The Paper Trail: May 12, 2026

Top stories for May 12, 2026

DOJ sees fallout after push to prosecute former FBI director James Comey: More than a half-dozen prosecutors have been demoted or pushed out of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia due to fallout from the Comey prosecution, leaving the office understaffed and weakened. Other attorneys have left the DOJ, fearful they could be asked to work on cases that violate their principles. Major cases, including one involving a terrorist attack in Afghanistan, have been hobbled by the turmoil. (Perry Stein, Washington Post)

Kash Patel’s personalized bourbon stash: The FBI director has given out bottles of his personalized whiskey to FBI staff as well as civilians he encounters in his duties. Current and former FBI employees said the practice was unheard-of and that it’s a concern at an agency that has traditionally frowned on the unauthorized use of alcohol. The fear of retribution has deterred staff from reporting their concerns to supervisors or through whistleblower channels. (Sarah Fitzpatrick, The Atlantic)

🔎 See Also: FBI probing leaks to journalist who wrote explosive article on Kash Patel, sources say (Ken Dilanian and Carol Leonnig, MS NOW)

Trump administration axes fast-track training for new ICE recruits: DHS is abandoning the accelerated training program it used to quickly deploy the thousands of new ICE agents hired in recent months. In addition, DHS plans to certify and dispatch veteran officers to the field to give those hired under the fast-track program additional instruction. (Myah Ward, Jordain Carney, and Daniel Lippman, Politico)

DHS closes office of immigration detention watchdog: DHS shut down the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, an office serving as a watchdog for those in immigration detention who claim misconduct, excessive force, and other rights violations. (Rebecca Beitsch, The Hill)

Newly released documents reveal more than $300,000 in taxpayer-funded sexual harassment settlements involving lawmakers: Taxpayers paid more than $300,000 in confidential sexual harassment settlements on behalf of six former House members or their offices from 1996 to 2018. Rep. Nancy Mace named the lawmakers and offices in a social media post. (Annie Grayer, CNN)

🔎 See Also: Another House Republican is under the microscope for alleged sexual misconduct (Hailey Fuchs and Meredith Lee Hill, Politico)

Sean Duffy faces backlash for new family reality show: “unfocused and out of touch”: Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s announcement that he and his family are taking part in a seven-month reality TV program drew immediate blowback from critics who pointed toward the crises that have recently hit the U.S. transportation sector, and the fact that the program is sponsored by companies regulated by the Transportation Department including Boeing, Toyota, Shell, Royal Caribbean, and United Airlines. (Uwa Ede-Osifo, The Guardian)

More than 3-in-4 allegations of sexual assault against federal prison staff are going unresolved: Sexual abuse claims brought against staff at federal prisons are overwhelmingly left unresolved by the Bureau of Prisons, according to a new GAO report that found the BOP is frequently ill-equipped to handle those investigations. According to the GAO, allegations of rape and sexual misconduct against federal corrections officers by inmates have spiked in recent years. (Eric Katz, Government Executive)

The no-bid contract that is turning Washington’s Reflecting Pool blue: To repaint the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, the National Park Service awarded a nearly $7 million no-bid contract to a firm that had worked on the swimming pools at the Trump National Golf Club in Virginia. The Park Service estimates the project’s cost could exceed $12 million — approximately seven times more than the $1.8 million President Trump promised. (David A. Fahrenthold and Luke Broadwater, New York Times)

🔎 See Also: Nonprofit sues to stop Trump’s changes to Reflecting Pool, a historic site (Dan Diamond, Washington Post)

🔎 See Also: Millions for a paint job? Trump wants the Eisenhower building painted white (Luke Broadwater, New York Times)

MAGAs are fuming after email confirms they will never get their $500 Trump phones or deposits back: Nearly 600,000 Trump supporters paid a $100 deposit towards a Trump Mobile gold smartphone that, nearly a year later, still doesn’t exist. Now, a fresh wave of anger is spreading across MAGA forums after buyers were informed that their money is, for all practical purposes, gone. (Chelsie Napiza, International Business Times)

