Reviewing a directive from DCPAS Director Daniel J. Hester. This applies to DOD civilian personnel. On Friday the 28th, they “must terminate the employment of all individuals who are currently serving probationary or trial periods in the DOD.” The document lists categories of exception: positions “designated mission critical,” “political appointees.” There are a few other technical exception categories. Document signed yesterday.
More On the Vets Contract Purge At the VA
As I wrote below, yesterday VA Secretary Collins was out bragging that he and DOGE had found more than $2 billion of BS professional services contracts that they were cutting right away. Then today the whole thing blew up in their faces. The contracts weren’t at all what they’d described and they either didn’t know or didn’t care that the great majority of those contracts were with what are called service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses — SDVOSBs. I’ve done some poking around and I can share a bit more about how this seems to have happened. It’s probably a microcosm of damage being wrought across the executive branch.
Here’s my understanding. DOGE is looking for contracts to cut at the VA, a repeat of what we’ve seen across numerous agencies. They come across a contract code (NAICs 541611) that is listed as “Administrative Management and General Management Consulting Services.” So they figure, okay, this is some McKinsey-type BS. We can definitely cut that.
Continue reading “More On the Vets Contract Purge At the VA”You Must Read This: Uproar Over Malicious and Disastrous Cuts at VA
Yesterday I saw a video from VA Secretary Doug Collins (former member of Congress from Georgia) bragging about how they were cutting $2 billion worth of what were clearly, in his estimation, worthless and stupid contracts. They were in fact almost one thousand different contracts tied to everything from medical and burial services to cancer prevention and doctor recruiting programs. I’ve posted that video below. This afternoon I received this email from a longtime reader …
Continue reading “You Must Read This: Uproar Over Malicious and Disastrous Cuts at VA”I’m a contractor working for a service-disabled veteran-owned small business (SDVOSB) for 15 years. I’ve worked on projects with the Veterans Benefit Administration and the Veterans Health Administration. During that time, I’ve run marketing campaigns to get veterans to enroll in healthcare, conducted program evaluations and process improvement efforts, and provided strategic communications support.
Trump Solicitor General Nom Stays Vague On Key Question Hanging Over Lawless Presidency
Unelected billionaire and ghost Cabinet member Elon Musk has for weeks been advocating for the impeachment of federal judges who defy his government ransacking crusade. Just last night, he posted on X at least six times speculating about ways to retaliate against the federal judiciary.
Continue reading “Trump Solicitor General Nom Stays Vague On Key Question Hanging Over Lawless Presidency”DOGE Gains Access to Confidential Records on Housing Discrimination, Medical Details—Even Domestic Violence
This article first appeared at ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has gained access to a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development system containing confidential personal information about hundreds of thousands of alleged victims of housing discrimination, including victims of domestic violence.
Access to the system, called the HUD Enforcement Management System, or HEMS, is typically strictly limited because it contains medical records, financial files, documents that may list Social Security numbers and other private information. DOGE sought access, and HUD granted it last week, according to information reviewed by ProPublica and two officials familiar with the matter.
This is just the latest collection of sensitive personal information that DOGE has tried to access in recent weeks. It has also sought personal taxpayer data kept by the IRS and information on Social Security benefit recipients, and it attempted to enter the Treasury Department’s payment systems. DOGE’s stated mission is to modernize government technology and cut excessive or improper spending. The administration of President Donald Trump has argued that DOGE needs “direct access” to such systems to eliminate “waste, fraud and abuse.”
DOGE’s data-gathering moves at some agencies have sparked forceful pushback, including lawsuits over alleged privacy violations and opposition from career officials who have resigned or retired following access requests. Judges have temporarily blocked DOGE from gaining access to records at the Department of Education, the Office of Personnel Management and the Treasury Department. And, faced with resistance, DOGE agreed to view only anonymized taxpayer data at the IRS.
Few records in the HUD system are redacted or anonymized, and many contain deeply personal material about those who have alleged or been accused of housing discrimination. Domestic violence case files can list addresses to which survivors have relocated for their safety. Harassment cases can include detailed descriptions of sexual assaults. Disability cases can include detailed medical records. Lending discrimination files could feature credit reports and bank statements. The names of witnesses who offered information — in some cases anonymously — about landlords accused of discrimination are among the files as well.
HUD enforces numerous civil rights laws, including the Fair Housing Act and aspects of the Violence Against Women Act and the Americans With Disabilities Act. Such statutes collectively prohibit housing discrimination on the basis of race, sex, national origin, disability and other characteristics.
HUD officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, voiced concern that DOGE’s access to HEMS could violate the privacy rights of discrimination victims and potentially put them at risk if their information is mishandled or leaked.
The episode is one of many roiling HUD, where the Trump administration is reportedly considering a 50% cut to the nearly 10,000-person workforce. The Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, which combats housing discrimination, may see its roughly 500-person staff cut by as much as 76%, according to an unconfirmed projection circulating widely among HUD employees and viewed by ProPublica.
Civil liberties advocates expressed alarm about DOGE’s access to the HUD data, saying it may violate the Privacy Act. “It’s difficult to see why a system dedicated to civil rights complaints would have any impact whatsoever on a department looking for inefficiencies in governmental spending,” said Cody Venzke, senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union.
Venzke suggested DOGE may use HEMS data as a basis for scaling back housing discrimination enforcement. “There is deep concern that DOGE is not there to identify government inefficiencies, but rather to shutter programs that the administration disagrees with,” he said.
