The Paper Trail: February 4, 2025

Delivered Tuesdays and Fridays, The Paper Trail is a curated collection of the government news you need to know. Sign up to get this newsletter delivered to your inbox.

The Paper Trail

Top stories for February 4, 2025

Senior Democrat wants to know who in the Trump White House got top secret clearance without a complete background check: Rep. Gerald Connolly asked the administration to provide a list of White House employees who received top-secret clearance without appropriate vetting, as well as current or prospective employees with foreign contacts, conflicts of interest, a history of financial impropriety, or who have attempted the violent overthrow of the government. (Sean Michael Newhouse, Government Executive)

Musk aides lock workers out of OPM computer systems: Aides to Elon Musk charged with running OPM locked senior agency officials out of computer systems that contain the personal data of millions of federal employees. “We have no visibility into what they are doing with the computer and data systems,” one of the officials said. (Tim Reid, Reuters)

🔎 See Also: Elon Musk is serving as a “special government employee,” White House says (Kaitlan Collins and Tierney Sneed, CNN)

🔎 See Also: The young, inexperienced engineers aiding Elon Musk’s government takeover (Vittoria Elliott, Wired)

Rubio says he now runs aid agency, as staff are blocked from systems: Secretary of State Marco Rubio took over as acting administrator of USAID. Rubio said that many of USAID programs will continue under the umbrella of the State Department, promising to delegate the day-to-day operations to Pete Marocco, the department’s director of foreign assistance. (Michael Crowley, Karoun Demirjian, and Edward Wong, New York Times)

Elon Musk’s team now has access to Treasury’s payments system: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave DOGE members access to a payment system that disburses trillions of dollars each year and contains the personal information of millions of Americans. One of the people given access to the system is Tom Krause, the chief executive of Cloud Software Group. (Andrew Duehren et al., New York Times)

🔎 See Also: A 25-year-old with Elon Musk ties has direct access to the federal payment system (Vittoria Elliott et al., Wired)

EPA demotes career employees overseeing science, enforcement and more: The EPA plans to demote career employees who oversee scientific research, the enforcement of pollution laws, hazardous waste cleanup, and the agency’s human resources department and replace them with political appointees — some of whom worked as lawyers and lobbyists for the oil and chemical industries. (Lisa Friedman, New York Times)

Trump’s DEI purge targets federal workers who did not work in DEI: Dozens of workers at the Education Department, Energy Department, and other agencies who didn’t work on DEI issues were placed on administrative leave. Most had been involved in some sort of DEI initiative in the past. (Laura Meckler, Hannah Natanson, and Julian Mark, Washington Post)

Thousands of U.S. government web pages have been taken down since Friday: More than 8,000 web pages across more than a dozen federal websites have been removed. The purges removed information about the census, tax returns, vaccines, veterans’ care, hate crimes, the environment, and scientific research. (Ethan Singer, New York Times)

🔎 See Also: How federal agencies have already changed their websites under Trump (Jeremy B. Merrill, Azi Paybarah, and Eric Lau, Washington Post)

285 of 313 air traffic control facilities are understaffed: More than 90% of the country’s air traffic control facilities operate below the FAA’s recommended staffing levels. At dozens of those facilities, staffing is so low that at least a quarter of the workforce is missing. The shortage is particularly severe in the New York region. (Aaron Krolik, New York Times)

Analysis: The dangers of Trump’s Schedule Policy/Career executive order: Schedule F, an initiative from President Trump’s first term, attempted to replace nonpartisan federal workers with partisan lapdogs. Its revival under the new name “Schedule Policy/Career” is even worse. (Joe Spielberger, Project On Government Oversight)

Insurrection

Justice Department orders FBI purge, review of staff who touched Jan. 6 cases: Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove ordered the firing of at least eight senior FBI officials and a sweeping examination of the work of thousands of other bureau employees — those who worked on investigations tied to the insurrection could face “additional personnel action.” (Jeremy Roebuck, Washington Post)

