The Paper Trail: June 10, 2025

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Top stories for June 10, 2025

The legal issues surrounding Trump’s plan to use troops to suppress protests: President Trump’s deployment of troops to Los Angeles is a troubling step toward achieving the president’s long-held desire to use military force on domestic soil to quell protests, fight crime, and hunt for undocumented migrants. It remains unclear how matters will play out on the ground and, potentially, in court. (Charlie Savage, New York Times)

🔎 See Also: DHS secretary seeks military arrests in Los Angeles in leaked letter (Matthias Gafni et al., San Francisco Chronicle)

🔎See Also: Democratic senator seeks guardrails as Trump deploys troops to LA (Joe Gould, Politico)

Trump administration races to fix a big mistake: DOGE fired too many people: Across the government, the administration is scrambling to rehire many federal employees who were fired or opted for a voluntary exit under DOGE’s staff-slashing initiatives, in some cases imperiling key services such as weather forecasting and the drug approval process. (Hannah Natanson et al., Washington Post)

Democrats accuse Gabbard of illegal interference in IG office: Senior Democratic lawmakers accused Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard of violating the law and undermining oversight of the 18 intelligence agencies after Gabbard installed a top adviser in the Intelligence Community Inspector General’s office and fired the office’s acting general counsel. (Warren P. Strobel and Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post)

NIH scientists have been angry for months. Now some are rebelling: More than 90 NIH scientists signed their names to the “Bethesda Declaration” letter in protest of Trump administration policies they say are wasting public resources, undermining the NIH’s mission, and harming public health. (Carolyn Y. Johnson, Washington Post)

As disasters loom, emergency managers say they aren’t counting on FEMA: Hundreds of FEMA veterans have left the agency, and those who remain will no longer go door to door in search of disaster victims. Other planned changes could make it more difficult for disaster-stricken communities to qualify for public assistance. (Scott Dance and Brady Dennis, Washington Post)

Buyer with ties to Chinese Communist Party got VIP treatment at Trump crypto dinner: The Trump White House has repeatedly sounded an alarm about visitors with ties to China’s government coming to the U.S, arguing that they’re a potential security threat. But the administration appears to have literally left the door open to a member of a Chinese government group when it gave purchasers of the president’s memecoin dinner with Trump and a tour of the White House. (Eric Lipton et al., New York Times)

Lawmakers traded stocks heavily as Trump rolled out “Liberation Day” tariffs: From April 2, when President Trump launched sweeping tariffs, to April 8, the day before he paused many of them, more than a dozen House lawmakers and their family members made more than 700 stock trades. Two lawmakers who have called for stock-trading bans in the past — Reps. Ro Khanna and Rob Bresnahan — reported the most transactions. (Katy Stech Ferek et al., Wall Street Journal)

Analysis: What is habeas corpus? The Latin phrase designed to ward off tyranny: The Trump administration’s attempts to redefine or suspend habeas corpus threaten a foundational principle of free societies. (Project On Government Oversight)

Elon Musk & DOGE

Supreme Court lets DOGE access Social Security data of millions of Americans: The Supreme Court on Friday cleared the way for DOGE to access the sensitive Social Security Administration data of millions of Americans and shielded DOGE from having to disclose records to a government watchdog group. (Ann E. Marimow and Justin Jouvenal, Washington Post)

After his Trump blowup, Musk may be out. But DOGE is just getting started: With DOGE members assuming permanent positions in multiple agencies, the team’s mission of implementing deep cuts in federal spending, personnel, and projects is becoming institutionalized. (Christopher Flavelle et al., New York Times)

White House security staff warned Musk’s Starlink is a security risk: The DOGE team and allies in the Trump administration ignored White House communications experts worried about potential security breaches with the Starlink internet service installed in the White House complex. (Joseph Menn, Washington Post)

DOGE developed error-prone AI tool to “munch” Veterans Affairs contracts: As the Trump administration prepared to cancel contracts at VA, officials turned to a software engineer with no health care or government experience to guide them. The engineer, working for DOGE, quickly built an AI tool to identify which contracted services weren’t essential, but the tool made glaring mistakes. (Brandon Roberts, Vernal Coleman, and Eric Umansky, ProPublica)

Weaponization of the Government

In Trump’s “patriotic” hiring plan, experts see a politicized federal work force: President Trump is the first president to ask federal job applicants to describe their allegiance to administration policy and to directly involve senior agency officials in the hiring process. Taken together with Trump’s conversion of some senior positions to “at will” employment, critics see a blueprint for politicizing the bureaucracy. (Eileen Sullivan, New York Times)

Signalgate

Investigators looking at who sent Hegseth’s Signal texts, whether they were told to delete them: The Pentagon’s inspector general is looking into whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth personally wrote the Signal messages detailing the military’s plans to strike Yemen or whether his staffers typed out those details. The IG is also probing whether staffers were asked to delete messages. (Luis Martinez and Anne Flaherty, ABC News)

Insurrection

Five Proud Boys leaders sue Justice Department over Jan. 6 prosecutions: Five pardoned leaders of the Proud Boys filed a lawsuit seeking $100 million in restitution over claims their constitutional rights were violated. (Ellie Silverman, Spencer S. Hsu, and Rachel Weiner, Washington Post)

