The Paper Trail: February 21, 2025
Trump Expands Power Over Agencies; They Took the “Fork in the Road” Deal—Then Got Fired; Pentagon Looks to “Realign” 8% of Its Budget; and More.
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The Paper Trail
Announcements
Oversight and Investigations: What it Means and How to Make it Work: POGO’s virtual training on an introduction to oversight will be Friday, February 28 at 12 noon. This event is only open to staff in Congress, GAO, and CRS. Register HERE.
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In honor of Women’s History Month, join the Office of the Whistleblower Ombuds and Time Magazine’s 2002 person of the year Sherron Watkins for a virtual discussion: Meet a Woman History Maker: Fireside Chat with Enron Whistleblower Sherron Watkins on March 7 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. ET.
Top stories for February 21, 2025
Trump issues order to expand his power over agencies Congress made independent: The order requires independent agencies to submit their proposed regulations to the White House for review, asserts the power to block agencies from spending funds on projects that conflict with presidential priorities, and declares that they must accept as binding the president’s and the DOJ’s interpretation of the law. (Charlie Savage, New York Times)
🔎 See Also: Trump expected to take control of USPS and fire postal board, officials say (Jacob Bogage, Washington Post)
🔎 See Also: Is that legal? A guide to Trump’s big moves so far (Francesca Paris and Charlie Savage, New York Times)
Trump speech at Saudi-backed event highlights questions over business ties: President Trump spoke at an investment conference in Miami sponsored by Saudi government entities on Wednesday, an address that transpired as the Trump Organization seeks to expand its real estate empire in Saudi Arabia. (Kathryn Watson, CBS News)
After ceding power of the purse, GOP lawmakers beg Trump team for funds: Republican senators find themselves in the unusual position of begging administration officials to release funds they themselves appropriated. The use of impoundment could create a situation where lawmakers who are in good standing with Trump have a better shot at restoring their funds, posing a potential conflict of interest. (Liz Goodwin, Washington Post)
Department of Homeland Security preparing to fire hundreds of senior leaders this week: The firings aren’t being done to reduce the size of the workforce but to remove employees whom the administration sees as potentially standing in the way of its goals. (Julia Ainsley, NBC News)
🔎 See Also: Kristi Noem stars in new nationwide multibillion dollar DHS ad with chilling warning for illegal migrants (Katelyn Caralle, Daily Mail)
Trump dismantles government fight against foreign influence operations: Dozens of employees at the FBI and DHS who had been working to fight foreign interference in U.S. elections have been reassigned or forced out. (Steven Lee Myers, Julian E. Barnes, and Sheera Frenkel, New York Times)
Thousands join class actions as fired feds weigh options to challenge Trump’s moves: Multiple law firms are moving forward with class action complaints to challenge the Trump administration’s mass firings of recent hires and other employees on their probationary periods, claiming the terminations were illegal and the workers should be reinstated. The personnel actions are likely to sweep up tens of thousands of government employees. (Eric Katz, Government Executive)
🔎 See Also: Judge denies federal unions’ request to block mass probationary firings (Sean Michael Newhouse, Government Executive)
🔎 See Also: These feds took Trump’s “fork” deal. Then they got fired — creating a government mess (Hannah Natanson, Washington Post)
🔎 See Also: Some fired probationary feds are receiving unexpected emails: “You’re re-hired” (Eric Katz, Government Executive)
🔎 See Also: SpaceX engineers brought on at FAA after probationary employees were fired (Vittoria Elliott and Aarian Marshall, Ars Technica)
FDA’s food safety chief resigns over layoffs: Jim Jones, the director of the FDA’s food division, resigned on Monday citing what he called “indiscriminate” layoffs that would make it “fruitless for him to continue.” In his resignation letter, Jones said that 89 people of the 2,000 in his division were fired over the weekend, many of them newly hired to do more in-depth work on chemical safety to protect the nation’s food supply. (Christina Jewett, New York Times)
