Jul 2025

Nate Cavanaugh detailed from GSA to DHS

Antonio Gracias leaves role as Expert at SSA (exits govt. service)

Christopher Sweet participates in a meeting at HUD to discuss more permanent hosting options for the AI deregulation tool which had been running internally. This could be the precursor to providing it as a service to other agencies.

DOGE staff at the SEC reportedly have been holding meetings in recent weeks pressuring SEC staff to eliminate regulations around blank-check companies and confidential reporting by private investment funds that were finalized in the Biden administration.

A federal judge grants a preliminary injunction ruling that Trump violated federal laws when he appointed Peter Marocco as the head of the USADF, meaning that all of his subsequent actions to dismantle the agency should be considered null and void.

Under the direction of Marco Rubio, USAID officially ceases all operations for foreign aid. A study in the medical journal Lancet suggests that the end of USAID will lead to 14 million deaths worldwide by 2030, with 4.5 million of those being children under that age of 5.

DOGE gives a presentation of a “DOGE AI Deregulation Decision Tool” that will use AI to target roughly 50% of federal regulations for elimination, on the argument that they aren’t meeting statutory requirements. The goal is to slash these regulations by January 20, 2026. In their presentation, DOGE claims the tool has already made determinations on 1083 decisions at HUD (using Christopher Sweet’s work) and has also been used for 100% of deregulatory actions at the CFPB. It also states that DOGE lawyers James Burnham, Austin Raynor, Jacob Altik and Ashley Boizelle have vetted and endorsed the tool.

Nikhil Rajpal leaves role as Expert at OPM

An analysis by a news organization finds that wait times on calls to Social Security routinely exceed 3 hours, with the system also frequently hanging up on people after 2 hours and promising a callback that never arrives. The Social Security website misleadingly reports the average wait time as 18 minutes.

A judge grants a request for a temporary restraining order by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and orders the USAGM to immediately disburse the appropriated funds for the month of June that it had withheld.

The Environmental Protection Agency places 144 employees on administrative leave and threatens to open an investigation over them signing an open letter criticizing the agency’s actions.

Trump signs the Big Beautiful Bill into law. Among other regressive measures, it slashes the cap on the that the CFPB can pull from by 46% to a maximum of 6.5% of the Federal Reserve operating budget.

The head of HHS, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., sends a “DEI Whistle-blower Questionnaire” to all staff which is really just a thinly-veiled invitation for federal coworkers to snitch on their colleagues.

Thomas Shedd announces that after a review of 7200 websites in the federal government, GSA is recommending that 332 of those should be eliminated. These cuts are not evenly distributed (the SBA will eliminate half of its websites). This initiative dates back to 2023 OMB guidance for the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act, so this is not a DOGE-created project, but some of the websites and pages are for programs targeted by DOGE.

An unidentified DOGE team member used the official DOGE VA account on X.com to send a direct message ridiculing a Republican donor who had proposed the imaginary “DOGE Dividend Check” for turning against Musk and creating an anti-Musk SuperPAC. According to the administration, that person no longer works for the VA.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Steve Davis continues to exert control over DOGE via informal communications, despite having departed the agency after Musk left.

Funds for FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program (SSP) normally used for disaster relief are redirected to instead provide $608.4 million to ICE for the construction of an immigration detention camp in the Florida Everglades. This amount is only slightly smaller than the entire 2025 budget for the program, which has only $83.5 million in reserve for this fiscal year. Possibly, DOGE aide Kyle Schutt might have assisted in finding money by deobligating other grants.

Scott Kupor starts as Director at OPM.

Charles Ezell demoted to Senior Advisor at OPM

Ranking Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee send a letter expressing concern and urging the Secretary of the Department of the Interior to immediately revoke DOGE’s access to the FPPS system that handles payroll for large parts of the US government.

At least 2,145 senior (GS-13 to GS-15) employees at NASA are leaving the agency, due to DOGE’s anti-personnel efforts and a proposed budget that would cut the agency budget by 5000 people and 25% of its operating budget. It is unclear if NASA will be able to meet its promise to return astronauts to the moon in 2027 or later send people to Mars with such a reduction in experienced high-level personnel.

A USDA employee tells Wired that they have been told to refer to the DOGE team at the agency as the USDA Digital Service instead.

A USDA staffer (and USDA spokesperson later confirms) that the DOGE team in the agency is now referred to as the USDA Efficiency Team or “E Team.”

The Pentagon releases a memo calling for “drone dominance,” including increasing manufacturing, embedding drones within armed units and assuming more risk in developing new technologies. The memo is signed by Pete Hegseth, but it was disributed with a DOGE Controlled tag and revealed the appointment of Owen West as the chief point of contact. This is a marked departure from DOGE’s spending control and personnel reduction efforts at the agency.