Iran War

Iran has hit far more U.S. military assets than reported, satellite images show: Iranian airstrikes have damaged or destroyed at least 228 structures or pieces of equipment at U.S. military sites across the Middle East since the war began, hitting hangars, barracks, fuel depots, aircraft, and key equipment. The amount of destruction is far larger than what has been publicly acknowledged by the Pentagon. (Evan Hill et al., Washington Post)

Shipping companies whipsawed by negotiations and risks amid Hormuz standoff: With hundreds of vessels still stuck in the Persian Gulf and costs piling up, shipping companies are being whipsawed by uncertainty over how and when the Strait of Hormuz might reopen. Meanwhile, the risks for ships and crew haven’t faded. (Mae Anderson and David Mchugh, Los Angeles Times)

Oil-price bets ahead of Iran war news totaled $7 billion, reporting shows: There was a series of well-timed market bets on falling oil prices totaling as much as $7 billion during March and April across multiple exchanges just before major Iranian policy announcements by President Trump. (Amanda Cooper and Dmitry Zhdannikov, Reuters)

Prediction Markets

Campaign staffers tell NPR they make “thousands” betting on their own candidates: A staffer working on a statewide campaign in the South is one of the first publicly reported instances of a campaign staffer betting on non-public information and winning thousands on their candidate on prediction markets. Other staffers say this sort of campaign betting is common. Such bets could potentially be a violation and be subject to a CFTC investigation. (Luke Garrett, NPR)

NPR went looking for Polymarket’s Panama headquarters. It’s elusive: Polymarket, which is worth an estimated $15 billion, moved to its Panama base following scrutiny from U.S. regulators. But a visit to the law office listed as Polymarket’s headquarters turned up no sign of the company. At least 15 other crypto companies use this office as a home base, which effectively shields them from lawsuits and government regulation. (Bobby Allyn and Eliana Morales Gil, NPR)

Tensions in the Twin Cities

Minneapolis grapples with the impact of Trump's largest immigration crackdown yet: The crackdown has receded, but the surge left a mark that enforcement statistics can’t capture: shuttered restaurants, households rationing groceries, mounting debt, mental health woes, and a serious reckoning with whether to leave the U.S. (Sergio Martínez-Beltrán, NPR)

Epstein Files

Lutnick admits to having prolonged ties to Epstein in closed-door interview: For reasons he said were “inexplicable,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick acknowledged visiting Jeffrey Epstein’s island seven years after he claimed to have severed ties with him, according to lawmakers present at Lutnick’s closed-door interview with the House Oversight Committee last week. (Hailey Fuchs and Ali Bianco, Politico)

Insurrection

Ex-FBI agents say Grassley played improper role in their firings: Several former FBI agents who worked on former special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation claim that Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley played a role in their firings by releasing unredacted materials about the investigation. (Rebecca Beitsch, The Hill)

The War on “Narcoterrorists”

Pentagon says one survivor after latest strike on alleged drug boat in eastern Pacific kills 2: The strikes have ramped up in recent weeks. The military hasn’t provided evidence that any of the targeted vessels were carrying drugs. (CBS News)

Weaponization of the Government

Hegseth calls for Sen. Mark Kelly to be investigated by Pentagon for second time: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called for Sen. Mark Kelly to be investigated over comments he made about U.S. weapon stockpiles amid the Iran war, saying Kelly was “blabbing on TV” about a classified matter. (Aleena Fayaz, CNN)

Dodging FOIA could now mean arrest and strip search, depending on who’s asking: The DOJ charged Dr. David Morens, a former senior adviser at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, with using his personal email to evade FOIA requests. The case is unique in that the DOJ rarely treats FOIA evasion as a crime, and it has raised questions as to whether this prosecution is politically motivated. (Lauren Harper, The Intercept)

Federal discrimination watchdog sues New York Times for editor snub: The EEOC alleges the newspaper discriminated against a qualified white male employee who had applied to work as the paper’s deputy real estate editor. (Nick Niedzwiadek, Politico)

FBI raiding office of Virginia Senate president who led redistricting push: The FBI executed a search warrant last week at the offices of Virginia Senate President Pro Tempore L. Louise Lucas, a key player in a redistricting push designed to give the Democrats more pickup opportunities in the midterms. (Sophie Brams, The Hill)

