The Paper Trail: January 14, 2025

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The Paper Trail

Announcements

Applications are now open for a two-day intensive Boot Camp on the art and practice of oversight and investigations hosted by POGO, the Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy, and The Lugar Center. This training is only open to staff in Congress. Apply at THIS LINK by January 22.

Stop by the House Office of the Whistleblower Ombuds’ first pop-up tabling event of the year on January 22 from 12:00 noon to 1:30 p.m. in the Longworth Cafeteria. Whether you are continuing your work with oversight sources and whistleblower constituents or just starting and need guidance, experts will be onsite to answer your questions. You can also pick up their latest guidance, Working With Whistleblowers: Do’s and Don’ts (PDF)— a primer on best practices.

Top stories for January 14, 2025

Trump has not been exonerated, special counsel Jack Smith declares in final report: Special Counsel Jack Smith’s final report laid out evidence he said would have resulted in Trump’s conviction. The DOJ is withholding for now, under court order, the classified documents case portion of the report. (Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein, Politico)

Hunter Biden special counsel defends probe, denounces Biden’s DOJ criticism: David Weiss, the special counsel who prosecuted Hunter Biden for lying on a gun purchase form and failing to pay taxes, defended his investigation in a report released yesterday, rebutting claims by the president that the cases were politically motivated. (Perry Stein and Matt Viser, Washington Post)

Trump’s company unveils its ethics guidelines for his second term: The Trump Organization announced that Trump will have no involvement with the management of his family’s business, and the company will donate to the U.S. Treasury profits received from foreign governments. The company also said it would not enter into any new transactions or contracts with foreign governments. Trump’s investments and business assets will be held in a trust managed by his children rather than a blind trust, similar to the arrangement during his first term. (Brett Samuels, The Hill)

Inside Elon Musk’s plan for DOGE to slash government costs: Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is recruiting billionaires, tech executives, and others to spend six months inside the federal government identifying areas to cut. They will largely be unpaid and expected to work 80-hour weeks. (Theodore Schleifer and Madeleine Ngo, New York Times)

Trump’s pick for top Pentagon healthcare job was fired by CIA: Keith Bass, Trump’s pick to run the Pentagon’s Office of Healthcare Systems, was effectively fired by the CIA in 2021 for his poor management of the spy agency’s Office of Medical Services with regard to its handling of Havana Syndrome and COVID cases. (Jeff Stein, SpyTalk)

FBI did not interview Hegseth accuser ahead of hearing, people familiar say: Senate Democrats allege “significant gaps and inadequacies” in the FBI’s background vetting of defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth. (Liz Goodwin and Abigail Hauslohner, Washington Post)

🔎 See Also: U.S. Office of Government Ethics, Officials’ Financial Disclosure Reports and Associated Ethics Documents

Reported “loyalty tests” for national security officials spur criticism: Good government groups and Democrats are concerned that incoming Trump administration officials are questioning employees who work on the National Security Council about their political affiliations as part of an effort to ensure the office is composed of loyalists. (Sean Michael Newhouse, Government Executive)

EEOC: The federal gender pay gap gets worse with age: The discrepancy between what men and women make in the federal government is substantially larger for those over age 40, according to a new EEOC report. By one metric, the gender pay gap was three times larger among older workers. (Erich Wagner, Government Executive)

Dobbs Aftermath

Voters backed abortion rights but state judges have final say: Even with new voter-approved constitutional protections for abortion rights, courts will have to untangle a web of existing state laws and square them with new ones. The new makeup of high courts in some states indicates that the results of legal fights to come could defy the will of voters. (Bram Sable-Smith and Katheryn Houghton, KFF Health News)

Police Misconduct

Arrested by AI: Police ignore standards after facial recognition matches: Law enforcement agencies across the country are using facial recognition software as a shortcut to finding and arresting suspects without other evidence or taking other basic investigative steps. At least eight people were wrongfully arrested after being identified through facial recognition. (Douglas MacMillan, David Ovalle, and Aaron Schaffer, Washington Post)

Abuse and injury result from uneven rules on police taser use: Unsafe taser use occurs in many places, but Mississippi in particular has fallen behind because many police agencies in the state haven’t adopted guidelines published by the Justice Department. (Nate Rosenfield, Brian Howey, and Sarah Cohen, New York Times)

Defense and Veterans Affairs

“I think things are going to be bad, really bad”: The U.S. military debates possible deployment on U.S. soil under Trump: An intense if quiet debate is underway inside the military community about what orders it would be obliged to obey if President-elect Trump decides to follow through on his stated desire to deploy troops against political enemies, protesters, and immigrants. (Michael Hirsh, Politico Magazine)