As predicted by experts, the newly created process that mandates that all contracts above $100,000 must be reviewed and approved by agency head Kristi Noem delayed the ability of FEMA to proactively respond to disastrous flash flooding in central Texas. For instance, FEMA could not get approval to stage Search and Rescue teams in the area before the disaster. The agency also was unable to approve additional staff for outreach and responding to calls from affected Americans.

In a sign of DOGE’s apparent waning influence at the agency, the guard who used to be posted outside of the sixth-floor A suite is gone as well as the signs in the elevator listing that only authorized access was allowed for that floor.

HHS issues a press release announces that it is cracking down on ensuring that benefits are not being provided to undocumented immigrants, including Head Start among its list of programs that will be receiving greater scrutiny. This policy shift will also likely be used to justify increased information sharing between HHS and ICE.

Ankur Bansal and Adam Blake detailed from DOE to NRC

Jeremy Lewin promoted to Under Secretary for Foreign Assistance, Humanitarian Affairs and Religious Freedom at State

After DOGE imposed its “Defend the Spend” restrictions on reviewing grants, HHS is struggling to review and approve a billion-dollar backlog of delayed grants by the end of the fiscal year in September. This issues have been compounded by mass layoffs, also led by DOGE. Applicants may be forced to apply only within a two-week window and some parts of the agency like the Administration for Children and Families have reportedly asked departed staff to come back or are hiring contractors to resolve the mess.

In a written response to questions from the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, the nominee to head the NRC reveals there is currently one DOGE staffer (reported as Adam Blake) detailed to the agency from the Department of Energy to reform the agency following the guidance in EO 14300.

The State Department lays off more than 1300 people – many specializing in violent extremism, refugee resettlement and women’s rights – as part of a sweeping reorganization announced by Marco Rubio on April 22. The terminated staff will be placed on a 120-day administrative leave period before formally losing their jobs.

Jeremy Lewin is promoted to Under Secretary for Foreign Assistance, Humanitarian Affairs and Religious Freedom in the State Department. This is the third highest rank in the agency and he is possibly the youngest person to ever hold it.

Almost all USIP staff receive an email on Saturday telling them they are terminated effective immediately.

Although the building is still somewhat in use and staff are being paid, CFPB staff report that the agency has been mostly inoperable for six months and unable to perform its mission to protect the public.

The Social Security Administration begins to warn approximately half a million Americans who still receive their benefits by paper check that they will need to call the Treasury Department themselves and request a waiver to still receive paper checks. Those who have not had their waivers processed by the end of September may experience a delay in receiving benefits even if their waiver application is pending. This action is being taken to comply with EO 14247.

Declaring that a Supreme Court shadown docket ruling on July 8th gave them the go-ahead, HHS declares a Reduction-in-Force that was initiated on April 1st is still in effect by sending affected employees a messages stating “You are hereby notified that you are officially separated from HHS at the close of business on July 14, 2025. Thank you for your service to the American people.” The number of affected employees is in the thousands, but some of the 10,000 fired in the original RIF are still protected by another case New York v. Kennedy.

Months after the destruction of USAID and folding in some of its staff and responsibilities into the US Department of State, the Trump administration incinerates 500 million tons of emergency food biscuits worth $800,000 rather than sending it to Afghanistan and Pakistan, where it could have fed 1.5 million children for a week because it was due to expire. Marco Rubio had promised the House Appropriations Committee that he would ensure food aid is distributed before expiration, but the government eliminated all aid to Afghanistan and refused to divert the food to other emergency crises. The cost of destroying the biscuits will be $130,000 making this nearly a $1 million dollar loss incurred by DOGE (not to mention lives that will be lost).

In a setback for the Trump administration, an appeals court rules in CREW v. DOGE that the agency must comply with records requests being made by CREW and that the official DOGE administrator Amy Gleason must be made available to testify. This came after CREW modified its initial request to exclude certain communications that the Supreme Court had ruled should be exempted. Those changes were enough to satisfy the appeals court.

As an example of one of the many ways that DOGE’s simplistic cost-cutting can have downstream effects, IPOs for biotech startups have dramatically slowed this year with many companies expressing concern that the reduced capacity of a diminished FDA will significantly affect their businesses.

Reporting on DOGE’s efforts to import IRS data into immigration enforcement databases, ProPublica reports that 7.3 million addresses requested by ICE have still not yet been shared with the agency by the IRS. IRS staff do not believe that ICE has 7 million open investigations and are concerned that outdated or inaccurate information in the dataset could lead to false arrests and detentions. However, IRS is still building this system and is targeting a late July launch date.

Acting in his role as the CIO for Social Security Administration, Aram Moghaddassi authorizes a Provisional Authority to Operate (P-ATO) for the project of moving the NUMIDENT data from Social Security’s controlled environment into the special cloud soley operated by DOGE. As the CIO, he is allowed to assume the risk of bypassing mandatory security requirements, but not if it violates federal law or puts sensitive data at risk of being stolen. According to the testimony of several whistleblowers, the cloud project is reportedly being run by Edward Coristine.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Access (CMS) within HHS have reportedly signed a deal to deliver information on all 79 million enrollees in Medicaid to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This information, which includes the addresses and ethnicities of enrollees, will supercharge a surveillance machine assembled by DOGE that is being used by ICE to arrest undocumented immigrants (and others).

