The Paper Trail: April 14, 2026

The Paper Trail

Editor’s Note

There will be no Paper Trail next week.

Announcements

The Office of the Whistleblower Ombuds recently published its Secure Whistleblower Communications Starter Pack (PDF), which outlines secure communication procedures and tools for House offices working with whistleblower constituents and oversight sources. The resource includes guidance on encrypted webforms, quick tips and in-depth trainings, and a template whistleblower confidentiality policy.

Top stories for April 14, 2026

Trump promises mass pardons to staff before leaving office: President Trump has repeatedly promised his top administration officials pardons before he leaves office. During one recent meeting, he allegedly said he’d “pardon everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval.” (Josh Dawsey, Wall Street Journal)

What spending probes at DHS reveal about Kristi Noem’s time in office: Kara Voorhies joined DHS early in Trump’s second term and worked closely with ex-Secretary Noem’s top aide, Corey Lewandowski, as a contractor. Both held unusual roles at DHS that put them at the center of some of its most controversial and consequential moves. (Brianna Sacks, Maria Sacchetti, and Marianne LeVine, Washington Post)

Kristi Noem’s controversial $70M luxury jet to be repurposed for Melania’s personal use: The former Homeland Security secretary’s $70 million luxury jet will remain under the Trump administration’s purview. First Lady Melania Trump and some Cabinet secretaries will be among those who get to use it. (Stephen M. Lepore, Daily Mail)

ICE arrested more than 800 people after tips from TSA, investigation shows: From January 2025 through February 2026, TSA shared more than 31,000 traveler records with ICE, which led to the arrests of more than 800 people. (The Guardian)

🔎 See Also: Caught in the crackdown: As arrests at anti-ICE protests piled up, prosecutions crumbled (A.C. Thompson and Gabrielle Schonder, ProPublica)

🔎 See Also: How a $75 billion windfall from Congress has insulated ICE (Sam Gringlas, NPR)

🔎 See Also: Opinion: The Posse Comitatus workaround: ICE expands into domestic policing (Cheryl Kelley, The Hill)

A Redditor criticized ICE. Trump is trying to unmask them by dragging the company to a secret grand jury: The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., ordered Reddit to appear before a grand jury as part of an effort to unmask anonymous online critics of the administration’s immigration crackdown. The social media platform has until today to provide a wide range of personal data on one of its users, whom ICE has been trying to identify for more than a month. (Ryan Devereaux, The Intercept)

3 contractors cited for violations in death of worker building major ICE detention camp: OSHA cited three contractors, including one owned by a Trump campaign donor, for safety violations stemming from the death of a worker last year helping build the Camp East Montana immigration detention camp in El Paso, Texas. The facility has been beset by allegations of inhumane conditions, disease outbreaks, and the deaths of three detainees. (Ryan J. Foley, Military.com)

Judges fired after blocking deportations of pro-Palestinian students: The administration fired two immigration judges who dismissed high-profile deportation cases against international students who had advocated for Palestinians. (Hamed Aleaziz, Nicholas Nehamas, and Steven Rich, New York Times)

🔎 See Also: How Trump purged immigration judges to speed up deportations (Nicholas Nehamas et al., New York Times)

Trump’s federal workforce changes cost the economy more than $165.6B, analysis finds: The Partnership for Public Service estimated that the Trump administration’s overhauls to the government workforce cost the U.S. economy $165.6 billion. The Partnership reported that cuts to grants from science agencies such as the EPA, CDC, and NIH have cost the economy $94.6 billion. (Sean Michael Newhouse, Government Executive)

OPM is asking for federal workers’ medical records: A proposed OPM regulation would require 65 insurance companies that cover millions of federal workers, retired members of Congress, mail carriers, and their immediate family members to provide monthly reports to OPM with identifiable health data of their members. (Amanda Seitz and Maia Rosenfeld, CBS)

Treasury is creating a database with pandemic aid recipients’ sensitive information: The Treasury Department is pooling information about people who received benefits from pandemic-era relief programs in a new, central database it says will be used to conduct program audits. Critics say the system is imprecise, overly broad, and runs afoul of privacy laws. (Natalie Alms, Nextgov/FCW)

The dark money funding Trump’s pet projects: The Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia alleging that Palantir, Meta, Paramount Skydance, and dozens of other companies might have violated the Lobbying Disclosure Act by making undisclosed donations to the White House ballroom, the Trump presidential library, and other presidential projects. (Veronica Riccobene, The Lever)

