The Paper Trail: January 6, 2026

The Paper Trail

Announcements

EXCLUSIVE EARLY ACCESS: Applications are open for a two-day intensive Boot Camp on the art and practice of oversight and investigations hosted by POGO, the Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy, and The Lugar Center. This training is only open to staff in Congress. Apply at THIS LINK by January 21.

Top stories for January 6, 2026

How Social Security has gotten worse under Trump: A diminished Social Security Administration workforce is struggling to respond to up to 6 million pending cases in its processing centers and 12 million transactions in its field offices — record backlogs that have delayed basic services to millions of customers. (Lisa Rein, Meryl Kornfield, and Hannah Natanson, Washington Post)

Monkey sounds, “White power” and the N-word: Racial harassment against Black students ignored under Trump: Nearly a year since Trump took office, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights hasn’t entered into a single new resolution agreement involving racial harassment of Black students. Instead, the office has shifted focus to cases involving alleged discrimination against White students. (Jennifer Smith Richards, Megan O’Matz, and Jodi S. Cohen, ProPublica)

🔎 See Also: Epithets and accusations: Probes into racism in schools stall under Trump (Meredith Kolodner, Washington Post)

Thousands of mail-in ballots could be discounted under new post office policy: A recent change in how the U.S. Postal Service postmarks letters could discount the ballots of thousands of last-minute voters. State election supervisors and experts say the new guidelines will intensify the need to educate procrastinating voters and put added pressure on the Postal Service to speed up ballot deliveries. (Anna Liss-Roy, Washington Post)

Trump’s tangled web of deal-making, policy and riches: The president’s family and allies are benefiting from their proximity to power, retaining or building stakes in industries that the government oversees and that Trump’s policies have boosted. This tangled web is a hallmark of Trump’s second term, where the lines between U.S. interests and those of the president’s inner circle are blurred. (Lazaro Gamio and Amy Schoenfeld Walker, New York Times)

Hundreds of big post-election donors have benefited from Trump’s return to office: Since President Trump was elected a second time, he and his allies have raised nearly $2 billion for his favored political causes and personal projects. More than one-quarter of that came from 346 donors, many of whom have benefited from pardons, favorable regulatory actions, the dropping of enforcement cases, appointments, and access to the president. (Karen Yourish, Kenneth P. Vogel, and Charlie Smart, New York Times)

Trump’s pardons wipe out payments to defrauded victims: At least 20 people who have received clemency from Trump were also forgiven of tens of millions of dollars in restitution owed to their fraud victims, including the federal government. (Beth Reinhard and Aaron Schaffer, Washington Post)

🔎 See Also: Inside the new fast track to a presidential pardon (Rebecca Ballhaus, Josh Dawsey, and C. Ryan Barber, Wall Street Journal)

Top DOJ official shut down enforcement against crypto companies while holding more than $150,000 in crypto investments: As the second-highest official at the DOJ, Todd Blanche ended investigations into the crypto industry and eliminated an enforcement team looking at crypto-related fraud and money-laundering schemes. At the time, Blanche held cryptocurrency investments worth up to $485,000. When he divested those crypto interests, Blanche transferred them to his adult children and grandchild. (Corey G. Johnson and Al Shaw, ProPublica)

The Trump administration approved a big lithium mine. A top official’s husband profited: Senior Interior Department official Karen Budd-Falen didn’t disclose a $3.5 million water-rights contract between her husband and the developers of a Nevada lithium mine. The department declined to say whether Budd-Falen played a role in the fast-track approval of the mine. (Lisa Friedman, New York Times)

DHS fast-tracked $1 billion contract to pro-Trump donor’s company: DHS awarded a contract worth almost $1 billion to a company led by a donor to a pro-Trump nonprofit group where one of the officials overseeing the deal previously worked. (Isaac Arnsdorf, Washington Post)

U.S. Invasion of Venezuela

After Venezuela, Trump offers hints about what could be next: Barely 48 hours after the operation, President Trump threatened Colombia with a similar fate, declared that Cuba wasn’t worth invading because “it’s ready to fall,” and again asserted that Greenland needs to come under U.S. control. (David E. Sanger, New York Times)

🔎 See Also: Trump wants Venezuela’s oil. Getting it might not be so simple (Molly Taft, Wired)

