A media outlet tied to Everytown for Gun Safety sued the Justice Department, demanding information regarding an allegedly secret “plan of action” to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order regarding the Second Amendment.
Trump issued the executive order regarding the right to keep and bear arms directing then-Attorney General Pam Bondi to “assess any ongoing infringements of the Second Amendment rights of our citizens” and develop a plan to address them in February 2025. In the complaint filed Sept. 4 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, The Trace claimed the DOJ was keeping the “plan of action” out of the public view, citing the establishment of the Second Amendment Section of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division announced by Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon.
“[I]llustrative of the existence of a DOJ plan of action is a December 8, 2025, announcement by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon on social media, highlighting that DOJ had just created a new Second Amendment Section within its Civil Rights Division, and that DOJ ‘has a lot of 2A work planned, in addition to what we’ve already done!’” the outlet claimed. “The new Second Amendment Section of the Civil Rights Division also has a clear published mission statement on its website that tracks the language of the Executive Order.”
The Trace, founded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, lists the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, a 501(c)3, as an “institutional funder” and has Everytown for Gun Safety President John Feinblatt on its board of directors. Everytown and its predecessor groups, Mayors Against Illegal Guns and Moms Demand Action, have been the recipient of over $270 million from Bloomberg since 2007, according to the New York Times.
The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“This is a FOIA lawsuit seeking public records from the Department of Justice,” staff writer Chip Brownlee told the DCNF when asked for comment. “President Trump’s executive order on the Second Amendment directed the DOJ to conduct reviews and create a plan of action. Those records, along with other documentation from the process, should be public. We sued only after the department didn’t fulfill routine FOIA requests.”
The Trace asserted that recent enforcement efforts by the Civil Rights Division’s Second Amendment Section also pointed to a “plan of action” that the Trump administration was keeping secret.
Since the section’s establishment in December, it filed suit against Denver, Virginia, the Virgin Islands, the District of Columbia and Colorado over bans on modern semiautomatic firearms and standard-capacity magazines. The section also investigated Philadelphia over its handling of concealed carry permits and sued California over legislation banning Glock pistols.
“The Second Amendment Section of the Civil Rights Division has published myriad press releases highlighting numerous court actions that have been brought by the new Section against states and municipalities for alleged unconstitutional patterns and practices with respect to the Second Amendment,” The Trace asserted in its complaint.
“The combination of a formal new Section within DOJ, along with its active litigation docket, is suggestive of a guiding agenda, and one that is substantively similar to the themes and commands of the Executive Order,” the complaint adds.
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