FAA chief dumps millions in airline stock months after his ethics agreement deadline: FAA administrator Bryan Bedford maintained a multimillion-dollar financial stake in an airline company his agency regulates for more than seven months after he took the job, despite pledging to fully divest within 90 days. (Mark Alfred, NOTUS)

Inside Trump’s effort to “take over” the midterm elections: When Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election, the institutional guardrails of American democracy held. But if faced with the same tests today, those barriers — and people who held the line — would largely be missing. Nearly all of the federal officials who safeguard the results of the 2020 vote are gone; many have been replaced by people from the election denial movement. (Doug Bock Clark and Jen Fifield, ProPublica)

Sotomayor blames colleagues for slew of Supreme Court emergency appeals: The Trump administration has filed about 30 emergency applications with the Supreme Court over the past 15 months, winning more than 80% of them. Many of those decisions split the court 6 to 3, along ideological lines. (Josh Gerstein, Politico)

🔎 See Also: Supreme Court remade by Trump ushers in historic defeats for civil rights (Justin Jouvenal, Washington Post)

Opinion: The government may be spying on your phone — Congress must act: Congress needs to close a loophole that lets the federal government obtain your cell phone data from private vendors without a warrant. (Don Bell, OtherWords)

🔎 See Also: Why Congress is fighting over a central tool of American surveillance (Eric McDaniel, NPR)

Iran War

DOGE cuts left U.S. unable to help Americans stranded in Iran war zone: The Trump administration fired hundreds of State Department personnel with the skills needed to safeguard U.S. citizens abroad. These foreign service officers contacted members of Congress last month with dire warnings about the department’s inability to manage the ongoing crisis in the Middle East. (Nick Turse, The Intercept)

We called out the Pentagon for undercounting U.S. casualties in Iran. They keep doing it: The Pentagon continues to provide misleading U.S. casualty figures from the Iran war, even after The Intercept reported on what one defense official called a “casualty cover-up.” (Nick Turse, The Intercept)

The Strait of Hormuz blockade is causing a slow-moving food crisis: Around a quarter of U.S. farmers didn’t lock in fertilizer prices last fall, and many are now scrambling to cover costs stemming from a war they didn’t anticipate. Every day the Strait remains closed or restricted, it causes the five-plus-week crisis to extend further into the Northern Hemisphere’s vital spring planting season. (Abigail Bassett, The Verge)

The Middle East war depleted U.S. weapons. Rebuilding will require China’s cooperation: The Iran war has depleted a key part of the U.S.’s missile defense system in the region. To rebuild, the U.S. needs to go through China, which has a near total monopoly over a critical mineral on which the system depends. (Daniel Desrochers, Politico)

Army survivors of deadly attack in Kuwait dispute Pentagon’s account, say unit “was unprepared” to defend itself: Survivors of the deadliest Iranian attack on U.S. forces since the war began dispute the Pentagon’s description of events and said their unit at a military outpost off Kuwait’s southern coast was dangerously exposed and unprepared. (Jonah Kaplan and Michael Kaplan, CBS News)

Tensions in the Twin Cities

The FBI didn’t answer texts from Minnesota investigators for days after Renee Good’s killing: Text messages sent by a Minnesota criminal bureau investigator to the FBI went ignored for at least two days. (Caroline Haskins, Wired)

Minnesota county investigates federal agents’ removal of U.S. citizen from his home as a possible kidnapping: Officials in Ramsey County, Minnesota, announced a criminal investigation into the arrest of ChongLy Thao, a U.S. citizen caught in a viral photo showing ICE agents walking him out of his home in freezing weather wearing little more than Crocs, shorts, and a blanket. (Whitney Wild and Cindy Von Quednow, CNN)

Staff at Minnesota deportation hub received “obscene” Trump-themed challenge coins adorned with skulls: Federal employees involved in Operation Metro Surge received a souvenir challenge coin that glorifies the violence that occurred during the operation. (Hunter Walker, Talking Points Memo)

Epstein Files

Pam Bondi testimony to House panel canceled, Democrats threaten contempt charges: Former Attorney General Pam Bondi won’t appear as scheduled to testify today before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee about the DOJ’s handling of the Epstein files. Democrats on the committee threatened to initiate contempt charges against Bondi if she fails to appear. (Dan Mangan and Karen James Sloan, CNBC)

What we know about Melania Trump and Jeffrey Epstein: While it wasn’t immediately clear what prompted first lady Melania Trump’s public announcement last week about Jeffrey Epstein, she has previously pushed back on reports and allegations linking her to Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. (James Hill and Peter Charalambous, ABC News)