Over 6,000 IRS employees expected to be terminated by end of week: The IRS is carrying out some of the highest numbers of mass terminations so far. According to the IRS, the workers who are expected to be fired “were not deemed as critical to filing season.” (Aaron Navarro, CBS News)
Trump moves to kill the environmental Magna Carta: The administration began the process of rolling back enforcement of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a law that lets communities protect themselves from polluters. (Veronica Riccobene, The Lever)
Long lines and canceled rentals: Firings bring chaos to national parks: President Trump’s purge of federal employees is upending the lives of National Park Service workers. It’s also threatening to harm the visitor experience at national parks across the country. (Maxine Joselow and Andrea Sachs, Washington Post)
GSA hired a man who pushed a scam the IRS called the “worst of the worst”: Acting GSA Administrator Stephen Ehikian appointed as senior adviser Frank Schuler IV, the co-founder and president of a real estate investment company that specialized in tax transactions the IRS branded as “abusive” and among “the worst of the worst tax scams.” Schuler is currently battling the IRS in court over $4 billion in disallowed deductions for thousands of his clients. (Peter Elkind, ProPublica)
Analysis: DOGE is searching for wasteful spending. It isn’t hard to find: It’s one of Washington’s most persistent and challenging problems: Each year, agencies identify billions of dollars in improper payments. Doing something about it is the hard part. (Paul Overberg, Nate Rattner, and Scott Patterson, Wall Street Journal)
Other DOGE News:
→ DOGE’s millions: As Musk and Trump gut government, their ax-cutting agency gets cash infusion
→ Not even DOGE employees know who’s legally running DOGE
→ DOGE sparks surveillance fear across the government
→ DOGE software approval alarms Labor Department employees
→ DOGE employee cuts fall heavily on agency that regulates Musk’s Tesla
→ DOGE claimed it saved $8 billion in one contract. It was actually $8 million
→ DOGE said it cut $232 million from Social Security budget. It was only about half a million
→ Worker removed for aiding DOGE is made Social Security boss within days
Dobbs Aftermath
Texas banned abortion. Then sepsis rates soared: Pregnancy became far more dangerous in Texas after the state banned abortion in 2021. The rate of sepsis shot up more than 50% for women hospitalized when they lost their pregnancies in the second trimester. (Lizzie Presser et al., ProPublica)
Russia-Ukraine War
Trump flips the script on the Ukraine War, blaming Zelensky not Putin: President Trump is rewriting the history of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, claiming that Ukraine is not a victim but a villain, and Ukraine President Zelensky is a dictator who started the war himself and conned America into helping. (Peter Baker, New York Times)
Police Misconduct
Justice Department deletes database tracking federal police misconduct: The DOJ shut down the National Law Enforcement Accountability Database, the first nationwide database tracking misconduct by federal police officers and agents that experts said improved public safety by helping to prevent bad officers from jumping to new law enforcement jobs. (Tom Jackman and Elizabeth Dwoskin, Washington Post)
Defense and Veterans Affairs
Pentagon seeks to shift $50B in planned funding to new priorities in FY26: Secretary of Defense Hegseth ordered a review of the DOD’s fiscal 2026 budget plans in order to shift funds towards President Trump’s priorities, including border security and the Iron Dome for America. The goal: Find roughly $50 billion, or 8% of the FY26 plan, and reprioritize it. (Aaron Mehta and Ashley Roque, Breaking Defense)
Confusion over VA worker dismissals irks advocates, lawmakers: One week after the VA announced the dismissal of 1,000 probationary staffers, lawmakers and veterans groups are still struggling to understand which workers have been let go and whether more firings are coming soon. (Leo Shane III, Military Times)
Business and Finance
Poised to take over TikTok, Oracle is accused of clamping down on pro-Palestine dissent: Last month, after the Supreme Court upheld a law banning TikTok, Oracle emerged as a leader in the race to take control of the video platform. Collaborations between Oracle and the Israeli government have been wide-ranging, encompassing everything from technology work with the military to software intended to help Israel with public relations. (Georgia Gee, The Intercept)
