Sep 2025

Zach Terrell promoted to Chief Technology Officer at HHS

Zach Terrell is named as the new Chief Technology Officer at HHS. He reportedly is also continuing to hold a role at NSF, supervising DOGE activities there.

Greg Hogan leaves role as Chief Information Officer at OPM

Democrats on the House Committe on Natural Resources send a letter to the Secretary of the Interior requesting information about the activities of Tyler Hassen at the agency including his financial disclosure forms, communications with the ethics office and daily calendar.

A new report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration determined that only 43 out of 7,315 probationary employees fired at the IRS had any documented performance issues. The termination letters to staff were provided by OPM with no changes allowed. Agency staff balked at language in the letter that falsely declared “performance reasons and current mission needs” were the reason for terminations, and the head of IRS’s Human Capital was placed on administrative leave for her refusal to sign the letter.

Aram Moghaddassi promoted to Chief Information Officer (Technology and Customer Products) at SSA

Mike Russo promoted to Chief Information Officer (Core Business Functions) at SSA

Stephen Ehikian leaves role as Deputy Administrator at GSA (exits govt. service)

At a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee oversight hearing, Democratic members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission shared that they fear they could be fired by Trump for enforcing nuclear safety regulations. Under questioning, the NRC chair confirmed there was a meeting where NRC was told it would be expected to “rubber-stamp” any reactor designs approved by the Department of Energy or Department of Defense. NRC Chair David Wright also testified that there were currently 7 DOGE staffers at the agency. One of them has had prior experience at a nuclear plant and another, Adam Blake, did not have an NRC supervisor.

In an interview with Axios, Scott Kupor claims that he was not involved with any of DOGE’s actions at OPM before he was appointed (indeed, he says he was locked out of the agency until he was appointed). Despite being an employee of Andreesen Horowitz, he states only March Andreesen and Ben Horowitz were in communication with Elon Musk.

Commissioner Frank Bisignano issues a press release announcing the new leadership structure for the Social Security Administration. This officially confirms the reports that DOGE members Aram Moghaddassi and Mike Russo had effectively been acting as co-CIOs, with Mr. Moghaddassi named to the title of Chief Information Officer (Technology and Customer Products) and Mr. Russo to Chief Information Officer (Core Business Functions)

Acting on his own, Chief Justice John Roberts issued an administrative stay blocking a lower court ruling that ordered the Trump administration to immediately pay out $4 billion in funds appropriated by Congress for foreign aid. This case will be taken up by the full Court, but there is the risk of the Trump administration practicing a “pocket recission” to eliminate the funding.

All employees at HHS and its subsidiary agencies receive an email informing them that ChatGPT will be rolled out to the entire agency immediately. The rollout is being managed by Clark Minor, and the email states that the deployment is secure enough that agency staff can even include procurement-sensitive data and “non-sensitive” PII into the chats, although sensitive PII, classified informatio and other confidential information should not be shared.

A report on the Secretary of Education’s visit to an AI-powered private school in Austin named the Alpha School includes a profile and picture of two students whose father is identified as Brooks Morgan. This is likely the same Brooks Morgan who has been working at the Department of Education for DOGE.

The Republican Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee sends a letter to the Social Security Administration asking about the whistleblower’s claims that NUMIDENT data was carelessly uploaded to the cloud by DOGE staffer. Coming from the Republican Mike Crapo, this possibly indicates a rare bipartisan concern about DOGE’s activities at the agency.

Samuel Berry promoted to Chief Information Officer at USDA

In an email to all staff, USDA announces that the existing Chief Information Officer for the agency will now be moved to a new role named Chief Innovation Officer and that DOGE team member Samuel Berry will be the next CIO for the agency.

Ruling in AFGE, AFL-CIO v. OPM, Judge William Alsup finds that OPM’s mass firing of probationary employees was illegal. However, he does not order that fired employees should be reinstated to their positions, since it has been months since the action and the Supreme Court would be likely to overrule. Instead, he has enjoined OPM from conducting similar actions in the future and ordered them to amend the records to note that employees were not terminated due to performance reasons (as the government falsely claimed in many dismissal letters).

Joshua Fox leaves role as Associate General Counsel at EOP (exits govt. service)

Justin Fox leaves role as Senior Advisor at GSA (exits govt. service)

The National Endowment for the Humanities awards the largest single group in the agency’s history to a single group, granting $10.4 million to a conservative Jewish educational group, despite being rejected by the agency’s board over concerns the project was too partisan and the application too vague.

SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano replies to the letter from the Senate Finance Committee about the allegations of the whistleblower. He claims that all proper procedures were followed and that DOGE did not transfer data to a private cloud within the SSA Amazon Web Services accounts.

The Department of Justice files a lawsuit against Maine and Oregon for refusing to comply with EO 14248, an executive order that demanded that states must share unredacted voter registration lists with the federal government. Multiple states have refused to comply, citing both the questionable legality of the order as well as concerns about privacy. This data will also likely be imported into a DOGE project to look for voting fraud that could exaggerate the problem and cast doubts on the integrity of US elections

EO 14351: The Gold Card

The Office of the Inspector General at the Department of Education confirms that it will be launching an investigation into DOGE’s access to sensitive systems at the agency.

A GSA-created “ICE surge team” that was formed to rapidly lease office space for ICE to operate in various cities is reportedly struggling due to the effects of DOGE cuts – despite overwhelming work, the team is only half the size it should be due to DOGE staffing cuts and is often forced to rent back space at elevated rates from landlords who were harmed by DOGE’s lease-cancellation efforts.

The Trump administration revamps the “Gold Card Visa” site that was originally launched in June. The visa now will cost $1 million and be an expedited EB-1 or EB-2 visa; the original proposal has been rebranded as the platinum card, which will be “coming soon.” The legality of this program still remains wildly unclear and demand is inflated because sign-up is through a public web form. This website is the first public work of recently-formed National Design Studio, although the previous version of the site was built by DOGE too.

GSA sends out an offer of reinstatement to hundreds of employees who managed government offices and leases and were fired by DOGE. The employees are only given until the end of the week to make their decision. This underscores recent reports that the agency is critically understaffed and unable to handle rising demand for government office space due to ICE’s expansion.

The Department of Interior is reportedly planning another round of layoffs for mid-October. This follows the loss of 7500 employees (nearly 11% of its workforce) already. The agency is reported to be using the AutoRIF software developed at OPM to run the process, and it is being run by Stephanie Holmes and Tyler Hassen, who did not leave the agency in August as previously reported.

The New York Times reports on how the DOGE-led staffing cuts and technology changes have led to poor service, low morale and increased wait times for the public. In many field offices, the average wait for an appointment is now six weeks.

Greg Barbaccia starts as Acting Chief Information Officer at USAID.

The DOJ files a lawsuit against five more states – Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, and New Hampshire – that refused to turn over full and unredacted voter registration information for the past two elections to the DOJ. This order was mandated in EO 14248, but it’s unclear that the President has any constitutional authority to demand such cooperation from the states. This data likely will be aggregated into a DOGE-created system to look in voter registration data for fraud, raising concerns that erroneous claims will be used to undermine elections.

The GSA Inspector General has included several DOGE-related projects in its list of priority audits for fiscal year 2026. These include the mass termination of leases and the destruction of 18F

The ranking Democratic member of the Senate Comittee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs releases a report “Unchecked and Unaccountable” detailing DOGE security transgressions at several agencies, including poor security for the NUMIDENT data at SSA and activities within GSA and OPM

The head of the union that represents employees at the National Weather Service reports that the agency is at a breaking point, with many employees working double shifts or seeking help from neighboring offices. Two offices – in California’s Central Valley and western Kansas – lack enough staff to operate 24 hours a day.

Stephanie Holmes ends detailed position as Special Advisor / Acting Chief Human Capital Officer at DOI

Ruling in Widakuswara v. Lake, Judge Lambeth declares that the government must pause its layoff plans at the US Agency for Global Media and lambasted the administration for showing a “concerning disrepect” for the court’s preliminary injunction

The day before the beginning of the 2025 federal government shutdown, HHS proposes eliminating 8,000 jobs at the suggestion of Russell Vought, who wants to use the shutdown to inflict pain. HHS eventually lays off 1760 positions on October 10th, but was later revised to 954 after HHS blamed a coding error for firing too many people. Initially, HHS refuses to identify the creator for the layoff proposal within HHS, but it’s eventually revealed to be Rachel Riley.

Several nonprofit organizations led by the League of Women Voters filed a lawsuit against the DOGE-led project to add Social Security data and expand the usage of the SAVE database for invalidating voter registrations. The suit alleges that this process violated the Privacy Act but also is an unconstitutional abridgement of state ownership for elections.

Aaron Jackson starts as Design Director, Founding Design Partner at NDS.

John Solly leaves role as Expert at SSA (exits govt. service)

Marshall Wood leaves role at GSA (exits govt. service)