Newsletter

The Paper Trail: February 25, 2025

NIH, USDA Defy Court Orders to Resume Funding; DOGE “Wall of Receipts” Full of Errors; Church Retirement Plans Leave Workers Vulnerable; and More.

Feb 25, 2025

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The Paper Trail

Announcements

Oversight and Investigations: What it Means and How to Make it Work: POGO’s virtual training on an introduction to oversight will be Friday, February 28 at 12 noon. This event is only open to staff in Congress, GAO, and CRS. Register HERE.

Paper Trail Readers: This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Paper Trail! How are we doing? Please take this brief survey to let us know. Your feedback will help shape the future of the Paper Trail.

Top stories for February 25, 2025

Oversight agency finds Trump’s federal worker firings unlawful, asks for some employees to be reinstated: The Office of Special Counsel found that some of President Trump’s mass firings of probationary period employees were unlawful. OSC issued its decision for six employees, each at different agencies. OSC turned the case over to the Merit Systems Protection Board for enforcement of its findings and requested a 45-day stay on the firing decisions. (Eric Katz, Government Executive)

Government departments stop whistleblower training: The Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs have stopped mandatory antidiscrimination and whistleblower training for their employees. Training has been mandatory for federal employees since 2006. (Kate Plummer, Newsweek)

NIH is again throttling research funding in defiance of a federal court order: The NIH is still blocking most ongoing scientific funding over concerns about DEI, even after top NIH officials acknowledged that continuing to block funding would violate a federal court order. The freeze jeopardizes critical research on cancer treatments, heart disease prevention, stroke intervention, and other potentially life-saving topics. (Judd Legum, Mother Jones)

Inside the USDA, staffers struggle with Trump’s funding freeze: Despite multiple court orders that the flow of federal money be restored, farmers across the country are reporting that USDA grants they were expecting still aren’t coming through. (Sarah Blaskey and Shawn Boburg, Washington Post)

Trump administration tells agencies they can ignore Musk order on email reply: OPM told agency HR officials that employees wouldn’t be fired for not replying to an email Elon Musk sent out to millions of federal workers asking what they did at work last week. OPM is unsure what to do with the emails of employees who responded so far, but it has “no plans” to analyze them. (Emily Davies et al., Washington Post)

Trump administration firings raise concerns about vulnerability of election systems: The administration has worked quickly to pause and dismantle the effort to fight foreign meddling in elections, raising concern among federal lawmakers and election officials across the country who rely on the federal cybersecurity agency and its counterparts to warn them about attacks on election systems. Instead, the federal focus on election security has been turned toward the past, rather than the future. (Nicole Sganga, CBS News)

Acting IRS commissioner to step down amid DOGE blitz on agency: Doug O’Donnell, the acting commissioner of the IRS, will announce he is stepping down, driven in part over his distress about the chaos inflicted by DOGE. As part of DOGE-driven cuts, about 7,000 IRS employees are expected to lose their jobs. (Jeff Stein, Lisa Rein, and Jacob Bogage, Washington Post)

New Social Security chief was being investigated when Musk team tapped him: Leland Dudek, a data analyst working in a small Social Security Administration anti-fraud office, is being investigated for allegedly granting DOGE unauthorized access to information. Now he’s the agency’s acting commissioner. In his first days on the job, Dudek demoted an official who was involved in launching the investigation. (Lisa Rein, Washington Post)

DOGE put him in the Treasury Department. His company has federal contracts worth millions: Tom Krause was appointed the Treasury Department’s fiscal assistant secretary, but he still serves as CEO of Cloud Software Group, a company with millions of dollars’ worth of business with various federal agencies, including Treasury. (Paresh Dave, Wired)

Officials are fired at traffic safety agency investigating Musk’s company: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which has three active investigations of Tesla, fired 4% of its staff. (Jack Ewing, New York Times)

DOGE’s only public ledger is riddled with mistakes: Elon Musk and DOGE say they’ve saved the federal government $55 billion through staff reductions, lease cancellations, and a list of terminated contracts published online last week as a “wall of receipts.” But the math backing up those claims is marred with accounting errors, outdated data, and other mistakes. Most of the canceled contracts appear to relate to the administration’s priorities of shuttering USAID and eliminating DEI programs and disproportionately target businesses run by women and minorities. (Aatish Bhatia et al., New York Times)

Other DOGE News:

→ Judge questions constitutionality of DOGE, Musk’s role

→ The ridiculous and disturbing things DOGE staff are doing

→ Watchdog group sues for DOGE records, arguing they should be made available to public

→ Judge: U.S. gov’t violated privacy law by disclosing personal data to DOGE

→ Musk begins testing his Starlink terminals in U.S. airspace system

→ Elon Musk’s private security detail gets deputized by U.S. Marshals Service

Insurrection

Pardoned for Jan. 6, she came home to a new reality: The amnesty meant that about 250 imprisoned rioters were released from custody. Some have disavowed the stolen-election lies, some have sought anonymity, and some are basking in their January 6 street cred like heroes back from war. Communities have grappled with how to receive the returning prisoners. (Dan Barry and Alan Feuer, New York Times)

