The Paper Trail: May 23, 2025

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The Paper Trail

Top stories for May 23, 2025

Defense Department accepts Boeing 747 from Qatar for Trump’s use: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth accepted the luxury aircraft for President Trump to use as Air Force One, despite bipartisan concern that accepting the plane is both a national security risk and unethical, and overhauling the jet could cost over a billion dollars. (Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press)

🔎 See Also: Hegseth to Air Force: Figure out how to modify Qatari jet (Audrey Decker, Government Executive)

The questionable case of Kristi Noem’s $50 million luxury jet: Experts and members of Congress are questioning why DHS would prioritize buying a luxury jet for the secretary over new search and rescue aircraft for the Coast Guard. (Nick Turse, The Intercept)

Trump’s crypto dinner cost over $1 million per seat on average: More than 200 wealthy, mostly foreign-born crypto buyers came to Washington this week to have dinner with President Trump. The price of admission: $55,000 to $37.7 million. In total, the attendees spent $394 million on Trumps cryptocurrency. (Kevin Collier, NBC News)

🔎 See Also: Trump’s Mar-a-Lago and Bedminster clubs are taking in more money than ever (Josh Dawsey and Emily Glazer, Wall Street Journal)

More than a dozen U.S. officials sold stocks before Trump’s tariffs sent the market plunging: More than a dozen high-ranking executive branch officials and congressional aides have made well-timed trades since Trump took office, most of them selling stock before the market plunged following Trump’s tariff announcements. (Robert Faturechi, Pratheek Rebala, and Brandon Roberts, ProPublica)

Government oversight employees detail fears of retaliation under Trump administration in new Senate report: Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee released a report containing anonymous testimony from employees at federal inspector general offices expressing concerns about reduced budgets, attrition, retirements, low morale, and the undermining of their offices’ independence. (Sean Michael Newhouse, Government Executive)

Supreme Court clears way for Trump to fire 2 independent agency leaders over liberal dissents: The Supreme Court’s decision temporarily allowing President Trump to fire Merit Systems Protection Board member Cathy Harris and National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox breaks with a 90-year precedent that protected such independent boards from having members serve at the pleasure of the president. In the meantime, the decision leaves both agencies without a quorum required to conduct certain business. (Zach Schonfeld, The Hill)

🔎 See Also: Judge overturns firing of Democrats on intelligence and privacy oversight body (David DiMolfetta, Government Executive)

🔎 See Also: Judge bars Education Department from carrying out mass layoffs (Eric Katz, Government Executive)

🔎See Also: Ousted head of Copyright Office challenges Trump administration in court (Gregory Svirnovskiy, Politico)

Trump has cut science funding to its lowest level in decades: The National Science Foundation, which funds much of the scientific research at American universities, is awarding new grants at the slowest pace in at least 35 years. (Aatish Bhatia et al., New York Times)

Analysis: The regulatory loophole that can shut the public out: The Trump administration is pressing agencies to repeal regulations and bypass rulemaking requirements by using the “good cause” exception. But the courts have shown it’s not that easy. (Janice Luong, Project On Government Oversight)

Elon Musk & DOGE

Musk’s DOGE expanding his Grok AI in U.S. government, raising conflict concerns: DOGE is expanding the use of Elon Musk’s Grok AI chatbot in the federal government to analyze data, potentially giving Musk an unfair advantage in competing for federal contracts and putting at risk sensitive information on millions of Americans. (Marisa Taylor and Alexandra Ulmer, Reuters)

DOGE targets Census Bureau, worrying data users about health of U.S. data infrastructure: DOGE is terminating U.S. Census Bureau surveys it claims are “wasteful,” worrying users of federal data already concerned about the health of the nation’s statistical infrastructure. A bigger concern is whether the Census Bureau is going to be ready next year to conduct test run-throughs of the 2030 census. (Mike Schneider, Associated Press)

Weaponization of the Government

Justice Dept. opens inquiry into Cuomo, singling out another political target: After dropping a criminal case against Eric Adams, the Trump administration began investigating Andrew Cuomo, Adams’ chief rival in the New York City mayoral race, over his congressional testimony about the pandemic. (Devlin Barrett, New York Times)

Justice Department to investigate Chicago after mayor’s remarks about hiring Black officials: The DOJ opened an investigation into whether Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson “engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination” for his public comments contrasting the racial composition of his administration with that of President Trump. (Ryan J. Reilly and Zoë Richards, NBC News)

Harvard sues Trump administration over international student enrollment ban: The suit came a day after DHS revoked Harvard’s ability to enroll foreign students under the F-1 visa program at the behest of Secretary Kristi Noem. (Dan Mangan, CNBC)

🔎 See Also: Government investigation finds Columbia violated students’ civil rights (Liz Essley Whyte and Douglas Belkin, Wall Street Journal)

Media Matters blasts Trump “threats” amid reported FTC probe: The FTC is investigating whether left-leaning watchdog journalism organization Media Matters illegally colluded with advertisers. The FTC demanded communications between Media Matters and advertisers, its correspondence with other watchdog groups, and copies of its budgets. (Filip Timotija, The Hill)

