A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Kate and Josh discuss the compromising of Eric Adams, Elon Musk’s role as heat shield for Donald Trump and a new executive order.

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I don’t like to think in conspiratorial ways. But DOGE currently has far deeper and far more extensive access to U.S. government computer systems — and is far deeper into the national security space — than is conceivably necessary for anything related to their notional brief and goals. I don’t just mean this about the front-facing notional goals of making the federal government “efficient.” I mean it as well in the most sinister versions of the group’s goals — hollowing out the federal bureaucracy, destroying oversight agencies which pose threats to Musk’s business interests, building centralized command and control over budgets, employment, personal data, etc., etc.

WIRED is now reporting that two DOGE operatives, including the 19-year-old Edward Coristine (aka “Big Balls”), have gained access to the computer systems of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the agency charged with the defense of the federal government’s civilian computer networks as well as helping to organize the defense of the country’s critical infrastructure.

I continue to hear new accounts of the pulverizing of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The news focuses on funds and employees, each of which of course are pivotal. But less reported on is the administration systematically shutting down the various portals created to allow citizens to report abuses, the systems for monitoring of key agencies in response to complaints, various materials created to educate citizens about how to protect their rights in the financial world. It’s all collectively awful. But it reminds me of issues tied to branding.

The CFPB is more than a decade old and I’m a bit shamefaced to admit that I still often forget the precise order of the initials that function as its de facto name. This may be its relative youth or my own neurology. I remember NLRB and NIH more or less well. But it reminds me that the name of the agency and how it is discussed in the political space is half the battle and one that its supporters in the political space (as opposed to the people who work there) have more or less conceded. Any politicians discussing this should never be referring to the CFPB or even the spelled-out four-word name. It’s more like the National Consumer Help Line. Or the National Business Complaint Line. “Line” dates those ideas a bit. I hear there are now computers too. Some version of “Financial” should be in there to specify its focus. But “financial” is a bit arcane. National Bank and Credit Card Complaint Line? I’m sure others could come up with something snappier. But everybody but everybody has a complaint about bad service or businesses (banks, credit cards, payment processors, etc.) that are ripping them off. And you just can’t concede any ground on making it crystal clear to people that that is what this is.

On the campaign trail last year Donald Trump repeatedly promised that he’d end the Russo-Ukraine war on day one of his presidency. It was always a given that any peace deal struck by President Trump would be very much on Russia’s terms. But what’s developed over the last week looks qualitatively different. If not literally the same in terms of the carving up of land, these peace talks look more like the discussions leading up to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with the divvying up perhaps as focused on natural resource concessions as territory. That may sound a bit dramatic. But what’s actually being discussed in the meetings in Riyadh aren’t permanent or interim borders for Ukraine or repatriation of citizens or anything that might be the actual makings even of a one sided “deal.” The main topic of conversation appears to be new concessions for American companies in the Russian oil industry, which remains heavily reliant on western technology to remain productive. A particular source of discussion was a possible series of deals for American companies to participate in Russia oil exploration in parts of the Russia-claimed arctic which are now accessible because of global warming. Indeed, oil futures are currently trending down on the expectation that more unsanctioned Russian oil will soon be coming on the market.

Meanwhile the US has pressed the Ukrainians, who are excluded from the Riyadh, with an entirely different set of demands.

Was getting a read out a short time ago about firings at CMS (the agency that runs Medicare and Medicaid). The cuts run deep. And giving how much of the health care economy runs through these programs that’s of course worrisome. But the most telling detail is one I’ve heard from numerous other agencies. The people actually running the agency don’t actually know how many people have been fired or who they are. If you’re in charge of and responsible for running the place you really need to know that. But as in other agencies they’re having to piece that together by doing things like seeing whose emails have been turned off or just asking them. Did you get fired? You? Can someone ask Lori if she got fired? Imagine running an agency and finding out that there had been widespread terminations but not being given any details about who they are or how many there are. That’s pretty straightforward sabotage.

A few days ago I did this post on the taxonomy of DOGE, who’s actually involved in it, the people who are formally part of it and the ones who are part of Musk’s operation but have not gotten official appointments in the executive branch. In that post I asked why it is that Musk seems to continue to rely on this subset of DOGE personnel — the dozen or so under-25 techies — as the landing parties who go in and actually force their way into these departments. It happens again and again. In that post I noted that Gavin Kliger is the guy at IRS. And in a conversation with a fellow journalist I was just told that another of the original crew is the lead now in the break-in at SSA.

Hard to keep track of precisely what’s happening at these different agencies. But we just got through the headlines about DOGE demanding access to literally everybody’s and every companies’ tax returns at the IRS. It seems like they now have that access, though we don’t know that for certain. (We’re basically entirely dependent on leaks since DOGE works entirely in secret.) Now news just broke that the DOGErs appear to have busted their way into the Social Security Administration, forcing the resignation of the acting commissioner, Michelle King, when she resisted their demands to give DOGE access to the agency’s most sensitive government records.

The Bonneville Power Administration, the largest transmission grid operator in the Pacific Northwest, will be shedding at least 600 workers as part of President Trump’s budget slashing across the federal federal workforce.

There’s one point that has come up, sometimes explicitly but more often by what isn’t said, in my many conversations with civil servants at HHS and especially at the core medical research agencies within it. At the simplest level, they’re not lawyers. But the issue requires a little more explanation because obviously most people aren’t lawyers in the other departments and agencies either. Outside the Department of Justice, none of these agencies are legal agencies or departments per se. But in most of the rest of the government, lawyers are ubiquitous and much of the work culture is structured around the work and ideas of lawyers. This is probably intuitively clear for most of you who’ve either reported on the federal government or worked within it. But it’s worth stating explicitly and thinking about the impact this has had in recent weeks.

Again and again in conversations with people at NIH, NCI and other public health or research agencies within the government the same basic point comes up: the people immediately affected by the events of the last four weeks have very little idea what the relevant law is, the legal standing of the actions being taken or who to talk to about any of it. I’ve had a few sources ask if I could organize some lawyers to create what amounted to a FAQ about the relevant law. I haven’t had a chance. But someone should.

Here’s an important resource being maintained by ProPublica. It’s a list of everyone associated with the DOGE operation. (Nice to see two TPM alums on the list of those compiling and maintaining it.) The page says it hasn’t been updated since February 11th, which by today’s standards is semi-ancient history. But presumably they’ll be doing more updates soon.

I want to add a few additional points that provide context.