The Paper Trail: June 24, 2025
U.S.-Iran Conflict; FDA’s Secret Gamble on Imported Drugs; Beware “Juice Jacking” and “Honeypot” Networks; And More.
Delivered Tuesdays, 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
Editor’s Note
Starting next week, the Paper Trail will be sent out on Tuesdays only.
Announcements
The Office of the Whistleblower Ombuds is excited to share new House-approved whistleblower communications tools that provide a secure digital space for the public to share information with Congress. There are secure intake webform options for Member offices (PDF) and committees (PDF) and the Signal app for encrypted messaging. Learn more at this link: Whistleblower Communications Tools (HouseNet).
Top stories for June 13, 2025
U.S.-Iran Conflict:
→ Iran strikes inflame war powers debate in Congress, dividing both parties
→ Does Congress or the president hold war powers? Here’s what to know
→ State Department issues worldwide security alert for Americans abroad
→ Lawmakers to Bondi: DOJ funding cuts threaten national security
→ Trump superfan, 22, is running counterterrorism as Iran vows revenge
→ How the United States helped create Iran’s nuclear program
ICE’s cash crisis deepens amid immigration crackdown: ICE is already $1 billion over budget by one estimate, with more than three months left in the fiscal year. Its detention facilities — about 41,000 beds — are far past capacity. (Brittany Gibson, Axios)
🔎 See Also: ICE detention numbers have reached a record high (Isabela Dias, Mother Jones)
The Trump administration is making an unprecedented reach for data held by states: The administration is trying to get access to data held by states, such as information about people enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Medicaid. Privacy experts warn of dramatic implications if federal agencies are able to seize this data and use it without constraint. (Jude Joffe-Block, NPR)
What remains of USAID after DOGE’s budget cuts? What’s left is a smattering of programs (on January 20, at least 6,256 programs worth $120 billion were operating; as of May 7, there were just 891 programs worth $69 billion) and still no realistic plan for how USAID’s work will move forward. (Amy Schoenfeld Walker, Malika Khurana, and Christine Zhang, New York Times)
🔎 See Also: Missteps, confusion and “viral waste”: The 14 days that doomed USAID (Christopher Flavelle, Nicholas Nehamas, and Julie Tate, New York Times)
Social Security stops reporting call wait times and other metrics: The Social Security Administration stopped publicly reporting its processing times for benefits, its 1-800 number’s current call wait time, and numerous other performance metrics the public can use to track the agency’s customer service. (Meryl Kornfield and Hannah Natanson, Washington Post)
Via the False Claims Act, NIH puts universities on edge: University officials are concerned about new language in NIH grant notices that warns they will be subject to liability under the False Claims Act if they fail to abide by civil rights laws and a January 20 executive order related to gender. They say the new terms are vague and seemingly ripe for abuse. (Sara Talpos, Ars Technica)
Stephen Miller’s financial stake in ICE contractor Palantir: Stephen Miller, President Trump's powerful deputy chief of staff, owns up to a quarter million dollars of stock in Palantir, a controversial tech company woven into the operations of several federal agencies including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Over a dozen other Trump officials also have financial ties to Palantir. (Nick Schwellenbach, Project On Government Oversight)
Meet the billionaires profiting the most from Trump’s draconian policies: A new report outlines how billionaires and corporate oligarchs stand to benefit from President Trump’s policies — namely his deportation and surveillance regime. The usual characters won’t shock anyone: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Peter Thiel. But other, lesser-known corporate executives are also poised to cash in. (Akela Lacy, The Intercept)
Analysis: Trump undermines Watergate laws in massive shift of ethics system: By challenging and disregarding the slew of post-Watergate legal reforms of presidential powers, transparency, and conflicts of interest, President Trump is ushering in a new era of shaky guardrails. (Naftali Bendavid, Washington Post)
Elon Musk & DOGE
DOGE holds meetings with White House, new postal leadership and Treasury to discuss reforming USPS: The meetings discussing efforts to shake up the Postal Service aren’t clearly within the scope of a memorandum of understanding former Postmaster General Louis DeJoy signed with DOGE. (Eric Katz, Government Executive)
Weaponization of the Government
Media Matters sues FTC over “retaliatory” investigation: Media Matters claims the FTC is seeking to punish the watchdog group in retaliation for its reporting on extremist content on the social media site X. (Gregory Svirnovskiy, Politico)
Insurrection
Jury orders man to pay $500K for assaulting police officer who killed himself after Capitol riot: A federal jury ordered David Walls-Kaufman, who served a 60-day prison sentence for his role in the insurrection, to pay $500,000 in damages to the widow of Metropolitan Police Officer Jeffrey Smith. (Michael Kunzelman, Associated Press)
Reproductive Rights
The number of abortions kept rising in 2024 because of telehealth prescriptions, report finds: A new survey found the number of abortions in the U.S. has increased since Roe was overturned in 2022, with the increase driven by pills prescribed by telehealth. The overall number of abortions has risen, but it’s below the historic peak in the 1990s. (Geoff Mulvihill, Associated Press)