White House Ballroom

Republicans propose $1 billion in taxpayer dollars to secure Trump ballroom: The 90,000-square-foot ballroom that the president repeatedly said would cost the public nothing may ultimately leave taxpayers on the hook for $1 billion, due to new security enhancements tied to the project. Democrats plan to force a vote to kill the provision when it comes to the Senate floor later this month. (Peter Nicholas, Frank Thorp V, and Gary Grumbach, NBC News)

Natural Disasters

FEMA said it answered the phone during the Texas floods. Most callers didn’t get through: Newly released FEMA records raise questions about whether the agency was able to provide timely disaster services during one of the nation’s deadliest catastrophes. (Thomas Frank, Politico)

🔎 See Also: FEMA is losing another senior official just weeks before hurricane season (Joe Gould and Torrence Banks, NOTUS)

🔎 See Also: Trump-appointed panel calls for overhauling how FEMA operates (Amy B Wang, Brianna Sacks, and Brady Dennis, Washington Post)

Storm season is here and the National Weather Service is short-handed: After deep cuts last year, the agency is hiring hundreds. But fears linger that it isn’t equipped for imminent tornado and hurricane threats. (Scott Dance, Judson Jones, and Amy Graff, New York Times)

Defense and Veterans Affairs

Pentagon watchdog declines to probe Kid Rock flights: The Pentagon’s inspector general won’t investigate an Army helicopter flight near the home of Kid Rock and at a “No Kings” protest in March, according to a letter from the IG to the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. (Anthony Capaccio, Bloomberg)

🔎 See Also: It looks like Kid Rock’s Apache helicopter fly around was turned into a hype video for his tour (Gil Kaufman, Yahoo Entertainment)

Maryland lawmakers demand answers from Air Force about jet fuel spill at Joint Base Andrews, citing lack of transparency: Maryland state lawmakers asked the Air Force to answer questions about a 32,000-gallon jet fuel spill on Joint Base Andrews earlier this year, claiming there’s been a lack of transparency surrounding the leak which contaminated the surrounding area. (JT Moodee Lockman, CBS News)

Business and Finance

Court rules Trump’s 10% tariff is just as illegal as the tariff it replaced: In a 2-1 ruling, the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled that tariffs the president imposed under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 are illegal. (Ashley Belanger, Ars Technica)

Trump wants to lift the federal tax on gas. But don’t expect much relief even if it happens: Experts say pausing the tax could push up prices more and hurt a major source of federal road maintenance funding. (Tami Luhby, CNN)

The U.S. Copyright Office is hiking registration fees by 43%. Independent music orgs say many artists won’t be able to afford it: Music industry organizations say the U.S. Copyright Office’s proposed 43% average increase to copyright registration fees would lock out independent creators out of the registration system. (Mandy Dalugdug, Music Business Worldwide)

Tech

Federal officials will test Google and Microsoft AI models before release: The agreements announced last week don’t appear to require companies to make changes to their technology at the government’s direction. (Gerrit De Vynck, Washington Post)

🔎 See Also: How a new breed of hacking tools is forcing a White House reset (Ian Duncan and Nitasha Tiku, Washington Post)

🔎 See Also: Trump officials built an AI tool to turbocharge deregulation (Freddy Brewster and Luke Goldstein, Jacobin)

After deaths, lawsuits against AI companies test a new strategy: AI companies are making products that harm people, and attempts to rein them in with bad publicity or new laws that mandate safeguards haven’t worked. The battleground to make them safer is now in the courts. (Kashmir Hill, New York Times)

Infrastructure

Oilfield theft in Texas grows more organized — and more dangerous: Officials say oilfield theft is no longer simply a property crime: It can threaten workers, nearby communities, and critical energy infrastructure. (David Martin Davies, Texas Public Radio)

Health Care

The CDC fired all its cruise ship inspectors before the hantavirus outbreak: Last year, the CDC cleared out almost its entire Vessel Sanitation Program, a group that ensures cruise ships are properly sanitized. (Frank Landymore, Futurism)

🔎 See Also: Polymarket’s hot new bet: hantavirus (Anna Rogers and Sophie Hurwitz, Mother Jones)