The War on “Narcoterrorists”

State Department tells human rights watchdog to ignore Trump’s extrajudicial killings: The State Department is waging a pressure campaign against the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the leading inter-American human rights watchdog, to squash a potential investigation into the attacks on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. (Nick Turse, The Intercept)

U.S. military kills 2 men in another alleged drug boat strike in eastern Pacific: U.S. Southern Command said it killed two people in a strike on an alleged drug-trafficking boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Monday, bringing the death toll to at least 170 since strikes began last September. (CBS News)

Weaponization of the Government

Judge dismisses Trump $10B defamation lawsuit against Murdoch, WSJ about Epstein letter: U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles dismissed President Trump’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal, which published a story in 2024 saying the president had sent a “bawdy” birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein. Gayles gave Trump until April 27 to file an amended complaint in the case. (Dan Mangan, CNBC)

What happened when Trump told a city to forget DEI or lose federal money: Local government officials across the country have joined lawsuits challenging the president’s efforts to condition federal funding on the end of DEI. But even in the most liberal cities, officials are torn. (Hannah Knowles, Washington Post)

DOGE

Appeals court removes limits on DOGE access to SSA data despite “alarming” revelations: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit vacated a court order limiting DOGE’s access to sensitive Social Security Administration data, despite the government admitting that DOGE may have improperly accessed and shared the data. (Natalie Alms, Nextgov/FCW)

New disclosures reveal how DOGE actually worked: DOGE members deposed in a lawsuit earlier this year described a vague network of technologists and lawyers tasked with a vast mandate to reduce federal spending. They also described a lack of structure that allowed them to operate with little oversight. (Meryl Kornfield, Washington Post)

White House Ballroom

White House secures foreign steel for ballroom project: ArcelorMittal, a Luxembourg-based steel maker, is donating tens of millions of dollars of foreign steel for the ballroom. Last October, President Trump said he had been offered a donation of steel for the ballroom valued at $37 million. Days later, the administration made adjustments to its tariffs that could benefit ArcelorMittal. (Ana Swanson and Luke Broadwater, New York Times)

Reproductive Freedom

Telehealth abortion will remain available for now, after a federal judge's ruling: U.S. District Judge David Joseph last week ruled access to mifepristone can remain as it is nationally while the FDA completes its review of the drug’s safety. (Selena Simmons-Duffin, NPR)

Justice Department releases report accusing Biden-era DOJ of uneven enforcement of FACE Act law: The report, the first of several expected from the DOJ’s Weaponization Working Group, accused the Biden administration of applying the FACE Act to only protect individuals who support of abortion rights. The report also alleges that prosecutors sought harsher sentences for anti-abortion activists. Ahead of the report’s release, the DOJ fired four prosecutors involved in Biden-era FACE Act cases. (Sarah N. Lynch and Jacob Rosen, CBS News)

Defense and Veterans Affairs

Court voids latest Pentagon press restrictions: U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman rejected Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s revised press access policy, concluding that it was just a repackaging of the one he struck down as unconstitutional last month. (Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein, Politico)

DOJ targets Fort Bragg whistleblower with Espionage Act prosecution: The FBI arrested former U.S. Army employee Courtney Williams and charged her with violating the Espionage Act for sharing with a journalist her experiences with sexual harassment and gender discrimination at Fort Bragg. (Kevin Gosztola, The Dissenter)

U.S. defense official overseeing AI reaped millions selling xAI stock after Pentagon entered agreement with company: Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emil Michael, who oversees the agency’s AI projects, made a profit of up to $25 million earlier this year selling his xAI stock. Before he sold the stock, the Pentagon announced two separate business deals with the company. (Aram Roston, The Guardian)

Army to begin improving pay, benefits for child care providers to increase staffing levels: The Army isn’t the only service branch struggling to meet the demand of childcare for its force. (Rose L. Thayer, Stars and Stripes)

Business and Finance

Trump’s labor plan is a massive 401(k) greed grab for Wall Street: A proposed Labor Department rule will make it harder for workers to hold their companies accountable if they offer riskier 401(k) investments, such as private equity, private credit, and cryptocurrency. (Michelle Singletary, Washington Post)

IBM to pay $17 million in anti-DEI settlement: IBM agreed to pay the federal government $17 million to resolve allegations of making false claims in regard to its DEI practices. The government alleged IBM identified “diverse” candidates for hiring or promotions, while developing race and sex demographic goals. (Auzinea Bacon, CNN)