John Davisson, director of litigation at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which is suing DOGE and other federal agencies and officials over DOGE’s access, contended that the department had gained access to HEMS and systems like it “under the false pretenses of identifying fraud and abuse, when what’s really going on is DOGE is trying to gain control over these databases to direct the activities of federal agencies.”
Spokespeople for HUD, the White House and DOGE did not respond to requests for comment (including a question to DOGE about what it plans to do with HEMS). After this article was published, Kasey Lovett, HUD’s head of public affairs, emailed ProPublica and stated, “to be clear, DOGE does not have access to HEMS.” Lovett declined to provide on-the-record evidence for her assertion.
HUD’s Fair Housing office receives tens of thousands of housing discrimination allegations or inquiries annually and investigates — or assigns to state or local agencies — around 8,000 of them each year. Those investigations can last months or years and lead to financial settlements, compliance monitoring and policy reforms by landlords, mortgage lenders, local zoning officials and homeowners associations.
Access to HEMS is usually limited to Fair Housing staffers, HUD attorneys and auditors, and state and local investigators. However, DOGE requested entry, and HUD granted read-only access last week to Michael Mirski, who has a HUD email address and whom officials at the housing agency have identified in internal discussions as being affiliated with DOGE. Mirski did not respond to a request for comment.
Doris Burke contributed research.
Why Did the Animal Spirits Get Sad?
Often there’s business news on at the gym where I go to work out each day. I’ve noticed over the last handful of days that CNBC has had a series of chyrons over their panels, all of which are some version of “why is the market so downbeat all of a sudden?” There are also some similar ones about consumer confidence, which has also been dropping. Economies are complex and no shift — including temporary ones — can be definitively ascribed to a single factor. But as I’ve watched this, I’ve been struck by how little discussion there is of one fairly straightforward explanation.
Continue reading “Why Did the Animal Spirits Get Sad?”DOGE Cites ‘DEI,’ LinkedIn Profiles It Doesn’t Like In Killing Off HUD Contracts
DOGE is moving to cancel all awards for some Housing and Urban Development contractors, citing “DEI”-related work and other factors that are separate from the substance of the contracts being cancelled.
An internal HUD email reviewed by TPM said that DOGE was moving to cancel “all awards” for eight contractors after a “DOGE review of their websites and LinkedIn profiles.”
Continue reading “DOGE Cites ‘DEI,’ LinkedIn Profiles It Doesn’t Like In Killing Off HUD Contracts”50% Cuts at Social Security Administration, According to TAP
I’ve spent the last 24 hours trying to confirm or refute pervasive rumors throughout the Social Security Administration that the agency is about to announce an across-the-board cut of 50% of staff. The decision was purportedly announced at an afternoon meeting yesterday by Acting Commissioner Leland Dudek. He asked for a plan for 50% cuts to be presented to him this afternoon. I have not been able to confirm this. But David Dayen at The American Prospect appears to have found two people who were in the meeting and do confirm it. Here’s David’s report.
It’s been hard to imagine that they were actually contemplating this, not because it’s horrible but because it’s likely to have such dramatic (and likely political costly) impacts on tens of millions of Americans. But here we are.
A Note on Our Membership Drive, Which Kicks Off Next Week
I had been planning, today or tomorrow, to write a post giving everyone a heads up that next week we kick off our annual TPM membership drive. I like to do that because when the drives coincide with major news events, or even public crises, I want to remind people that these are fixed annual events, a key part of our business model, etc. We’re not dropping one in just because it’s a period of high news interest. But my thinking about this changed a bit when I saw the news this morning that Jeff Bezos appears to be taking direct control of the paper’s opinion pages, saying they will now focus on promoting “personal liberties” and “free markets,” and will not publish contrary opinions. As I’ve noted before, the editorial page is literally where the paper itself speaks. It speaks for the ownership. Owners bringing those voices into line with their personal beliefs isn’t a crazy thing — entirely different from putting a thumb on the direction and integrity of news reporting.
I took a moment to think what “personal liberties” meant. If the line were “democracy and free markets” or “the rule of law and free markets” or even “freedom and free markets,” that reads quite different. In context, it’s pretty clear the meaning of this is a hard right/libertarian kind of politics. Bezos is the owner. He calls the shots. But if we are now moving into a world and a politics of the oligarchs vs. the people, it’s pretty clear that the Washington Post as an institution is firmly attached to Team Oligarch.
Which brings us back to our drive, kicking off next week. We’re in a new era. We’re not new. But the ways we differ from other news organization are much more consequential now than they have been at really any other point in our history. So when we kick off this year’s drive, please keep that in mind. Please consider subscribing if you don’t already. Consider suggesting it to your friends.
BIG: Federal Board Agrees With OSC Order to Halt Firings
We mentioned on Monday that the Office of Special Counsel had found that six federal civil servants from six separate agencies had been unlawfully terminated from their positions. Now the Merit Systems Protection Board has granted the request to halt those terminations. Needless to say, this all sounds very technical and bureaucratic, and it’s not at all clear just what it means. I’m kind of there too. I think the best way to put it is that there are agencies within the federal government charged with deciding what kinds of dismissals are and are not okay. The OSC is a sort of finder of fact. It decided these terminations were unlawful. Then it brings it to this board and ask them to reinstate these people. That’s what just happened.
Continue reading “BIG: Federal Board Agrees With OSC Order to Halt Firings”