Who’s funding DC’s pro-war think tanks? “Independent” experts push defense-contractor agendas: A new database traces the consensus thinking in national security policy to powerful financial interests. Covering the period from 2019 to 2023, the tool tracks the money going to the top D.C. think tanks from the U.S. government, foreign countries, and defense contractors. (Kelley Vlahos, UnHerd)

Analysis: The Pentagon keeps losing equipment and buying stuff it doesn’t need: The U.S. military busts its budget on wasteful, careless, and unnecessary “self-licking ice cream cones” like the F-35 fighter jet and the Littoral Combat Ship. It’s also losing or misplacing expensive parts and equipment or letting them deteriorate. (Matthew Petti, Reason)

Business and Finance

State Farm cancelled 72,000 California fire insurance policies in 2024: In May 2023, State Farm stopped accepting new fire insurance applications in California. In March 2024, State Farm announced it wasn’t going to renew 72,000 policies in certain California zip codes. (Shabnam Danesh, Yahoo! News)

Egg prices continue to climb amid the bird flu outbreak: The bird flu outbreak behind egg shortages began affecting chickens in 2022, and prices are still rising. Adding to consumers’ woes, prices could rise in Michigan and Colorado as the states join others requiring all eggs to come from chickens raised without cages. (Emily Heil, Washington Post)

Tech

Meta fuels disinformation fears: Tech policy experts slammed Meta’s handover of content policing to users and loosening of hate speech rules as a radical shift that could undo years of efforts to prevent disinformation from spreading on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. (Julia Shapero and Miranda Nazzaro, The Hill)

“TikTok refugees” flock to another (heavily censored) Chinese app: The imminent ban on TikTok has young Americans migrating to Chinese-owned app RedNote, which is heavily censored and used almost exclusively by Chinese-speakers. (Christian Shepherd, Vic Chiang, and Katrina Northrop, Washington Post)

Health Care

Even adults may soon be vulnerable to “childhood” diseases: Experts say that if immunization rates continue to fall, preventable infectious diseases will resurface in all age groups. Even adults who were vaccinated decades ago may find themselves vulnerable to childhood diseases. (Apoorva Mandavilli, New York Times)

Drug commercials aren’t just annoying — they’re costing you money: Critics say direct-to-consumer drug ads misinform patients and underemphasize treatment risks, which can lead to overdiagnosis and unnecessary treatments. (Helen Santoro, The Lever)

ICYMI

Immigration and Border Security:

→ A surprising immigration raid in California foreshadows what awaits farmworkers and businesses

→ Who will rebuild Los Angeles? Immigrants

→ As migrant crisis swirled, Mexico found someone to blame: its immigration chief

Other News:

→ A tale of two justice systems: Only Trump gets convicted of 34 felonies and receives no punishment

→ News outlets batten down the hatches for Trump’s return

→ Racial pay gap for Senate staff still at double digits

→ Leonard Leo’s consultancy raked in millions from affiliated nonprofits

→ Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 was a “coordinated, military-style attack,” federal report says

Upcoming Events

📌 Nomination of Kristi Noem to be Secretary of Homeland Security. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Wednesday, January 15, 9:00 a.m., 342 Dirksen Senate Office Building.

📌 Nomination of Pam Bondi to be Attorney General. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Wednesday, January 15, 9:30 a.m., 216 Hart Senate Office Building.

📌 Nomination of Chris Wright to be Secretary of Energy. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Wednesday, January 15, 10:00 a.m., 366 Dirksen Senate Office Building.

📌 Nomination of John Ratcliffe to be Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Senate Committee on Intelligence. Wednesday, January 15, 10:00 a.m., G50 Dirksen Senate Office Building.

📌 Nomination of Sean Duffy to be Secretary of Transportation. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Wednesday, January 15, 10:00 a.m., 253 Russell Senate Office Building.

📌 Nomination of Marco Rubio to be Secretary of State. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Wednesday, January 15, 10:00 a.m., 419 Dirksen Senate Office Building.

📌 Nomination of Russell Vought to be Director of the Office of Management and Budget. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Wednesday, January 15, 1:00 p.m., 342 Dirksen Senate Office Building.

📌 Nomination of Eric Turner to be Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. Thursday, January 16, 10:00 a.m., 538 Dirksen Senate Office Building.

📌 Nomination of Lee Zeldin to be Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Thursday, January 16, 10:00 a.m., 406 Dirksen Senate Office Building.

📌 Nomination of Scott Bessent to be Secretary of the Treasury. Senate Committee on Finance. Thursday, January 16, 10:30 a.m., 215 Dirksen Senate Office Building.

📌 Nomination of Douglas Collins to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Tuesday, January 21, 106 Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Hot Docs

🔥📃 GAO - Temporary Assistance for Needy Families: Enhanced Reporting Could Improve HHS Oversight of State Spending. GAO-25-107235 (PDF)