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker blocks Jan. 6 rioters from state jobs after Trump pardons: Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker directed the state’s hiring authority to block those who took part in the insurrection from working in state jobs. Trump’s clemency affected more than 50 Illinois residents. (Natasha Korecki, NBC News)

Defense and Veterans Affairs

Army aviation accidents were surging even before Washington crash: In 2024, the Army recorded more Class A flight mishaps — the most serious type of aircraft accidents — than it has in a decade. The UH-60 Black Hawk, the helicopter involved in last week’s collision near Reagan National Airport, was involved in one Class A mishap and 13 less-serious Class C mishaps last year. (Nick Turse, The Intercept)

The F-35 program’s software development isn't getting any better, Pentagon report finds: Beyond software and testing delays, the Pentagon’s test office also identified quality defects in F-35 jets coming off Lockheed’s production line and called for more extensive testing to address cybersecurity vulnerabilities across the fleet. (Audrey Decker, Defense One)

Pentagon removes major media outlets, including NBC News, from dedicated workstations in new “rotation program”: The DOD announced a new “annual media rotation program” for its in-house press corps, removing NBC News, the New York Times, National Public Radio, and Politico from their Pentagon office spaces and replacing them with One America News Network, the New York Post, Breitbart News Network, and HuffPost. (Amanda Terkel, NBC News)

Business and Finance

China announces measures against Google, other U.S. firms, as trade tensions escalate: China announced a wide range of measures targeting U.S. businesses including Google, farm equipment makers, and the owner of fashion brand Calvin Klein, minutes after new U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods took effect. Beijing also slapped tariffs on U.S. products such as coal, oil, and automobiles. (Reuters)

Tech

DeepSeek’s answers include Chinese propaganda, researchers say: AI-powered chatbot DeepSeek gives answers that not only spread Chinese propaganda but also parrot disinformation campaigns that China has used to undercut its critics around the world. (Steven Lee Myers, New York Times)

🔎 See Also: Chinese AI tech could cut projected spike in U.S. electricity (Pam Radtke, Route Fifty)

Infrastructure

Trump’s AI moonshot leads to Saudi Arabia: President Trump’s economic development projects involve billions in investments from the Saudi Arabian government. Members of the Treasury Department committee overseeing the deals have prior business connections to the Saudi government and Saudi businesses. (Freddy Brewster, The Lever)

Health Care

CDC site restores some purged files after “gender ideology” ban outcry: On Friday, the CDC purged from its website thousands of pages that included terms such as “transgender,” “LGBT,” and “pregnant person.” The disappearance of the pages is already affecting medical care. (Apoorva Mandavilli and Roni Caryn Rabin, New York Times)

ICYMI

Immigration and Border Security:

→ Guantánamo Bay prepares for President Trump’s migrant surge

→ ICE enforcement official tapped to lead unaccompanied migrant children office, triggering alarms

→ Texas is Trump’s biggest and most enthusiastic partner on immigration overhaul

Other News:

→ Trump personally ordered firings of special counsel prosecutors

→ Concern about SpaceX influence at NASA grows with new appointee

→ DHS watchdog investigating TSA’s use of facial recognition

→ USPS offers “little convincing evidence” its reform plans will succeed, regulator says

→ Proud Boys lose control of their name to a Black church they vandalized

Upcoming Events

📌 Nomination of Jamieson Greer to be United States Trade Representative. Senate Committee on Finance. Thursday, February 6, 10:00 a.m., 215 Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Hot Docs

🔥📃 DHS OIG: FEMA’s Insufficient Oversight of COVID-19 Emergency Protective Measures Grants Led to Over $8.1 Billion in Questioned Costs and $1.5 Billion in Over-obligated Funds. OIG-25-13 (PDF)

🔥📃 GAO - Navy Surface Ships: Maintenance Funds and Actions Needed to Address Ongoing Challenges. GAO-25-106990 (PDF)

🔥📃 Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction: Quarterly Report to Congress. January 30, 2025 (PDF)