The Paper Trail: April 15, 2025

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The Paper Trail

Announcements

Making the Most of Your Resources: Working with CRS: POGO’s virtual training on working with CRS will be Friday, April 18 at 12 noon. This event is only open to staff in Congress, GAO, and CRS. Register HERE.

Top stories for April 15, 2025

“Alien enemies” or innocent men? Inside Trump’s rushed effort to deport 238 migrants: The Trump administration claims that all of the 238 Venezuelan men now imprisoned in El Salvador are members of Tren de Aragua. But a Times investigation found little evidence of any criminal background — or any association with the gang — for most of the men. (Julie Turkewitz et al., New York Times)

🔎 See Also: Wrongly deported man not leaving El Salvador prison, Bukele says at Trump meeting (Cybele Mayes-Osterman and Francesca Chambers, USA Today)

🔎 See Also: Secretary of State Rubio says 10 more people have been expelled to El Salvador (Eric Schmitt and Annie Correal, New York Times)

Inside Trump’s pressure campaign on universities: The president and his top aides are exerting control of federal research money to shift the ideological tilt of the higher education system. The Task Force to Combat Antisemitism is scrutinizing universities for potential civil rights violations and serving as an entry point to pressure schools to change their policies. (Michael C. Bender, Alan Blinder, and Jonathan Swan, New York Times)

🔎 See Also: Trump administration freezes $2.2 billion in grants to Harvard over campus activism (Michael Casey, Associated Press)

Five more big law firms reach deals with Trump: Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins, A&O Shearman, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, and Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft agreed to do free legal work on causes the president supports. So far, nine top U.S. law firms have promised a combined total of $940 million in free legal services in order to stave off executive orders that would make it difficult for them to represent clients with federal contracts or seek government regulatory approvals. (Matthew Goldstein, New York Times)

Inside Trump’s plan to halt hundreds of regulations: The administration is preparing to launch deregulation on a massive scale. The effort, overseen by OMB Director Russell Vought, rests on a set of novel legal strategies in which the administration intends to immediately repeal regulations or just stop enforcing them. (Coral Davenport, New York Times)

College financial aid hit with glitches, delays due to federal staffing cuts: The Education Department’s financial aid apparatus is cracking after the Trump administration imposed sweeping staff cuts, with some fearing that further deterioration could make it harder for students to secure the money they need to attend college. (Danielle Douglas-Gabriel, Washington Post)

Trump’s budget plan eviscerates weather and climate research, and it could be enacted immediately: The administration’s 2026 budget proposal eliminates the research arm of NOAA, closes all weather and climate labs, and eviscerates its budget along with several other NOAA offices. These cuts could devastate weather and climate research and cripple industries that depend on free, accurate weather and climate data and analysis. (Ella Nilsen, CNN)

🔎 See Also: NOAA scientists are cleaning bathrooms and reconsidering lab experiments after contracts for basic services expire (Lisa Song, ProPublica)

How much did Congress make off market turmoil and why’re they allowed to make anything at all? Speculation about who on Capitol Hill profited from President Trump’s tariff flip-flop last week revived the push to ban members of Congress from trading stocks. (Matt Sledge, The Intercept)

🔎 See Also: Rep. Greene bought market dip before Trump paused tariffs, profiting from the rally (Annie Karni, New York Times)

Elon Musk & DOGE

DOGE is collecting federal data to remove immigrants from housing, jobs: The Trump administration is using protected government data to find undocumented immigrants where they work, study, and live, with the goal of removing them from their housing and the workforce and ensuring they don't benefit from public programs. (Rachel Siegel et. all, Washington Post)

See Also: Trump administration overrode Social Security staff to list immigrants as dead (Hannah Natanson, Lisa Rein, and Meryl Kornfield, Washington Post)

Some DOGE staffers hold high-powered jobs at multiple federal agencies: Some DOGE staffers have portfolios that include posts in multiple federal offices. Because their jobs are embedded within agencies, these staffers have far more influence than those who might have worked collaboratively across government before — and they may wield that influence for years to come. (Faiz Siddiqui and Jacob Bogage, Washington Post)

DOGE takes over federal grants website, wresting control of billions: DOGE staffers inserted themselves into the government’s long-established process to alert the public about potential federal grants and allow organizations to apply for funds. The changes to the process, which will allow DOGE to review and approve proposed grant opportunities, threaten to further slow the process of awarding billions of dollars in federal funds. (Dan Diamond, Hannah Natanson, and Carolyn Y. Johnson, Washington Post)

Other DOGE News:

→ Elon Musk touts $150B in savings in FY2026 — after claiming DOGE could cut $1T

→ Social Security to move comms to Musk’s X after DOGE cuts

→ How DOGE may have improperly used Social Security data to push voter fraud narratives

→ Palantir is helping DOGE with a massive IRS data project

Dobbs Aftermath

Abortions up slightly in clinics in 2024 but fewer women left their states for them, survey finds: A new study found the overall number of clinician-provided abortions in states where it’s legal rose by less than 1% from 2023 to 2024, and the number of people crossing state lines for abortions fell by about 9%. (CBS News)

Political Misbehavior

Trump administration to pull Maine K-12 funding over trans athletes dispute: The Department of Education on Friday announced it would pull all federal education funding from Maine after state officials said they won’t comply with the administration’s policies regarding transgender athletes. In addition to immediately cutting all K-12 funding, the department is also referring its investigation of the state’s education agency to the DOJ “for further enforcement action.” (Brianna Tucker, Washington Post)