Push to move OB-GYN exam out of Texas is piece of AGs’ broader reproductive rights campaign: The American Medical Association recommended that medical certification exams be moved out of states with restrictive abortion policies or made virtual, after 20 state attorneys general petitioned medical professional groups to better protect physicians who fear legal repercussions due to their work. (Annie Sciacca, KFF Health News)
Defense and Veterans Affairs
Transgender troops want to keep serving. Trump is forcing them out: Active-duty transgender service members had a June 6 deadline to self-report their gender dysphoria. Advocates say expelling troops in highly specialized fields such as pilots, nuclear engineers, and intelligence analysts will harm the military amid a years-long trend of recruiting shortfalls. (Jonathan Edwards, Washington Post)
Lawmakers demand review of VA’s AI-driven contract cuts: Senators Richard Blumenthal and Angus King said the use of AI to identify contracts for termination “adds an entire new level of unease connected to the decision-making, security, governance, and quality control” of the contracting process and called for VA’s inspector general to review the hundreds of VA contracts canceled by DOGE. (Edward Graham, Government Executive)
Business and Finance
Why factories are having trouble filling nearly 400,000 open jobs: For every 20 manufacturing positions, there’s one qualified candidate. Some of President Trump’s policies are likely to exacerbate the problem. (Farah Stockman, New York Times)
Big banks, worried about being Trump’s next target, race to appease Republicans: Big banks, trying to get out of the crosshairs of Republican states that are cracking down on “wokeness,” are meeting with state officials to defend against allegations that they’re unfairly refusing to do business with firearm and fossil fuel companies. (Alexander Saeedy, AnnaMaria Andriotis, and Dylan Tokar, Wall Street Journal)
Tech
The TSA has issued an urgent warning about criminals using fake USB charging ports, free Wi-Fi honeypots to steal your identity ahead of summer holidays: TSA’s warning to summer travelers: “Juice jacking” attacks on public USB charging ports can capture your text messages, contact lists, and even keystrokes, and free public Wi-Fi networks can expose you to identity theft. (Efosa Udinmwen, TechRadar)
Health Care
Threat in your medicine cabinet: The FDA’s gamble on America’s drugs: The FDA has given more than 20 foreign factories a special pass to continue sending drugs to the U.S., even though they were made at plants that the agency had banned. The FDA didn’t proactively inform the public when drugs were exempted from import bans, and it didn’t routinely test the medications to ensure they were safe. (Debbie Cenziper et al., ProPublica)
The plan to vaccinate all Americans, despite RFK Jr.: Professional medical societies, pharmacists, state health officials, and vaccine manufacturers are mobilizing behind the scenes to preserve access to vaccines as the health secretary works to upend the nation’s decades-old vaccine system. But the effort to create parallel systems for recommending and providing vaccines faces major challenges. (Lena H. Sun and Rachel Roubein, Washington Post)
🔎 See Also: Sen. Bill Cassidy criticizes RFK Jr.’s vaccine advisers (Kelly Hooper, Politico)
Administration to phase out NIH support of HIV clinical guidelines: NIH’s support for federal guidelines that steer the treatment of more than a million HIV patients in the U.S. will be phased out by next June. Doctors and advocates worry the move is a first step toward ending federal guidance for HIV treatment. (Mark Johnson, Washington Post)
In the shooting of an Indiana kidney doctor, fresh echoes of the UnitedHealthcare murder and the specter of vigilante violence: The incident conjures up the same emotions Americans expressed after the UnitedHealthcare shooting: disgust with the country’s health care system, including the rise of for-profit dialysis clinics. (Erin Moriarty et al., CBS News)
ICYMI
Immigration and Border Security:
→ Supreme Court allows Trump to restart swift deportation of migrants away from their home countries
→ Trump said he’d send 30,000 migrants to Guantánamo. He’s sent about 500
→ U.S. will review social media for foreign student visa applications
→ A powerful tool in Trump’s immigration crackdown: the routine traffic stop
→ Judge says DOJ failed to make case for Abrego Garcia’s detention ahead of criminal trial
→ New insight into Texas family detention reveals adults fighting kids for clean water
→ A teen with no criminal background was deported by ICE, leaving his community aghast
→ ICE detains Marine Corps veteran’s wife who was still breastfeeding their baby
Other News:
→ GAO is targeted by House Republicans in new spending bill
→ Trump to rescind “Roadless Rule” protecting 58 million acres of forest land
→ A judge sided with Trump. Behind the scenes, he was lobbying for a nomination
→ Abandoned by Trump, a farmer and a migrant search for a better future
Upcoming Events
📌 Closing the Feedback Loop Through Casework. POPVOX Foundation. Tuesday, June 24, 12:00 noon - 1:00 p.m., 1539 Longworth House Office Building.
📌 A Review of the President’s Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Request for the Department of Justice. Senate Committee on Appropriations; Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies. Wednesday, June 25, 10:00 a.m., 138 Dirksen Senate Office Building.
📌 Inside the Growing Architecture of U.S. Immigration Enforcement. ProPublica. Wednesday, June 25, 4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. EDT.
Nominations & Appointments
Nominations
- Chad Meredith - Judge, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky
Withdrawals
- Stella Herrell - Assistant Secretary of Agriculture
- Yehuda Kaploun - Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism
- John Simermeyer - Chairman, National Indian Gaming Commission
- Alexander Verlez-Green - Deputy Under Secretary of Defense