Health Care
USDA tries to reverse mistaken firing of bird flu response workers: The USDA said it’s moving to correct the accidental firing of several people working on the response to the bird flu outbreak. (Kelsey Ables, Washington Post)
Inside Trump’s million-dollar dinners with healthcare executives: During the presidential transition, healthcare executives wrote some of the largest donation checks, paying millions of dollars to attend at least six different dinners with President Trump before he took office. Altogether, Trump claims he raised about $500 million, much of it coming from the healthcare industry. (Josh Dawsey and Anna Wilde Mathews, Wall Street Journal)
DOJ investigates Medicare billing practices at UnitedHealth: The DOJ is examining UnitedHealth’s practices for recording diagnoses that trigger potentially billions of dollars in extra payments to its Medicare Advantage plans. (Christopher Weaver and Anna Wilde Mathews, Wall Street Journal)
Dr. Mehmet Oz holds millions from companies that he’d wield power over if confirmed, report shows: The wealth of Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity heart surgeon nominated to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has swelled in part from health industry companies over which he’d wield significant power if confirmed. He pledged to divest from those companies within three months of confirmation and said that, until then, he wouldn’t participate in any matter that could affect his investments, which touch nearly every aspect of the health care system. (Amanda Seitz and Brian Slodysko, Associated Press)
ICYMI
Immigration and Border Security:
→ Immigration judges canned by administration as ICE falls behind arrest goals
→ ICE prosecutor in Dallas runs white supremacist X account
→ As Trump “exports” deportees, hundreds are trapped in Panama hotel
→ Trump scales back Biden-era TPS extension for Haitian migrants
→ Trump deports hundreds to third countries, leaving them in legal limbo
→ Migrants detained in Guantánamo are deported back to Venezuela
→ Law enforcement uses Laken Riley Act for first time to deport undocumented migrant
Other News:
→ Kids’ disability rights cases stalled as Trump began to overhaul Education Department
→ High-ranking D.C. federal prosecutor resigns in protest
→ A frustrated Trump wants his new Air Force One planes pronto
→ After Maine native testifies before Congress, Elon Musk targets his disability
→ 2025 is already on track for an increase in deaths from extremist violence
→ Family files claims against U.S. for Washington plane crash
→ Will that asteroid strike Earth? Risk level rises to highest ever recorded
Because It’s Friday
Trump and Musk say they want to make sure the Fort Knox gold is still there: “Maybe it’s there, maybe it’s not”: Despite Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent insisting the 147.3 million ounces in bullion reserves are there and regularly audited, President Trump and Elon Musk say they will “go to Fort Knox, the fabled Fort Knox, to make sure the gold is there.” (Brent D. Griffiths, Business Insider)
Upcoming Events
📌 Nomination of Stephen Feinberg to be Deputy Secretary of Defense. Senate Committee on Armed Services. Tuesday, February 25, 9:30 a.m., G50 Dirksen Senate Office Building.
📌 Justice Delayed: The Crisis of Undermanned Federal Courts. House Committee on the Judiciary; Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, Artificial Intelligence, and the Internet. Tuesday, February 25, 10:00 a.m., 2141 Rayburn House Office Building.
📌 The Government Accountability Office’s 2025 High Risk List. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Tuesday, February 25, 1:00 p.m., HVC-210.
📌 “Subject to the Jurisdiction Thereof”: Birthright Citizenship and the Fourteenth Amendment. House Committee on the Judiciary; Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government. Tuesday, February 25, 2:00 p.m., 2141 Rayburn House Office Building.
📌 Oversight Hearing: Federal Bureau of Prisons. House Committee on Appropriations; Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies. Wednesday, February 26, 2:00 p.m., 2362A Rayburn House Office Building.
Nominations & Appointments
Nominations
- Jason Reding Quiñones - U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida
Appointments
- Appointments to the White House Office of Political Affairs
- Appointments to the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs
- Appointments to the Council of Governors