Defense and Veteran Affairs

Transgender vet sues VA over decision to halt hormone therapy meds: The lawsuit claims the decision was made without any legal basis and represents a denial of the care promised to the petitioner, a transgender Army veteran who served for two years on active duty and nine years in the Army National Guard. (Leo Shane III, Military Times)

Military spouses fight back against Pentagon book bans: Defense officials acknowledge that 555 books have been pulled from school and service academy shelves for “further review,” noting that it represents just 0.1% of library books. Meanwhile, at the Naval Academy, officials say all but about 20 of the nearly 400 books that were removed earlier this year have been returned to the shelves. (Rebecca Kheel, Military.com)

Tech

Meta found a new way to violate your privacy. Here’s what you can do: Researchers recently caught Meta using tactics similar to those of digital crooks to secretly compile logs of people’s web browsing on Android devices. The episode is yet another example of tech companies secretly turning our phones into surveillance devices. (Shira Ovide, Washington Post)

🔎 See Also: Meta’s platforms showed hundreds of “nudify” deepfake ads, CBS News investigation finds (Emmet Lyons and Leigh Kiniry, CBS News)

New policy puts Americans’ data security in peril: The CFPB will cancel the rollout of Biden-era rules that limit data brokers’ ability to sell Americans’ personal data online, at a time when personal data is regularly being exposed through major breaches and people-search sites are collecting and publicly sharing as much personal data as possible. (Nick Byron Campbell, The Lever)

Scammers are using AI to enroll fake students in online classes, then steal college financial aid: The rise of AI and the popularity of online classes have led to an explosion of financial aid fraud. Crime rings deploy “ghost students” that join online classrooms and stay long enough to collect a financial aid check. Real students get locked out of classes they need to graduate, and victims of identity theft who discover loans fraudulently taken out in their name often spend months trying to get the debt erased. (Sharon Lurye, Associated Press)

Infrastructure

These publicly funded homes for the poor cost $1.2 million each to build: In cities across the U.S., costs to house the poor are approaching and at times exceeding $1 million per unit — resulting in fewer affordable housing units being built at a time of urgent need. (Steve Thompson, Washington Post)

Health Care

RFK Jr. removes all current members of CDC vaccine advisory committee: Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dismissed an expert panel of vaccine advisers that has historically guided the government’s vaccine recommendations, saying the group is “plagued with conflicts of interest.” HHS said the panel will meet later this month, giving the agency just days to appoint replacements. Critics worry the new members won’t be properly vetted. (Sarah Owermohle and Meg Tirrell, CNN)

Trump team set to destroy $12m worth of HIV drugs and contraceptives that were bought before closing USAID: Roughly $12 million worth of HIV-prevention drugs and contraceptives purchased by USAID — sitting in distribution centers in Belgium and the UAE since January — will likely be destroyed. The supplies were earmarked for 18 countries. (Katie Hawkinson, The Independent)

Palantir’s collection of disease data at CDC stirs privacy concerns: The CDC’s plan to consolidate data on diseases like measles and polio is raising concerns about patient privacy, delays in spotting long-term trends, and ways the Trump administration may use the information. The fact that the system will be managed by data analysis firm Palantir adds a new layer of anxiety and mistrust. (Apoorva Mandavilli, New York Times)

A federal program to protect U.S. cities against extreme heat has just evaporated: NOAA defunded the Center for Heat Resilient Communities, a program designed to help local officials keep residents safe by developing a universal heat plan for every city in the country. (Matt Simon, Mother Jones)

Wall Street to insurers: keep denying care: UnitedHealth Group’s investors profit from its high denial rates. Now, they’re suing to ensure that doesn’t change. (Katya Schwenk, The Lever)

ICYMI

Immigration and Border Security:

→ ICE official reveals miserable conditions for U.S. immigrants at Djibouti prison

→ Local police join ICE deportation force in record numbers despite warnings program lacks oversight

Other News:

→ Trump can bar Associated Press from some events, appeals court rules

→ The new Don Jr.-connected D.C. club has been a mystery. Here are the details

→ D.C. police lieutenant sentenced to 18 months for leaking to Proud Boys

→ D.C. Bar overwhelmingly rejects bid by Attorney General Pam Bondi’s brother to lead it

Upcoming Events

📌 23 and You: The Privacy and National Security Implications of the 23andMe Bankruptcy. Senate Judiciary Committee. Wednesday, June 11, 10:15 a.m., 226 Dirksen Senate Office Building.

📌 Department of Defense Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Request. House Armed Services Committee. Thursday, June 12, 10:00 a.m., 2118 Rayburn House Office Building.

Hot Docs

🔥📃 GAO - Priority Open Recommendations: Department of Defense. GAO-25-108042 (PDF)

🔥📃 GAO - Fraud in Federal Programs: FinCEN Should Take Steps to Improve the Ability of Inspectors General to Determine Beneficial Owners of Companies [reissued with revisions]. GAO-25-107143 (PDF)