Russia-Ukraine War

U.S. joins Russia to vote against UN resolution condemning Russia’s war against Ukraine: The vote against the Ukrainian and European-backed resolution puts the U.S. at odds with its longtime European allies and aligned with the aggressor on the three-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion. (Jennifer Hansler, CNN)

In Nome, Alaska, a cadre of tinkerers and partisans keeps aiding Ukraine: For decades, Nome has had an on-again, off-again relationship with Russia, which is just 160 miles away. But ever since the start of the war in Ukraine, those ties have been superseded by the anger and activism of a cadre of volunteers who are aiding the Ukrainian cause in surprising ways. (Zachariah Hughes, Washington Post)

Defense and Veterans Affairs

In pursuit of a “warrior ethos,” Hegseth targets military’s top lawyers: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired the judge advocates general for the Army, Navy, and Air Force. The dismissals came as part of a broader purge by Hegseth and President Trump, who late Friday also fired Joint Chiefs Chairman Charles Q. Brown and five other senior officers including Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to serve as chief of naval operations. (Greg Jaffe, New York Times)

Pentagon to fire 5,400 civilian employees in “initial” purge: The administration intends to cull its DOD civilian workforce of more than 900,000 employees by between 5% and 8%. (Dan Lamothe, Washington Post)

Justice Department files complaint against judge weighing challenge to Trump’s transgender troop ban: The complaint, filed by Attorney General Pam Bondi’s chief of staff Chad Mizelle, accuses Judge Ana Reyes of inappropriately questioning a government lawyer about his religious beliefs and trying to “embarrass” the attorney. The Trump administration has been ramping up its criticism of judges who blocked parts of his agenda. (Alanna Durkin Richer, Associated Press)

Business and Finance

Judge temporarily blocks key parts of Trump’s executive orders targeting DEI: In regard to President Trump’s executive orders targeting DEI initiatives at companies and universities, Judge Adam Abelson ruled that the plaintiffs were “likely” to succeed on their claim that such actions violate constitutionally protected free speech. (Julian Mark, Washington Post)

HUD cuts expected to worsen America’s housing crisis, staffers say: Sharp staff cuts at HUD — its workforce is projected to drop from about 8,300 employees to just over 4,000 — are likely to upend housing markets, make homes less affordable, and roil mortgage transactions. (Rachel Siegel, Washington Post)

Church retirement plans sidestep federal oversight — and employees pay the price: For the past half-century, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) has protected retirement benefits. But churches and other religious organizations can ignore the law’s requirements, leaving hundreds of thousands of workers vulnerable. (Theo Francis, Wall Street Journal)

Tech

Potential cuts at AI Safety Institute stoke concerns in tech industry: Looming layoffs at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are causing concern that the U.S. could lose its competitiveness in the artificial intelligence space and that the development of “trustworthy” AI could be at risk. (Miranda Nazzaro, The Hill)

Health Care

RFK Jr. promptly cancels vaccine advisory meeting, pulls flu shot campaign: The CDC began pulling back some of its efforts to protect Americans with safe, lifesaving vaccines, indefinitely postponing a public meeting of its vaccine advisory committee and canceling a campaign promoting seasonal flu shots. (Beth Mole, Ars Technica)

They worked to prevent death. The Trump administration fired them: The White House hasn’t released figures on how many public health workers have been fired, but news reports have begun to take stock: about 750 workers at the CDC, which plays a central role in responding to pandemics; more than 1,000 staffers at the NIH, which funds and conducts life-saving research; dozens at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which manages public health care and insurance programs; and scores of employees at the FDA, which oversees the safety of food, drugs, and medical devices. (Annie Waldman and Duaa Eldeib, ProPublica)

🔎 See Also: She pioneered change over five presidencies. The Trump administration just fired her (Kate Sosin, The 19th)

CDC shutters PRAMS program on maternal and infant health: The Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS), a nearly 40-year-old federal data collection system designed to measure progress towards goals in improving the health of mothers and infants, was shut down last month. (Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo)

ICYMI

Immigration and Border Security:

→ Federal judge pauses immigration raids in some houses of worship

→ Acting ICE director removed amid White House pressure to boost arrests

→ Trump allies circulate mass deportation plan calling for “processing camps” and a private citizen “army”

→ Invasive frisks, suicide attempts: Three migrants describe Guantánamo detention

Other News:

→ Judge allows White House ban on Associated Press to continue — for now

→ Rep. Andy Ogles files article of impeachment against judge who ordered agencies to restore scrubbed data

→ Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio arrested outside U.S. Capitol

→ Listeria outbreak linked to recalled frozen shakes now blamed for 12 deaths

Upcoming Events

📌 The Government Accountability Office’s 2025 High Risk List. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Tuesday, February 25, 1:00 p.m., HVC-210.

📌 “Subject to the Jurisdiction Thereof”: Birthright Citizenship and the Fourteenth Amendment. House Committee on the Judiciary; Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government. Tuesday, February 25, 2:00 p.m., 2141 Rayburn House Office Building.

📌 Oversight Hearing: Federal Bureau of Prisons. House Committee on Appropriations; Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies. Wednesday, February 26, 2:00 p.m., 2362A Rayburn House Office Building.