FDA blocked publication of research finding COVID and shingles vaccines were safe: The FDA in recent months blocked publication of several studies supporting the safety of widely used vaccines against COVID-19 and shingles. The studies cost millions of dollars in public funds. (Christina Jewett, New York Times)

“Highly problematic for a thousand reasons”: NIH employees criticize requirement to scrutinize grants with words related to diversity: As the Trump administration continues its effort to root out federal funding for DEI initiatives, the NIH has modified its grant review process to identify research that contains words associated with race and gender, which has held up some grant disbursements and forced scientists to rewrite proposals. An NIH employee said it’s not clear who ultimately decides if a flagged word is appropriate and funding can be disbursed. (Sean Michael Newhouse, Government Executive)

These alleged schemes reveal the hidden market for your medical records: The disclosure of the health records of hundreds of thousands of patients across the country highlights the seriousness of security gaps in the electronic network used to transfer medical data between hospitals, physicians’ offices, and laboratories. (Christopher Rowland, Washington Post)

One in five HealthCare.gov enrollees dropped insurance coverage this year: More Americans are dropping out of health care marketplaces than usual, after Congress let pandemic-era Affordable Care Act subsidies lapse. (Winfield Cunningham, NOTUS)

“This will cost lives”: Researchers slam Trump cuts to addiction programs and staffing: The Trump administration has prioritized combating addiction in the U.S., but a coalition of scientists and research organizations argues in a new report that the president’s efforts to shrink the size of the civil service and otherwise reorganize agencies are undermining that objective. (Sean Michael Newhouse, Government Executive)

Babies are bleeding to death as parents reject a vitamin shot given at birth: Vitamin K shots, which help the blood clot, are one of three key interventions recommended for newborns. Hospitals have seen a rise in parents opting out of the shots, often driven by unfounded fears. As a result, hundreds of babies die every year from vitamin K deficiency bleeding. (Duaa Eldeib, ProPublica)

ICYMI

Immigration and Border Security:

→ Trump administration targets 12 immigrants to revoke citizenship

→ Immigrants are giving up their cases and leaving the U.S. in soaring numbers

→ Most deportees under Trump are men, leaving women to care for families alone

→ Lawyers for the global elite aren’t buying Trump’s gold card visa

→ Court blocks limits on lawmaker visits to immigration detention facilities

→ Lawmaker indicted over migrant facility visit pushes to expand oversight

Other News:

→ Trump administration to scrap rule that elevated land conservation

→ Trump “seriously considering” plan to make Venezuela permanent part of U.S.

→ ABC refuses to capitulate to Trump admin, fights FCC probe into The View

→ The U.S. ambassador to Italy pumped millions into gambling stocks

→ A look inside the case that enshrined political power for billionaires

→ Commentary: Federal discipline was never supposed to be punitive. The MSPB appeal framework reflects that

On The Lighter Side

Trump administration releases first tranche of “never-before-seen" UFO files: The Pentagon — in coordination with the White House, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Energy, NASA, and the FBI — disclosed 162 files on its newly launched “UFO” website. Additional batches are expected to be released on a rolling basis as they’re declassified. (Tanya Noury, Military Times)

Hot Docs

🔥📃 GAO - Federal Prisons: Improvements Needed to Prevent, Detect, and Address Sexual Abuse. GAO-26-107343 (PDF)

Nominations & Appointments

NOMINATIONS

• Francis Brooke - Deputy Secretary of the Treasury
• Angela Colmenero - Judge, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas
• John Crews - Member of the National Credit Union Administration Board
• David Cummins - Administrator, Transportation Security Administration
• Daniel Domenico - Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit
• Cameron Hamilton - Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency
• Brendan Hanrahan - of Assistant Secretary of State (European and Eurasian Affairs)
• Karen Jean Hedlund - Member, Surface Transportation Board
• Kari Lake - Ambassador, Jamaica
• Michael Martin - Judge, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan
• Douglas Mastriano - Ambassador, Slovak Republic
• Brett Matsumoto - Commissioner of Labor Statistics
• Kasdin Mitchell - Judge, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas
• Antonio Pozos - Judge, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
• Douglas Ralph - Member, National Mediation Board
• Heidi Semann - Inspector General, Department of Education
• Barbera Thornhill - Director, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking
• Daniel Traynor - Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit