Democrat AGs planned to sue Trump nearly 7 months before he was reelected

Nearly two dozen state attorneys general banded together as early as April 2024 to plot litigation against President Donald Trump long before he was reelected, according to a confidential document obtained by The Center Square. The document was signed approximately three months before President Joe Biden exited from the race and Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee for president. It was signed nearly seven months before Trump was reelected by 2.3 million more votes than Harris, almost nine months before he was inaugurated. State attorneys general have sued the Trump Administration nearly 100 times since January 2025. The coordinated effort appears to have a nickname: the "Project for Federal Accountability." Former Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, who was a Republican when he was in office but now often votes for Democrats, said he believes the timing was unusual. He described signing similar documents during his tenure from 2001 through 2013, but not for any hypothetical lawsuits planned so far in advance of government action. "That's not normal at all," Shurtleff said. "It's a big selling point now. I get lots of emails from people running for attorney general, lots of texts and emails saying, 'We've got to stop President Trump' or 'We've got to work together as state attorneys general. That's why you need to give me money!' and vice versa. It goes both ways… I don't think that's the best use of an attorney general's time." Not all of the lawsuits have been joined by each attorney general, and some offices take the lead on different cases. At last count, California Attorney General Rob Bonta has participated in 82 lawsuits. Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser has joined at least 75 lawsuits. Washington State Attorney General Brown has joined 70 lawsuits. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes has joined 46 lawsuits. At a news conference on Tuesday, Bonta stated the lawsuits are "apolitical." He announced the lawsuits have cost California taxpayers $19 million and that he will continue to file them as needed. "If (Trump) doesn't want to get sued, all he has to do is follow the law," Bonta said. "I don't think our cases are likely to be dismissed… Trump shows no sign of slowing down, so we will continue to sue him." So far, 11 cases have been closed in favor of the plaintiff and four cases dismissed in favor of the federal government, according to Just Security — a nonpartisan digital law and policy journal at New York University. The document, titled "PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL COMMON INTEREST AGREEMENT," also incorporated plans to withhold some information from the public surrounding the lawsuits, indicating the parties "wish to pursue their common interest concerning Federal Accountability issues and litigation(s) addressing such issues, while avoiding any waiver of the confidentiality of those privileged materials." At least 22 Democratic attorneys general appear to have signed the common interest agreement. Zero Republican attorneys general appear to have signed it. Three Democratic attorneys general — in Oregon, Virginia and Wisconsin — have declined to say whether they signed the agreement. The Virginia Attorney General's Office flipped from red to blue in January 2026. One year earlier, Pennsylvania went the opposite direction. Voters elected a Republican to succeed a Democrat in January 2025. Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday has not responded to questions asking whether his state remains part of the common interest agreement. When attorneys general have sued prior administrations, it was typically after the administration took action — not before. For example, Shurtleff pointed to a 2012 lawsuit challenging the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) after its passage in March 2010. He was one of 22 Republican attorneys general who signed onto the case, which ended with a partial victory and partial defeat before the United States Supreme Court. 'Nothing particularly significant' Seven attorneys general signed the common interest agreement on April 28, 2024, with District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb's signature appearing first. California's signature was left undated, and 13 other attorneys general joined in May or June 2024. Hawaii Attorney General Anne E. Lopez was the last known signatory on Nov. 12, 2024 — seven days after Trump won a second term. Trump secured enough delegates to become the presumptive Republican nominee in March 2024. The majority of attorneys general who signed the agreement have declined to comment or answer questions. Some have downplayed the timing of the agreement or otherwise minimized the extent to which they had been preparing for litigation against the Trump Administration. "There is nothing particularly significant about that date," wrote Richie Taylor, communications director for the Arizona Attorney General Mayes' office. "The office has common interest agreements with Republican AG's as well as Democratic AG's depending on the litigation." Former Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who is now the state governor, announced one day after the election that his office had already been preparing potential litigation against Trump for "months." "We knew from our extensive experience during his first term that we would need to be prepared from day one if he was reelected," Ferguson said at the time. "My team has gone line-by-line through Project 2025 and has been tracking remarks by Trump on the campaign trail… A concern I have is that Donald Trump, I believe, and his administration, may well be better prepared on their end." The Center Square reached out to Ferguson's office requesting an interview for this story but did not receive a response. Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown said the planning began "as soon as it was clear that Trump was going to get the nomination." "We're pleased that we responded before January 2025," Brown told The Center Square in an interview. "We talked through a host of possibilities, and we wanted to be prepared, not to get caught off guard." Brown said none of the lawsuits were filed before the 2024 election, and the attorneys general were not circumventing the will of voters. "I don't think we were going after him, or any AG was, because he hadn't been elected (yet)," Brown said in an interview. Prominent Democrats who were not state attorneys general have supported the actions. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, described the planning efforts more simply and with more partisanship. "Look where we are now," Kaine told The Center Square in an interview at the Capitol. "(The Democratic attorneys general) did what Republican attorneys general did with President Obama's stimulus plan in 2009: 'everything he's for, we're against.'" A shared banner The "Project for Federal Accountability" nickname led directly to The Center Square's discovery of the confidential document at the center of this report. Additional records obtained by The Center Square show New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy added an additional $1 million to his state's budget in fiscal year 2026 related to the Project for Federal Accountability. Budget records indicate the money was "essential" to fund two positions and to "provide critical support… to protect our residents from reckless and illegal actions by the federal government that harm New Jerseyans." New Jersey budget records indicate the previous costs of the lawsuits "have been negligible" because the Attorney General's Office had been "relying on preexisting resources." Allison Inserro, a spokeswoman for New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport, declined an interview request from The Center Square. After Trump's election, New Jersey media reported on the state funding. Until now, no outlet has been able to uncover the national plan among attorneys general to sue Trump over hypothetical policies discussed during his campaign. A bill passed last year in California, SBX1-1, authorized the California Department of Finance to appropriate $25 million for "federal accountability litigation." The Center Square first learned about the Project for Federal Accountability nickname from public records released by the Washington State Attorney General's Office. Documents showed coordination between Democratic attorneys general through a "Rule of Law Working Group" and the "Project for Federal Accountability." Most of those records – hundreds of pages – were released entirely redacted by the Washington State Attorney General's Office due to varying types of attorney work-product exemptions. The Center Square successfully appealed redactions showing the names of people on the original email and is continuing to appeal redactions. Brown, the attorney general in Virginia, denied having any knowledge of the Project for Federal Accountability nickname in his interview with The Center Square. The Republican Attorneys General Association has not commented. O.H. Skinner, a former Arizona solicitor general and current executive director of Alliance for Consumers, has been critical of lawfare against Trump. He believes the timeline is "very revealing." "Whatever they said in public, they privately had at least a solid amount of confidence that Joe Biden was never going to win that election," Skinner said. "They didn't have a concern about federal overreach until they thought the other team was going to be in charge… They needed to plan ahead and endeavor to build a juggernaut if they wanted to have any hope of slowing down the president's agenda." Common interests, independent states Legal experts across the United States have started to question whether records related to hypothetical lawsuits and hypothetical policies should be withheld from the public. "Parties with the same interests need to be able to speak with their lawyers confidentially," said Thomas Moukawsher, a retired judge in Connecticut. "But what is their common interest? We can't establish what their common interests are. I don't like it. If I was sitting as a judge on the case, I'd say you need to have something a little more specific. That's just a little strange. 'Federal Accountability?'" Shurtleff said common interest agreements can be a standard way for attorneys general to try and prevent their litigation strategies from being made public when they coordinate across states. He believes attorneys general became significantly more partisan throughout his 12-year tenure in Utah. "We would take on bipartisan issues all the time," Shurtleff said. "But it became more combative over time, which I hated… I left in early 2013, just when it was starting to get nasty." State attorneys general filed 122 multistate lawsuits against the Biden Administration during his four years in office, according to data previously collected in 2025 by Marquette University. Not all of them were launched by Republicans. Six of the lawsuits were launched by Democrats and two were bipartisan. Shurtleff believes the sheer number of lawsuits on both sides have gotten out of hand. "It's just horrible. It's a big, huge waste of attorney general time and the good things that you could accomplish together," he said. "It's a shame. It's way too much. I think it's ridiculous."