Insurrection

Pro-Trump 2020 “Stop the Count” activist lands top job at the Interior Department: Daniel Gustafson, the Interior Department’s deputy director of the office of intergovernmental and external affairs, was among the protesters trying to stop the counting of ballots in Detroit the day after election day in 2020. Gustafson is among a cohort of Michigan Republican activists who have landed plum positions at Interior. (Jimmy Tobias and Chris D’Angelo, The Intercept)

Police Misconduct

Justice Dept. to drop police reform deals with Minneapolis, Louisville: The DOJ plans to drop police accountability agreements with Minneapolis and Louisville. The DOJ will also close Biden-era investigations that found other local police departments — including Phoenix, Memphis, and Oklahoma City — violated the Constitution. (Mark Berman and Perry Stein, Washington Post)

Defense and Veterans Affairs

Trump estimates Golden Dome will cost $175B over 3 years: President Trump offered new details on Tuesday about his ambitious Golden Dome missile shield project, which he expects to have a price tag of $175 billion and be completed before the end of his term. He appointed Gen. Michael Guetlein, the Space Force’s second in command, to oversee the effort. (Courtney Albon and Jen Judson, Defense News)

Hegseth announces accountability review of Afghanistan withdrawal: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced a review of the U.S. military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan “to ensure that accountability for this event is met and that the complete picture is provided to the American people.” He didn’t specify what type of actions might result from the review. (Jeff Schogol, Task & Purpose)

A single server holds all Navy pay and promotion data. DOGE canceled a contract to upload it to the cloud.: As a result of DOGE cuts, an aging server in Tennessee that holds most of the U.S. Navy’s pay and promotion data is operating with no backup. (Konstantin Toropin, Military.com)

Tech

Probe found security lapses led to U.S. contractor’s data breach: Failures in cybersecurity practices at a software company that helps federal agencies manage investigations and FOIA requests allowed two convicted hackers in February to delete databases. The hackers, employees of Opexus, improperly accessed sensitive documents and compromised or deleted dozens of databases, including those that contained data from the IRS and GSA. (Jason Leopold, Bloomberg)

Infrastructure

GAO: Transportation Department can’t withhold electric vehicle infrastructure program funds: The GAO found the Department of Transportation and Federal Highway Administration ran afoul of the Impoundment Control Act in February when they suspended appropriations for the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program. (Carten Cordell, Government Executive)

Health Care

New Trump vaccine policy limits access to COVID shots: Annual COVID shots for healthy younger adults and children will no longer be routinely approved under a new policy shift unveiled by the FDA. Under the new requirements, companies are urged to conduct large, lengthy studies before tweaked vaccines can be approved for healthier people. (Matthew Perrone and Lauran Neegaard, Associated Press)

The findings — and scientific problems — in White House “MAHA Report”: The report highlighted crises including childhood obesity and declining mental health but didn't address structural issues such as physician shortages and high health care costs. According to medical experts, some of the report’s suggestions stretch the limits of science, while several sections of the report misrepresent scientific findings. (Lauren Weber et al., Washington Post)

UnitedHealth secretly paid nursing homes to reduce hospital transfers: UnitedHealth secretly paid nursing homes thousands in bonuses to help slash hospital transfers for residents — part of a series of cost-cutting tactics that saved the company millions but endangered residents’ health. (George Joseph, The Guardian)

The pharma puppets keeping your drug prices high: At least six supposed patient advocacy organizations have deep ties to Big Pharma and work to advance industry-aligned agendas. (Helen Santoro, The Lever)

How the skincare industry makes billions marketing products to tweens, including some that could harm young skin: Analysis of more than a dozen popular TikTok accounts featuring skincare-obsessed teens and tweens found that many featured products with ingredients that can be harmful to young skin. (Layla Ferris, Julia Ingram, and Julie Watts, CBS News)

ICYMI

Immigration and Border Security:

→ Federal judge blocks Trump from revoking international students’ immigration status

→ Judge orders U.S. to keep custody of migrants amid claims they were sent to South Sudan

→ ICE agents are camped outside immigration courts to make arrests

→ Kristi Noem’s needlessly cruel diss to deported migrants

Other News:

→ Official pushed to rewrite intelligence so it could not be “used against” Trump

→ U.S. spy agencies are getting a one-stop shop to buy your most sensitive personal data

→ The curious case of Trump’s disappearing media transcripts

→ The new war on state regulators

→ Microsoft says it’s censoring employee emails containing the word “Palestine”

Because It’s Friday

How an AI-generated summer reading list got published in major newspapers: Newspapers around the country, including the Chicago Sun-Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer, published an AI-generated summer reading list that includes made-up books by famous authors. (Elizabeth Blair, NPR)

Hot Docs

🔥📃 GAO - Immigration Detention: DHS Should Define Goals and Measures to Assess Facility Inspection Programs. GAO-25-107580 (PDF)

🔥📃 GAO - Priority Open Recommendations: Department of Homeland Security

🔥📃 GAO - Recommendations for Congress: Action Can Produce Tens of Billions of Dollars in Future Financial and Other Benefits. GAO-25-108167 (PDF)

🔥📃 United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs: Undermining the Watchdogs: The 19 Independent Inspectors General Fired by President Trump Uncovered Billions in Fraud, Waste, and Abuse. May 21, 2025 (PDF)

🔥📃 PIRG: Military Right to Repair: The American people, and the facts on the ground, support action to remove repair restrictions for the military. May 20, 2025