What We Know About Kenneth Roth's New Rule of Law Project

Kenneth Roth has launched a new civic group, the Rule of Law Project, to build prosecutable case files on alleged lawlessness inside the Trump administration, according to an opinion piece Roth published in The Guardian on Nov. 10, 2026. The announcement comes days after Democrats won what Roth calls a "resounding" midterm victory, a result he argues is not, by itself, enough to restore legal accountability for the president and his allies.

What Is the Rule of Law Project?

The project is described in Roth's piece as a vehicle to do the "legal legwork" that congressional committees cannot finish on their own. Committees run by newly empowered Democratic majorities can investigate and publicize alleged misconduct, Roth writes, but they have no power to bring charges. The Rule of Law Project is built to fill that gap by assembling evidence into a form prosecutors could act on quickly.

"The Rule of Law Project operates from the premise that criminal cases are more likely to be pursued if a prosecutor can be handed a case file that is largely ready for action," according to the project's stated premise, cited in Roth's Guardian column.

Why Did Kenneth Roth Start This Group Now?

Roth points to the midterm results as the moment that opened political space for accountability efforts, while warning that an election win does not by itself reestablish legal checks on the presidency. In his column, Roth argues that democracy requires more than elections, public debate and legislative votes — it requires that a president not place himself above the law. He writes that principle has been "profoundly undermined" during Trump's second term through what he characterizes as unchecked ICE violence, large-scale official corruption, and repeated defiance of court orders and statutes, citing his own reporting and analysis in the piece.

What Can Congress Actually Do Here?

Democratic-controlled committees retain subpoena and investigative powers under the new majority, and Roth credits them with the ability to expose wrongdoing to the public. But he draws a sharp line between exposure and prosecution. Committees can hold hearings, gather documents and refer findings, Roth writes, but only prosecutors can bring criminal charges — and that is where the structural problem begins, according to his column.

Why Can't Federal Prosecutors Simply Charge Alleged Crimes?

Roth lays out the structural issue driving the project's creation: in the United States, the prosecutor for any federal crime works inside the Department of Justice, an executive-branch agency headed by the attorney general. The attorney general is nominated by the president and serves at the president's pleasure, Roth notes, which means the president effectively decides which conduct inside his own administration gets prosecuted and which does not. Roth contrasts this with other countries that insulate prosecutors with independence closer to that of a judge, though his column does not name specific countries' systems in the portion available.

That arrangement, Roth argues, creates what he calls a "built-in weakness" in the American system: if a president or his allies violate rights, a private party can sue in civil court and seek an order to stop the conduct. But when the alleged conduct is criminal, the decision to prosecute runs through an office the president controls.

How Would the Project Work With Prosecutors?

Based on the stated premise quoted in Roth's piece, the project's working theory is that prosecutorial reluctance is partly a resource and readiness problem — that cases are more likely to move forward when a prosecutor receives a file that is substantially built, rather than a referral that still requires months of original investigative work. The column frames the project as civic infrastructure meant to sit alongside, not replace, congressional oversight: committees surface and publicize potential wrongdoing, while the Rule of Law Project does the preparatory legal work needed to hand cases to a willing prosecutor, whether at the federal level after a change in administration or in parallel state-level venues, Roth's column suggests without specifying further operational detail.

What Happens Next?

Roth's column, published the same week as the midterm results he describes as resounding, does not detail funding, staffing or a timeline for the Rule of Law Project's first case files. The piece instead sets out the argument for why the group is needed: that democracy requires the president be subject to law, that elections and committee hearings cannot enforce that principle on their own, and that the structural control a president holds over federal prosecution leaves a gap only outside legal preparation can close, according to Roth's own framing in The Guardian.

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