Sports bets on prediction markets ruled to be “swaps,” exempt from state laws: A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit ruled New Jersey can’t regulate sports bets on prediction markets because the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has exclusive jurisdiction. (Jon Brodkin, Ars Technica)

Justice Department investigating the NFL over subscription fee concerns, sources say: The DOJ is allegedly investigating antitrust and anticompetitive tactics. It comes after Senator Mike Lee last month requested a review of the NFL’s streaming platform exemptions and whether streaming package fees violate the law. (Michael Kosnar, Colleen Long, and Daniel Arkin, NBC News)

“Hard to not feel scammed”: World Cup fans say FIFA misled them with ticket allocations, seat maps: World Cup ticket buyers accuse FIFA of misleading them with stadium maps that misrepresented the potential location of their seats. The controversy appears to stem from FIFA’s mixing of its typical ticketing method with its desire to capitalize on the North American market. (Henry Bushnell, The Athletic)

Tech

Testing suggests Google’s AI Overviews tell millions of lies per hour: A recent analysis found AI Overviews, the search robot that appears at the top of Google results pages, is right 90% of the time — which means AI Overviews still generates tens of millions of incorrect answers every day. (Ryan Whitwam, Ars Technica)

Roblox defends expanded age‑checks after parents raise concerns over errors: Roblox defended a major expansion of its child safety system, despite complaints from parents that the game’s user-age estimation can misclassify children and put them into less-protected versions of the service. (Shiona McCallum, BBC)

Health Care

CDC delays publishing report showing COVID vaccine benefits: Acting CDC Director Jay Bhattacharya delayed publication of a report showing the COVID-19 vaccine cut the likelihood of emergency department visits and hospitalizations last winter by about half. The move raised concerns that information about the vaccine’s benefits is being suppressed because it conflicts with the views of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Lena H. Sun, Washington Post)

After court loss, RFK Jr. gives himself more power over CDC vaccine panel: Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. amended the charter of a federal vaccine advisory panel to seemingly grant himself more power to hand-pick members and loosen membership requirements. The changes came after a federal judge temporarily blocked Kennedy’s hand-picked advisors to the panel. (Beth Mole, Ars Technica)

For-profit hospital chain never put aside money for malpractice insurance to compensate injured patients: States give little scrutiny to “self-insuring” health care companies like Prospect Medical, a for-profit hospital chain that filed for bankruptcy last year, allowing them to dodge normal safeguards. (Peter Elkind, ProPublica)

ICYMI

Immigration and Border Security:

→ U.S. has let in 4,499 refugees since October — all but three were South African

→ Why nursing homes worry about Trump’s push to deport Haitians

→ States change custody laws to keep children of detained immigrants out of foster care

→ ICE officers shoot man in California immigration stop

Other News:

→ White House staff received email warning them not to place bets on prediction markets

→ Pentagon, FAA sign agreement on deploying anti-drone laser system near Mexico

→ U.S. pushes allies to chase a new terrorism target: the far left

→ House Dems: OPM “omitted” employee departures from retirement backlog investigation

→ Expulsion threats force out two House members; Two more hang in balance

→ A hiring rule meant to help people with disabilities get federal jobs instead left them more vulnerable to DOGE mass firings

→ “A slap in the face”: DOJ plans to settle Texas predatory lending case without compensating victims

→ Education secretary used fake photo in post about Black history icon

Upcoming Events

📌 Fraud Prevention: Understanding Fraud in Federally Funded Programs Run by the States. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform; Subcommittee on Government Operations. Wednesday, April 15, 10:00 a.m., 2154 Rayburn House Office Building.

Nominations & Appointments

NOMINATIONS

• Erin Browne - Under Secretary of the Treasury
• Brian Cavanaugh - Under Secretary for Management, Department of Homeland Security
• Thomas B. Chapman - Member, National Transportation Safety Board
• Brock Dahl - Legal Adviser, State Department
• Benjamin Flowers - Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
• Jason Holt - United States Marshal for the Northern District of Oklahoma
• James Macy - Member, National Labor Relations Board
• David M. Prouty - Member, National Labor Relations Board
• Michelle Steel - Ambassador, South Korea
• Michael Tierney - Assistant Secretary of Veterans Affairs (Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection)
• Timothy VerHey - United States Attorney for the Western District of Michigan
• Eric Wendt - Ambassador, Albania
• James Woodruff - Chairman, Merit Systems Protection Board

WITHDRAWALS

• Troy Edgar - Ambassador, El Salvador