🔎 See Also: Denmark prime minister calls on Trump to “stop the threats” about Greenland (CBS News)

🔎 See Also: How oil, drugs and immigration fueled Trump’s Venezuela campaign (Edward Wong et al., New York Times)

Congress is divided over Maduro raid after first briefing: Congressional leaders emerged from their first classified briefing about the operation divided along partisan lines over its legality, scope, and objectives. (Robert Jimison and Megan Mineiro, New York Times)

🔎 See Also: Trump administration misled Congress before Maduro raid, Democrats say (Noah Robertson and Theodoric Meyer, Washington Post)

Corporations invested in lawsuits before Venezuela invasion: Major U.S. companies with pending lawsuits against the Venezuelan government alleging financial damages related to the country’s nationalization of state industries, international sanctions, and political instability could receive a massive windfall from a new Trump-installed government. (Luke Goldstein and Lucy Dean Stockton, The Lever)

The War on “Narcoterrorists”

• Military Times: A List of U.S. Military Strikes Against Alleged Drug-Carrying Vessels

• The Intercept: How Many People Has the U.S. Killed in Boat Strikes?

The U.S. sank the alleged narco-terrorists’ boat — and let them go: In destroying rather than collecting evidence and turning boat strike survivors over to foreign governments rather than prosecuting them, the Trump administration is undermining the process U.S. law enforcement uses to interdict drug traffickers on the high seas. (Arturo Torres, Samantha Schmidt, and Alex Horton, Washington Post)

U.S. military killed boat strike survivors for not surrendering correctly: Before ordering a second strike on the two survivors of the September 2 operation, Adm. Frank Bradley — then the head of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) — sought legal advice from JSOC’s top lawyer, Col. Cara Hamaguchi. Hamaguchi’s former colleagues expressed surprise and dismay at the prospect of her playing a role in the boat strikes. (Nick Turse, The Intercept)

Insurrection

At least 33 pardoned insurrectionists face other criminal charges—but many are now going free: Dozens of pardoned insurrectionists have been rearrested, charged, or sentenced for other crimes since January 6, 2021, including rape, assault, illegal possession of weapons, possession of child pornography, burglary, and DUI. (Linnaea Honl-Stuenkel, Sophia Barriga Hernandez, and Alyssa Meiman, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington)

🔎 See Also: For many Jan. 6 rioters, a pardon from Trump wasn’t enough (Alan Feuer and Dan Barry, New York Times)

This Jan. 6 plaque was made to honor law enforcement. It’s nowhere to be found at the Capitol: The official plaque honoring the police who defended the Capitol isn’t on display at the west front of the Capitol, as is required by law. Its whereabouts aren’t publicly known, though it’s believed to be in storage. House Speaker Mike Johnson has yet to formally unveil the plaque, and the DOJ is fighting a lawsuit seeking to have it displayed. (Lisa Mascaro, Associated Press)

Opinion: 5 years since the Jan. 6 insurrection: Second Amendment extremism, the belief that Americans have a right, even the obligation, under the Constitution to take up arms against the government when they disagree with its direction, is increasingly embraced by many Americans today, including some Supreme Court justices and President Trump himself. And it’s being fueled by the gun industry. (Douglas Letter, Time)

🔎 See Also: House Judiciary Committee minority staff reports:

• Myths vs. Facts: January 6 (PDF)
  
• Where Are They Now: The Perpetrators of January 6th and the Defenders of Democracy Who Stopped Them (PDF)
  
• One Year Later: Assessing the Public Safety Implications of President Trump’s Mass Pardons of 1,600 January 6 Rioters and Insurrectionists (PDF)

Weaponization of the Government

HHS to freeze $10 billion in funding to 5 Democratic states: The Trump administration plans to freeze $10 billion in funding for childcare subsidies, social services, and support for low-income families in Minnesota, New York, California, Illinois, and Colorado, citing “massive amounts of fraud” as the reason but failing to provide evidence of fraud in four of the states. (Minho Kim, New York Times)

🔎 See Also: Day cares say they are unfairly punished over misleading Minnesota video (Paige Winfield Cunningham, David Ovalle, and Caroline O'Donovan, Washington Post)

🔎 See Also: Right-wing YouTuber behind viral Minnesota fraud video has long anti-immigrant history (Jonah Valdez, The Intercept)

