tell a story the think tank's conclusions seem eager to ignore.
The CAP report acknowledged that the 11 cities where the National Guard was deployed or threatened saw a 14 percent drop in their 12-month rolling violent crime rate and a 22 percent drop in their 12-month rolling murder rate between June 2024 and June 2025. But CAP argued those declines began before troops arrived, claiming the administration was "exploiting" a pre-existing trend.
CAP's report stated:
"The second Trump administration is trying to take credit for the historic drop in violent crime across America despite the fact that this trend began before it took office, and it is using these declines to justify expanding policies that are unpopular, ineffective, and costly."
The report went further, claiming CAP's analysis "finds no evidence that National Guard deployments have reduced violent crime" and projecting that extending deployments through the end of 2026 could cost taxpayers more than $1.7 billion.
That framing drew a sharp response. The report measured crime trends through June 2025, a period it described as ending before the National Guard was first deployed to Los Angeles. In other words, CAP's own measurement window largely predates the deployments it purports to evaluate. Concluding that a policy had "no effect" based primarily on data collected before the policy took full effect is a methodological choice that invites skepticism, not deference.
And the data that does exist from after deployments began cuts against CAP's thesis. Breitbart News reported that in August 2025, overall violent crime in Washington, D.C., dropped 22 percent in the week after Trump announced his crackdown, with no murders in the city over the previous seven days.
The lawsuit announcement did not come without warning. Trump's personal attorney, Alejandro Brito, sent CAP a nine-page demand letter threatening a $5 billion defamation suit and giving the organization until end of business on a Friday to retract the report, apologize, and provide financial compensation, Newsmax reported.
Brito argued that CAP "did not merely draw a different academic conclusion" but instead turned a disputed empirical question into "a false, malicious and defamatory accusation" against the president.
CAP did not back down. Its president and CEO, Neera Tanden, called the legal threat "a transparent attempt to silence us," adding: "We will neither cower nor bend in the face of it." CAP's general counsel, Kevin Metz, told the AP that "truth is not and cannot be defamation."
Metz went further in a separate statement, warning that if the lawsuit proceeds, CAP would seek full discovery on deployment costs and White House involvement. He also argued the case could set a precedent that future administrations might use against conservative think tanks, Just The News reported.
That argument, framing a defamation claim as a threat to free inquiry, is a familiar defensive posture for organizations caught publishing politically convenient conclusions. Whether CAP's report qualifies as protected opinion or actionable defamation is a question a court will now have the opportunity to resolve.
Trump did not limit his criticism to CAP's research. He named the organization's financial supporters, calling them complicit in what he described as a "Radical Left SCAM." The list included George Soros, Bill and Melinda Gates, Google, Apple, Visa, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Walmart, Toyota, T-Mobile, and NBC Universal.
Trump also flagged foreign funding, noting contributions from the Embassy of Japan, the Korea Foundation, and the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates. The specific amounts and nature of those contributions were not detailed. But the breadth of CAP's donor base, spanning Wall Street, Silicon Valley, major retailers, media conglomerates, and foreign governments, raises fair questions about whose interests a "nonpartisan" policy report actually serves.
The administration has shown a broader willingness to use litigation to hold its critics accountable, a pattern that extends well beyond this case. Trump has previously threatened a $5 billion lawsuit against CAP in the lead-up to this formal announcement.
Trump posted on Truth Social:
"The report is just another Radical Left SCAM, as are the people who fund this gaggle of Lunatics, including George Soros, Bill and Melinda Gates, Google, Apple, Visa, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, WellsFargo, Bank of America, Walmart, Toyota, T-Mobile, and NBC Universal."
He added: "These people, and others like them, are so bad for our Country. Their stated course is anything to hate or demean 'TRUMP.'"
The administration deployed National Guard troops to several cities, including Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and New Orleans, to support law enforcement operations. In D.C., the administration placed the Metropolitan Police Department under direct federal control and activated Guard units, a move that preceded the sharp one-week crime drop reported by Breitbart in August 2025.
CAP's report acknowledged that crime was falling in the targeted cities but attributed the decline entirely to trends already underway in 2023 and 2024, before Trump took office. The think tank's framing stripped the administration of any credit while simultaneously demanding taxpayers worry about the $1.7 billion price tag of continuing deployments.
That combination, dismissing the policy's benefits while inflating its costs, is a familiar playbook from Washington policy shops that oppose an administration's agenda. CAP did not merely analyze data; its report accused the president of "exploiting" crime statistics and "falsely" claiming credit for safer streets. Those are not the words of dispassionate researchers. They are the words of political adversaries.
The legal question is whether those accusations cross the line from aggressive advocacy into defamation. The political question is simpler: residents of cities like Washington, D.C., where violent crime dropped 22 percent in a single week after the crackdown, are unlikely to care whether a think tank's regression model gives the National Guard credit. They care that the streets got safer.
This lawsuit fits within a broader pattern of the Trump administration pressing legal fights on multiple fronts. The administration has also returned to the Supreme Court repeatedly over mail ballot restrictions, and evidence has emerged of politically motivated targeting of Trump from within state attorneys general offices, context that makes the administration's willingness to fight back in court more understandable.
Meanwhile, the Trump family has pursued its own legal battles. Melania Trump recently sought sanctions against an author after a judge tossed a preemptive lawsuit, and the president has pushed legal boundaries on birthright citizenship through executive action, all part of an administration that treats the courtroom as a legitimate arena for settling policy disputes.
As of the announcement, no formal lawsuit filing has been confirmed. Trump described the suit as "being drawn now." The specific legal claims, the court where it would be filed, and the final list of defendants remain unknown.
CAP has signaled it will not settle. Its leadership has publicly rejected the retraction demand and indicated readiness to litigate. Whether the case proceeds to discovery, where CAP's methodology, funding relationships, and internal communications could face scrutiny, will depend on whether the suit is filed and survives early motions.
For now, the battle lines are drawn. A well-funded think tank backed by billionaires, corporations, and foreign embassies published a report designed to undercut a popular public safety policy. The president called it a fraud and is preparing to take the fight to court.
When a policy shop with that donor list produces a report that conveniently reaches the conclusion its political allies wanted, the public has every right to ask whether they got research, or a press release with footnotes.