🔎 See Also: Trump administration ordered to unfreeze funding in dispute with Maine over transgender students (Associated Press)

Police Misconduct

DOJ has frozen police reform work. Advocates fear more abuse in departments across the country: The Trump administration’s freezing of work on civil rights litigation, including police reform cases, throws into question police reform efforts in at least ten communities across the country. (Topher Sanders, ProPublica)

Defense and Veterans Affairs

Troops arrive at the border to help with enforcement despite fewer migrant crossings: The Army says soldiers deployed along the southwest border won’t be arresting people suspected of being in the U.S. illegally and will instead offer “logistical support” to Border Patrol agents. As part of the deployment, the military is sending Stryker vehicles. (Carlos Morales, NPR)

DOD to cut over $5B in contracts following guidance on civilian workforce shakeup: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced $5.1 billion in spending cuts, targeting “wasteful” contracts and “ancillary” services. Highlights include cuts of $1.8 billion in consulting contracts from the Defense Health Agency, $1.4 billion for enterprise cloud IT services, $500 million for Navy business process consulting, and 11 contracts related to DEI, climate change, and COVID response. (FEDweek)

U.S. weapons from Afghan war give Pakistani militants a deadly advantage: Billions of dollars’ worth of U.S. military weapons and equipment provided to Afghan forces was abandoned after the U.S. withdrawal in 2021. Many of those weapons wound up across the border in Pakistan, at arms bazaars and in the hands of insurgents. (Rick Noack et al., Washington Post)

Pentagon turns focus to potentially privatizing commissaries, military exchanges: The Pentagon’s push to trim its workforce and spending could include having the private sector run on-base hotels, grocery stores, and shops. Privatizing military support services has a long and problematic history that has resulted in poorer outcomes for service members and little in the way of savings for the government. (Konstantin Toropin and Thomas Novelly, Military.com)

Health Care

The many ways Kennedy is already undermining vaccines: During his confirmation hearings to be health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. presented himself as a supporter of vaccines. But in office, he and the agencies he leads have taken far-reaching, sometimes subtle, steps to undermine confidence in vaccine efficacy and safety. (Apoorva Mandavilli, New York Times)

The FDA fired its tobacco enforcers. Now it wants them back: The FDA asked laid-off employees in recent days to temporarily return after mass cuts decimated the agency’s ability to penalize retailers that sell cigarettes and vapes to minors. The employees may be asked to work temporarily until their government service ends on June 2. (Adam Cancryn and Lauren Gardner, Politico)

Kennedy’s deep HHS cuts threaten HIV/AIDS response: In drastically cutting down its public health workforce, the Trump administration is potentially undoing decades of work combatting the HIV epidemic and delaying upcoming advances. (Joseph Choi, The Hill)

“Not just measles”: Whooping cough cases are soaring as vaccine rates decline: While the country is focused on the spiraling measles outbreak in West Texas, cases of pertussis have skyrocketed by more than 1,500% nationwide. (Duaa Eldeib and Patricia Callahan, ProPublica)

A scientist is paid to study maple syrup. He’s also paid to promote it: For more than a decade, Navindra Seeram, a biomedical researcher at the University of New England, has extolled the alleged health benefits of maple syrup. Much of Dr. Seeram’s work has been bankrolled by Canada’s maple syrup industry. (Will Evans, Ellen Gabler, and Anjali Tsui, New York Times)

ICYMI

Immigration and Border Security:

→ Palestinian student leader was called In for citizenship interview — then arrested by ICE

→ DHS told her to leave the country. She’s a citizen — and an immigration attorney

→ No evidence linking Tufts student to antisemitism or terrorism, State Dept. office found

→ Military contractors pitch unprecedented prison plan for detained immigrants

→ From Lollapalooza to detention camps: Meet the tent company making a fortune off Trump’s deportation plans

→ This company’s surveillance tech makes immigrants “easy pickings” for Trump

→ The unusual nonprofit that helps ICE spy on wire transfers

Other News:

→ Trump administration sued after taking down public spending tracker

→ Employees swarm to second “deferred resignation” offer, though some are receiving unexpected responses

→ OPM strips career HR from Schedule C appointments, salary setting

→ Agriculture Department cancels $3B grant program for climate-friendly crops

→ Despite a court order, White House bars AP from Oval Office event

Upcoming Events

📌 Who holds the power of the purse in Washington today? Brookings Institution. Wednesday, April 16, 3:00 p.m. - 4:15 p.m. ET. Saul Auditorium, 1775 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington, D.C.

📌 VIRTUAL EVENT: Investigating the Department of Government Efficiency. ProPublica. Thursday, April 17, 4:00 p.m. ET.

Hot Docs

🔥📃 GAO - Federal Oil and Gas: Challenges for Providing Effective Oversight. GAO-25-108130 (PDF)

🔥📃 GAO - Offshore Wind Energy: Actions Needed to Address Gaps in Interior’s Oversight of Development. GAO-25-106998 (PDF)

Nominations & Appointments

Appointments

• Yehuda Kaploun - Ambassador at Large to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, Department of State
• Mark Walker - Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom, Department of State