The Paper Trail: April 22, 2025

Hegseth on Thin Ice after Second Signal Screwup; DOGE Creating “Surveillance Tool of Unprecedented Scope”; Opaque Tariff Process Sows Confusion, Suspicion;

And More.

April 22, 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

Elon Musk & DOGE

Justice Dept. agrees to let DOGE access sensitive immigration case data: A team of DOGE advisors placed at the DOJ were granted access to a highly sensitive data system that contains the addresses and case histories of millions of legal and undocumented immigrants. (Hannah Natanson, Jeremy Roebuck, and Rachel Siegel, Washington Post)

🔎 See Also: DOGE is building a master database to surveil and track immigrants (Makena Kelly and Vittoria Elliott, Wired)

The “5 things” emails are going by the wayside as Musk readies his exit: Federal agencies have maintained an inconsistent patchwork of policies regarding Elon Musk’s directive for all federal workers to submit weekly emails listing five accomplishments. Some agencies have stopped requiring the messages, while others aren’t checking for compliance or tracking responses. (Hannah Natanson, Faiz Siddiqui, and Emily Davies, Washington Post)

DOGE installs a former Tesla employee at the FBI: Tarak Makecha, who used to be head of strategic planning for Tesla Energy. is now simultaneously serving as a “senior advisor” to the FBI’s executive assistant director for human resources and “advisor” to the chief information officer at the DOJ. Since the start of President Trump’s second term, Makecha has also worked for DOGE at the FCC, the State Department, and OPM. (Shawn Musgrave, The Intercept)

Interior gives power to DOGE-linked official: Interior Secretary Doug Burgum gave Tyler Hassen sweeping authority to take “all necessary actions” to carry out “consolidation, unification and optimization” at the department, including the powers to issue policy, directives, and guidance, make funding decisions, and oversee the transfer of funds, programs, records, and property. (Rachel Frazin, The Hill)

Analysis: What’s wrong with DOGE? Its glaring conflicts of interest: For an entity ostensibly focused on cost cutting and its “Wall of Receipts,” Musk and those associated with DOGE ― including DOGE staff ― may in fact be reaping big rewards. (Faith Williams, Project On Government Oversight)

Weaponization of the Government

VA is selectively enforcing Trump’s order stripping workers of union rights: VA Secretary Doug Collins issued a notice allowing employees at the department whose unions have not been involved with lawsuits against the Trump administration to retain their collective bargaining rights. (Erich Wagner, Government Executive)

Trump appointee asked IRS to review audit of MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell: David Eisner, a political appointee at the Treasury Department, last month asked the IRS to review the audits of two “high profile friends” of President Trump: conservative political personality Mike Lindell and Kansas Republican state legislator Rick Kloos. (Jacob Bogage, Washington Post)

Defense and Veterans Affairs

Hegseth said to have shared attack details in second Signal chat: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last month shared information about forthcoming strikes in Yemen in a private Signal group chat that included his wife, brother, lawyer, and others from Hegseth’s personal and professional inner circles. The information Hegseth shared included the same details he shared on a separate Signal chat the same day that mistakenly included the editor of The Atlantic. (Greg Jaffe, Eric Schmitt, and Maggie Haberman, New York Times)

🔎 See Also: Under Hegseth, chaos prevails at the Pentagon (Greg Jaffe and Helene Cooper, New York Times)

Delayed ultrasounds, disrupted care: Pregnant women are hit with military insurance snafus: The military’s Tricare health insurance program has been plagued by widespread disruptions to service members, their families, and physicians following a change in contracts that unleashed a cascade of unanticipated consequences. The upheaval is particularly damaging for new and expectant mothers. (Melissa Chan, NBC News)

Navy unit commanders fall short in suicide crisis planning, watchdog finds: The DOD inspector general found that nearly 30% of Navy commanding officers couldn’t produce suicide crisis response plans. Of the plans that were submitted, a large number didn’t include a reporting requirement or a list of mental health resources with accurate contact information. (Patricia Kime, Military.com)

Business and Finance

Politically connected firms benefit from Trump tariff exemptions amid secrecy, confusion: The lack of transparency surrounding the administration’s tariff process has left stakeholders confused about why certain products face levies and others don’t, and experts concerned that politically connected firms are unfairly winning carve-outs. (Robert Faturechi, ProPublica)

🔎 See Also: How Trump is helping price gougers exploit his tariffs (Katya Schwenk and Luke Goldstein, The Lever)

In “Cancer Alley,” Black communities get all the pollution, but few of the jobs: A new study found people of color are underrepresented among the highest-paying jobs in the petrochemical industry. Louisiana and Texas have the most extreme disparities. (Tristan Baurick, Mother Jones)

Travel to the U.S. from almost everywhere is falling under Trump: Last month, overseas visitors fell nearly 12% compared with the same time last year. There were 17% fewer visitors from Western Europe, 24% fewer from Central America, and 26% fewer from the Caribbean. If sustained, the drop could translate to billions of dollars in lost tourism revenue. (Anumita Kaur and Adrián Blanco Ramos, Washington Post)

Health Care

Fate of Black maternal health programs Iis unclear amid federal cuts: While advocates for Black mothers laud the programs’ results as cause for optimism, they are concerned that the climate against DEI initiatives could impede progress. (Ronnie Cohen, KFF Health News)

Pandemic truthers take over HHS COVID site: Covid.gov, HHS’s COVID resource launched in 2022, and Covidtests.gov, the website used to order free COVID tests from the government, redirect to a White House page promoting conservative talking points about the federal government’s COVID response and the ineffectiveness of masking, social distancing, and lockdowns. (Artis Curiskis, Mother Jones)

HHS plans to cut funds used to investigate abuse at group homes: Among other sweeping cuts to health- and disability-related services, HHS plans to defund protection and advocacy services for people with developmental disabilities. (Julia Métraux, Mother Jones)

RFK Jr. knows amazingly little about autism: Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at a press conference last week promoted a variety of debunked, half-true, and deeply ableist ideas about autism. (Anna Merlan and Kiera Butler, Mother Jones)

Walgreens to pay $300 million to settle claims it illegally filled invalid opioids prescriptions: The federal government alleged that, for more than a decade, Walgreens knowingly filled prescriptions of controlled substances despite clear signs of their illegitimacy, and that the company pressured its workers to fill prescriptions quickly without regard for proper legal protocols. (Mary Cunningham, CBS News)