Hegseth announces censure and potential demotion of Sen. Mark Kelly: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the DOD will formally censure Sen. Mark Kelly and launch administrative proceedings to consider whether to reduce his Navy rank and pension. Hegseth repeated allegations that Kelly made “seditious statements” in a video in which the senator and five other Democratic lawmakers reminded U.S. troops of their duty to disobey illegal orders. (Dan Lamothe, Washington Post)

Veto of water project is Trump’s latest targeted hit on Colorado: Miffed at Colorado’s votes against him in three successive elections and furious at its refusal to free a convicted election denier, President Trump has opened an assault against the state, cutting off transportation money, relocating the Space Command headquarters, rejecting disaster relief, and killing a drinking water pipeline project. (Jack Healy, New York Times)

Epstein Files

DOJ says millions of Epstein files have yet to be released: More than two weeks after the deadline to release the files, the DOJ disclosed that they’re still reviewing millions of documents and have released less than 1% of the total. More than 400 DOJ attorneys and 100 FBI analysts will spend the next few weeks reviewing and redacting the documents. (Kyle Cheney, Politico)

🔎 See Also: White House deputy press secretary called out for falsifying Michael Jackson, Diana Ross photos In Epstein files (Jazmin Tolliver, HuffPost)

The incident that prompted Trump to ban Epstein from Mar-a-Lago’s spa: Jeffrey Epstein wasn’t just a frequent visitor to Mar-a-Lago in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The club also sent spa employees — usually young women — to Epstein’s nearby mansion for massages and other services. The house calls went on for years, even as spa employees warned each other about Epstein. (Joe Palazzolo, Rebecca Ballhaus, and Khadeeja Safdar, Wall Street Journal)

🔎 See Also: “Don’s best friend”: How Epstein and Trump bonded over the pursuit of women (Nicholas Confessore and Julie Tate, New York Times)

Scams, schemes, ruthless cons: The untold story of how Jeffrey Epstein got rich: In his first two decades of business, Epstein was less a financial genius than a prodigious manipulator, scammer, and liar. (David Enrich et al., New York Times Magazine)

Elon Musk & DOGE

DOGE did not find $2T in fraud, but that doesn’t matter, Musk allies say: Determining how “successful” DOGE was depends on who you ask, but it’s increasingly hard to claim that DOGE made any sizable dent in federal spending, which was its primary goal. Even Elon Musk himself admitted DOGE didn’t live up to its promise. Meanwhile, critics are worried DOGE’s cuts might have inflicted lasting damage. (Ashley Belanger, Ars Technica)

How did DOGE disrupt so much while saving so little? DOGE said it made more than 29,000 cuts to the federal government — slashing billion-dollar contracts, canceling thousands of grants, and pushing out civil servants. But contrary to the group’s promises, federal spending actually went up: A large reason is that many of the largest savings DOGE claimed were exaggerated. (Emily Badger et al., New York Times)

🔎 See Also: The year Trump broke the federal government (Hannah Natanson and Meryl Kornfield, Washington Post)

What 1,000 pages of documents tell us about DOGE: The FCC is accused of slow-walking a FOIA request seeking information about DOGE’s activities at the FCC and whether there were any conflicts of interest created by embedding DOGE members in an agency that regulates an Elon Musk company. (Lauren Feiner, The Verge)

White House Ballroom

White House aiming to get final approval for Trump-backed ballroom by March: The president is aiming to move the planned $400 million, 90,000-square-foot White House ballroom through the federal government’s review process at a rapid clip, with final approvals as soon as early March — potentially clearing the way for construction to start in April. (Arden Farhi and Joe Walsh, CBS News)

Natural Disasters

Emails outline potential cuts affecting thousands of FEMA disaster responders: DHS drafted plans to drastically cut the FEMA workforce in 2026. Terminations of potentially thousands of disaster response and recovery workers will likely come in waves. (Brianna Sacks, Washington Post)

Hundreds of residents signed up for FEMA buyouts after Helene. Not one has been approved: More than 800 victims of Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina have applied to FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, under which the government will buy out their damaged homes. So far, not a single approval has come through. (Brady Dennis, Washington Post)

Supreme Court Ethics

Supreme Court increasingly favors the rich, economists say: A new study found the court’s Republican appointees voted for the wealthier side in cases 70% of the time in 2022, up from 45% in 1953. (The study coded decisions as favoring the rich if the justices ruled for employers against workers, for companies against customers, for businesses against the government, to reduce competition, or to weaken the social safety net.) (Adam Liptak, New York Times)

