TRUMP THREATENED A THINK TANK WITH A $5 BILLION LAWSUIT FOR DOING MATH Not a defamation case. Not a factual dispute. A report found his National Guard deployments cost $1.7 billion and did not reduce crime. Trump's response was not data. It was a threat Center for American Progress had until end of business Friday to retract or get sued into oblivion by the President of the United States Retract what exactly. The numbers. The ones that came from his own deployment costs. The ones nobody at the White House has actually disputed with facts Trump didn't stop at the lawsuit threat. He went on a rant blaming Walmart, Apple, and Goldman Sachs for funding the report. None of them do. He just needed villains bigger than a spreadsheet $1.7 billion in National Guard deployments. Cities didn't get safer. Trump got angrier. That is the entire outcome This is a president using the machinery of the presidency to threaten a nonprofit into silence because it published a number he didn't like Ask any legal expert what a $5 billion threat over an accurate report is supposed to accomplish. It's not justice. It's intimidation with a price tag attached Every law firm Trump strong-armed in his first year of term two learned the same lesson. Comply or get crushed. This is that playbook running again, just aimed at researchers instead of lawyers Billions spent, zero results, and the only aggressive enforcement action to come out of it is against the people who counted the money This is not a leader responding to criticism. This is a man trying to make truth itself too expensive to publish They are not going to stop coming after anyone who shows their work