Despite claims by USDA leadership that they had met 99% of their hiring goals, more than 4500 (approximately 27%) firefighting jobs in the US Forest Service are unfulled, according to an internal staffing tool at the agency. This rough assessment is supported by anecdotal accounts of firefighting offices in states facing a challenging year for forest fires.

Congress passess a $9 billion recissions package that codifies DOGE cuts to foreign aid and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, despite concerns from Democrats and two Senate Republicans that its cuts are purposefully vague and undermine Congress’ role in the budget process.

The Air Force contacts media to report that it has cut $10.4 billion in costs after DOGE reviewed over 500 contracts and 50 business systems. The bulk of this savings came from cancelling the Department Air Force Strategic Transformation Support (DAFSTS) Contract for $4.8 billion in avoided costs. This however was an umbrella contract for a wide variety of IT modernization and consulting services, for which money had not been allocated, meaning that this tally might be affected by the same fuzzy double-counting and hypothetical savings that were an issue on the DOGE’s own tally of cost recovery.

In an interview with the Financial Times about his reported squeeze of government contractors, Josh Gruenbaum denies he has made unreasonable demands of many companies while going easy on Trump allies during his reviews of all government contracts overseen by the Federal Acquisition Service at GSA.

Justin Fulcher leaves role as Senior Advisor at DOD (exits govt. service)

Stephen Ehikian demoted to Deputy Administrator at GSA

Scott Kupor states that he expects to eliminate roughly 1000 positions at OPM (or about a third of its staff) by the end of the year.

The head of security for the US Institute of Peace sits for an interview discussing how he was betrayed by the security contractor for the agency and taking back custody of the building after the May 21st court ruling.

After losing its grant on May 28, Oregon’s Resource Assistance for Rural Environments (RARE) is forced to end many of its programs that served rural communities in the state.

The head of FEMA’s Urban Search and Rescue unit resigns, protesting that the new cost controls created by DOGE and Kristi Noem is causing chaos inside of the agency and will lead to deadly delays during a disaster.

Over 140 NSF employees sign a public letter condemning Trump’s destructive acts towards the agency. These include the surprise announcement that the agency HQ will be taken over by HUD, the termination of 10% of the agency workforce and DOGE’s cancellation of more than 1600 active grants.

Citing safety concerns, the head of the CFPB (Russell Vought) signs an agreement with the head of the OMB (Russell Vought) to spend $4.7 milliion of the CFPB’s budget from now through December to provide a security detail for Russell Vought. This is the same time as the agency is facing its budget being slashed in half.

Nate Cavanaugh leaves role as Acting President at USIP

Justin Aimonetti ends detailed position at DOGE

Frank Schuler leaves role as Senior Advisor at GSA (exits govt. service)

The Bureau of Labor Statistics announces that it will have to significantly curtail its data collection for the Consumer Price Index due to staffing and resource reductions. This will result in the CPI no longer including certain products or surveying several metro areas. This triggers concerns among some economists, since the CPI is one of the factors that determines how the Federal Reserve sets interest rates or how Social Security determines cost-of-living increases.

Justin Aimonetti leaves role at GSA (exits govt. service)

Three Democratic senators introduce the “Pick Up After Your DOGE Act”, which would task the GAO with auditing what systems DOGE has accessed across the government. The bill will not pass, but it could be a preview of oversight measures that could happen with a change of control in Congress.

Luke Farritor ends detailed position at DOGE

After removing Stephen Ehikian as the acting director of GSA, the White House has reportedly detailed nine other staffers to the agency to speed a “de-Muskification” of the agency. This is possibly also related to the GSA supporting Steve Davis over the White House in his attempt to keep running DOGE even after he had left. A source describes Josh Gruenbaum as still in the good graces of the White House.

Ross Graber starts as Chief Information Security Officer at NNSA.

Tai Groot starts at NDS.

Tai Groot detailed from NDS to SSA

Alexander Tullman detailed from GSA to HHS

Owen West promoted at DOD

Clayton Cromer leaves role at DOJ (exits govt. service)

Ross Graber leaves role as Chief Information Officer at DOE

Scott Langmack leaves role as Senior Advisor at HUD

Kendall Lindemann leaves role as Senior Advisor for Technology and Efficiency at DOGE (exits govt. service)

Tarak Makecha leaves role as Senior Advisor at OPM (exits govt. service)

Tarak Makecha ends detailed position as Senior Advisor at FBI (exits govt. service)

Payton Rehling leaves role as Expert at SSA (exits govt. service)

Yinon Weiss leaves role at DOD (exits govt. service)