The Trump administration is continuing to target prominent Black women in government, using the power of the Justice Department and other agencies to investigate or accuse them of criminality or wrongdoing.
Over the past week, the administration has set its target on a state lawmaker who led a major defeat for President Donald Trump, a Federal Reserve governor who has refused to quit after Trump pushed for her removal, and a federal district court judge whom the administration attacked as an “activist” and falsely accused of knowingly releasing an undocumented man who had a criminal arrest warrant.
“[It] goes back to the core element of Donald Trump, himself, as somebody who sees Black women as the number one target,” Democratic strategist Ameshia Cross tells theGrio. She continued, “As someone who wants to humiliate Black women any chance he gets, as someone who does not respect Black women, and as someone who does not believe that Black women deserve to be in positions of leadership or power.”
On Wednesday, the FBI raided the offices and business of Virginia Senate Pro Tempore L. Louise Lucas as part of a criminal investigation. Democrats quickly viewed the probe as retaliation against Lucas, who led Virginia’s successful redistricting ballot measure to combat Trump’s nationwide push for statewide Republicans to redraw congressional maps to retain power in Congress next session in 2027.
“You all started it and we f–king finished it,” said Lucas of Virginia’s move to redraw its map to give Democrats a five-seat majority in the state’s congressional delegation.
The Associated Press reports that the corruption investigation may have been first launched under the Biden administration; however, Senator Lucas suggested the probe and its timing were politically motivated. “What we saw was a clear pattern from this administration: when challenged, they try to intimidate and silence the voices who stand up to them,” Lucas said in a statement released Wednesday evening.
The 82-year-old lawmaker declared, “I am not backing down.”
“I don’t think it’s coincidental,” said Cross, who tells theGrio the criminal investigation appears to be a “coordinated effort” by the administration to use Lucas as an example to others who may challenge the president or his policies.
“If you try it, this is what’s going to happen to you,” Cross said of the message she believes the White House is trying to send.
The same has been said about the Trump Justice Department’s ongoing criminal case against U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver, D-N.J., over an incident in which she tried to prevent federal officers from arresting Newark Mayor Ras Baraka during an oversight visit in response to claims of poor treatment of undocumented individuals being held at a federal detention center. McIver, a freshman congresswoman, has maintained her innocence. She previously told theGrio that she believed the Trump administration was trying to make an example out of her.
Federal Reserve Bank Governor Lisa Cook is also back in the Trump administration’s crosshairs after Bill Pulte, Trump’s director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, suggested that she would soon be indicted. Despite Pulte submitting a criminal referral to the DOJ in August 2025 regarding mortgage fraud against Cook, no indictment has been returned.
Pulte submitted a similar DOJ criminal referral for mortgage fraud against New York Attorney General Letitia James, who successfully prosecuted Trump for business fraud. Despite multiple efforts, the federal court, including two grand juries, dismissed the Trump administration’s criminal indictments of James.
Attorneys for Cook have said the accusations against her are baseless and deeply political. President Trump used the allegations to justify firing Cook, resulting in a federal lawsuit now before the U.S. Supreme Court. Cook, the first Black woman to serve on the powerful Federal Reserve Bank Board of Governors—and who has refused to leave her post—remains on the job until the case is decided.
Cross says part of the administration’s tactic is to hold Black female leaders like Cook to “a level of fear,” even if they know they’re innocent.
“What they do is try to weaken you by putting forth a media narrative that is going to leave in some people’s minds a different taste of you for the majority of America,” she tells theGrio. “This administration is trying to change the image of Black women in leadership, and to tarnish it in some ways, even if there is no criminality proven, because that, in and of itself, is a way to basically knock you down a few pegs.”
The Trump administration also very publicly came after U.S. District Judge Melissa DuBose, accusing the Black female judge of releasing an undocumented man from the Dominican Republic who was wanted for murder in his native country. A press release published by the Department of Homeland Security called BuBose, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, an “activist judge.”
As it turns out, the Justice Department never informed Judge DuBose of the man’s criminal history overseas, the New York Times reports. And despite the U.S. attorney assigned to the case admitting fault and trying to get the press release removed, the broadside attack on Judge DuBose remains on the DHS website.
“To be able to create a media narrative that Black leaders, specifically…in the legal realm, are letting go of violent criminals who are also undocumented, who are also immigrants, plays into a narrative that they are trying to sell the American public,” said Cross. “They obviously want to showcase Black people specifically as being lenient to violent crime.”
The Democratic strategist added, “They are doing this on purpose and putting her face on it as part of a larger scare tactic and as part of a larger push out of black leadership, specifically Black female leadership.”
