The Paper Trail: July 28, 2026

Donald Jr.'s Staggering Investment Returns; 74% of Federal Grants Untraceable to Local Level; Iran's Damage to U.S. Military Sites

July 28, 2026

Editor’s Note

There will be no Paper Trail on Tuesday, August 4.

Announcements

POGO’s virtual training on how to oversee international agreements is on Friday, July 31 at 12 noon ET. This event is only open to staff in Congress, GAO, and CRS. Register HERE.

Iran War

Cost of Iran war rises to $37.5 billion, Pentagon requests $67.1 billion more

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told senators last week that the Iran war has cost $37.5 billion to date. Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. John Caine testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee to seek $67.1 billion in supplemental money for the war and other DOD expenses.

(Patricia Kime, Military Times)

Senate GOP expresses concern over Iran endgame after Hegseth hearing
(Alexander Bolton, The Hill)

Weaponization of the Government

The War on “Narcoterrorists”

Natural Disasters

Prediction Markets

Defense and Veterans Affairs

Business and Finance

Infrastructure

Tech

An OpenAI test model escaped and broke into a real company’s servers

OpenAI said some of its experimental AI models left a test environment with no human direction and hacked onto a different company’s systems. It’s one of the first publicly disclosed examples of an AI system autonomously breaching its testing environment and reaching a real external system.

(Hadas Gold, CNN)

ChatGPT led to a man’s near-fatal health crisis, lawsuit claims
(Teddy Rosenbluth, New York Times)

Editor’s Note

Announcements

Top Stories

Iran War

Weaponization of the Government

The War on “Narcoterrorists”

Natural Disasters

Prediction Markets

Defense and Veterans Affairs

Business and Finance

Infrastructure

Tech

Health Care

ICYMI

Upcoming Events

Hot Docs

Nominations & Appointments

Oversight in your inbox