Reproductive Freedom

Iowa doesn’t have enough OB-GYNs. The state’s abortion ban night be making it worse: Fewer medical students are applying to OB-GYN residency programs in states that restrict or ban abortion. (Natalie Krebs, KFF Health News)

Middle East Conflicts

Over $13 billion in U.S. military aid to Israel improperly tracked: According to an inspector general review, the DOD didn’t properly track more than half of the $13.4 billion in military aid sent to Israel since October 2023. (Tanya Noury, Military Times)

Russia-Ukraine War

A Russian missile, filled with U.S. tech, rips a Ukrainian boy’s life apart: Despite export controls, weapons containing components built by Intel, Analog Devices, AMD, and Texas Instruments are killing and maiming Ukrainian civilians. (Lizzie Johnson et al., Washington Post)

Defense and Veterans Affairs

Pentagon fails financial audit for 8th year in a row: The DOD has received a failing grade on every audit since Congress mandated annual reviews beginning in 2018. In fiscal 2025, auditors found 26 material weaknesses and two significant deficiencies in the department’s financial reporting. (Tanya Noury, Defense News)

Lockheed still paid $1.7 billion despite poor readiness rate of F-35s: According to an inspector general audit, the DOD didn’t consistently hold Lockheed Martin accountable for poor F-35 sustainability performance in its 2024 contract, resulting in paying Lockheed Martin $1.7 billion without “economic adjustment.” (Cristina Stassis, Military Times)

Raw sewage, broken AC, bugs: Report reveals squalor at border mission: Site visits to Fort Bliss in Texas and Doña Ana Range Complex in New Mexico found “unsanitary conditions in bathroom facilities,” specifically “leaking raw sewage, non-functional toilets, and general disrepair of facilities.” Soldiers also voiced concerns about broken air conditioning and “electrical capacity concerns.” (Eve Sampson, Military Times)

Business and Finance

A $400,000 profit on Maduro’s capture raises insider trading questions on Polymarket: The case of the person who placed a lucrative wager on the Venezuelan leader’s capture has sparked debate about the potential for insider trading on prediction markets, where abuse can go unnoticed by federal regulators. Given that Donald Trump Jr. is an adviser to both Polymarket and Kalshi, experts are skeptical that the government will ever go too hard on the industry. (Bobby Allyn, NPR)

Justice Department using fraud law to target companies on DEI: The DOJ has launched investigations into companies’ use of DEI in hiring and promotion through a novel interpretation of the False Claims Act, a federal law meant to punish contractors who cheat the government. Separately, the administration is using the law against doctors who bill Medicaid for treatments for transgender youth. (Lydia Wheeler, Wall Street Journal)

Under Trump, nonprofits strip DEI language from IRS forms: More than 1,000 charities rewrote their mission statements in forms filed with the IRS, removing or minimizing language tied to race, inequity, and historically disadvantaged communities. Some went further, scrubbing diversity initiatives from their websites along with commitments to building more inclusive institutions. Some even renamed themselves. (Ellis Simani and Zisiga Mukulu, ProPublica)

Trump says the job market is booming for U.S.-born. The data doesn’t show it: Immigrants left the labor force in 2025, but U.S.-born workers aren’t enjoying a jobs boom according to government data and economists. In fact, U.S.-born workers are doing moderately worse under Trump than they were under Biden. (Lauren Kaori Gurley, Washington Post)

Tech

GPS is key to the global economy. It’s also surprisingly easy to attack: Over the past two years, interference with the U.S. Global Positioning System has grown dramatically, threatening a network relied on daily by 6 billion people, businesses, and governments that is highly vulnerable to attack. (Christian Davenport, Washington Post)

74 suicide warnings and 243 mentions of hanging: What ChatGPT said to a suicidal teen: Several families have filed wrongful-death lawsuits against OpenAI, alleging the chatbot encouraged their loved ones to kill themselves and others. (Nitasha Tiku and Kevin Schaul, Washington Post)

🔎 See Also: OpenAI’s child exploitation reports increased sharply this year (Maddy Varner, Ars Technica)

🔎 See Also: AI deepfakes are impersonating pastors to try to scam their congregations (Kat Tenbarge, Wired)

Infrastructure

Internal Forest Service report finds “unpassable trails, unsafe bridges”: The December report found that some Forest Service districts have lost up to 100% of their trail staff and that remaining staff are suffering burnout and low morale, leading to rapidly deteriorating trails. The report warned the damage is swiftly becoming irreversible. (Hannah Natanson, Washington Post)

FAA picks 2 firms to replace 612 outdated radar systems that air traffic controllers rely on: RTX and Spanish firm Indra will replace the systems by summer 2028. The FAA has already committed more than $6 billion of the $12.5 billion that Congress approved to pay for the overhaul, but Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that another $20 billion will be needed to complete the project. (Josh Funk, Associated Press)

Health Care

U.S. overhauls childhood vaccine schedule, recommends fewer shots: Medical associations and public health experts blasted the CDC modeling its new vaccine strategy on that of other countries including Denmark. Danish health officials also questioned the U.S. following its lead. (Lena H. Sun and Paige Winfield Cunningham, Washington Post)

🔎 See Also: U.S. vaccination rates are plunging. Look up where your school stands (Lauren Weber et al., Washington Post)

On the hook for uninsured residents, counties now wonder how they’ll pay: County health officials across the country are bracing for an estimated 10 million newly uninsured patients over the next decade in the wake of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. (Christine Mai-Duc and Claudia Boyd-Barrett, KFF Health News)

A study is retracted, renewing concerns about the weedkiller Roundup: A 2000 study found glyphosate, a herbicide used on hundreds of millions of acres of U.S. farmland, wasn’t a human health risk despite evidence of a cancer link. But last month, the study was retracted by the scientific journal that published it after it was revealed that scientists working for Monsanto, the weedkiller’s manufacturer, played a significant role in producing the study. (Hiroko Tabuchi, New York Times)

ICYMI

Immigration and Border Security:

→ Unsealed court order suggests Trump officials pushed to prosecute Abrego Garcia after wrongful deportation

→ Trump officials move to screen visa applicants’ posts for “anti-American” speech

→ USCIS’ arbitrarily strict FOIA policy is keeping some migrants from receiving their immigration records, whistleblower alleges

→ DOJ sues Virginia over in-state tuition for migrants

→ Colorado revokes hundreds of commercial driver’s licenses after feds threaten to withhold $24M in funding

→ Wisconsin judge resigns after conviction in immigration obstruction case

→ Military lawyer swiftly fired after defying Trump deportation push

→ ICE more than doubled its workforce in 2025

→ ICE shift in tactics leads to soaring number of at-large arrests

→ “It’s a war”: Inside ICE’s media machine

→ 10 companies have made over $1 million as ICE bounty hunters

Other News:

→ U.S.-based multinational companies will be exempt from global tax deal

→ Lawsuit over Trump rejecting medical research grants is settled

→ Corporation for Public Broadcasting is officially shutting down

→ Office of Special Counsel resumes Hatch Act enforcement against former feds for violations during their service

→ Kash Patel’s new ride of choice: an armored luxury BMW

→ Fears mount that U.S. federal cybersecurity is stagnating — or worse

→ White House threatens Smithsonian funds in sweeping content review

→ Republican AGs urge Bondi to probe climate groups for China ties

→ Acting CISA head blames staff after flunking lie-detector test

Upcoming Events

📌 Interventionism on Steroids – The Trump Takeover of Venezuela. Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. Tuesday, January 6, 2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. EST.

📌 Oversight of Fraud and Misuse of Federal Funds in Minnesota: Part I. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Wednesday, January 7, 10:00 a.m., HVC-210 CAPITOL.

📌 Impeachment: Holding Rogue Judges Accountable. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Wednesday, January 7, 2:30 p.m., 226 Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Hot Docs

🔥📃 GAO - Oil and Gas Royalties: Congress and Interior Should Strengthen Safeguards to Better Ensure Accurate Payments. GAO-26-107669 (PDF)

🔥📃 GAO - U.S. Postal Service: Action Needed to Fix Unsustainable Business Model. GAO-26-107336 (PDF)

🔥📃 National Bureau of Economic Research: Ruling for the Rich: The Supreme Court Over Time. January 2026 (PDF)

Nominations & Appointments

• Lt. Gen. Frank Donovan - Commander, U.S. Southern Command