Dec 2025

After a Danish anti-vaccine researcher applied for a grant to do a controlled study about the Hepatitis B vaccine in Guinea-Bissau, the request was routed directly from the CDC Director’s office to the Grants office for funding, bypassing the concerns of agency scientists who found the experimental design to be poorly-constructed and immoral. Instead of listing scientists as approvers for the grant, the application only listed as reviewers Chief of Staff Sam Beyda and Stuart Burns, an anti-vaccine advocate working in the CDC Director’s office.

Speaking at a Cabinet meeting, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins threatens to withhold SNAP aid from all states currently engaged in litigation against the data sharing orders from USDA.

The DOJ files a lawsuit against six more states – Delaware, Maryland, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington – for refusing to provide sweeping voting data to the administration, including full names, residential addresses, birth dates, driver’s license numbers and the last four digits of Social Security numbers.

After a November 21 federal court decision ruled against them, IMLS announces it has reinstated all federal grants to libraries. The official statement just states however “Upon further review, the Institute of Museum and Library Services has reinstated all federal grants.”

The State Department posts photos showing that Donald Trump’s name has now been put on the US Institute of Peace facade, with the post acclaiming him as “the greatest dealmaker in our nation’s history.”

The government files a motion to dismiss the case in AFGE, AFL-CIO v. OPM arguing that the PII risk cited in the complaint is now no longer an issue because many DOGE staff have left and the few remaining have had access revoked or moderated. Although the bulk of the provided exhibits are under seal, it does provide a more detailed listing of when various DOGE staff have left OPM and who is still remaining.

Sahil Lavingia shares a revision to the IRS homepage’s look and feel which makes it look more like LinkedIn or similar. Design critics note that it has 3 different Sign In buttons, which Sahil states it will save the user time depending on where their cursor is.

Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee send a letter to Scott Bessent asking for more information about DOGE’s possible use of AI to interface with and modernize COBOL code running at the IRS. They receive no reply.

The head of OPM, Scott Kupor, reports that 317,000 federal workers have left their jobs this year as a result of DOGE’s actions and Trump administration policies. He asserts that the vast majority of departures were voluntary.

Trump officially launches the trumpcard.gov website, which has been modified to now accept more formal online applications and a $15,000 processing fee. This change was presumably made by the National Design Studio, who did the last revamp of the site originally developed by DOGE. More importantly, it now has a more detailed signup form that promises payment processing of the $15,000 processing fee as well. With this change, NDS has added a second page.

EO 14365: Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence

Data from the General Accounting Office confirms that DOGE at GSA has carried out 260 lease terminations for government offices this year, saving about $112 million in leasing costs. This means that the agency finalized about 30% of the 900 or so leases it had initially targeted.

The National Design Studio launches merrychristmas.gov, a site for the America Bt Design to highlight 12 days of “GovDesign History.” In a marked departure from typical NDS style, this page features smaller text on a white background, snow that can be toggled on and off and a different URL for each day as well as a page linking to NORAD’s Santa tracker. These pages meant the site comprises 14 pages in total (the largest for any NDS site)

Citing “events subsequent to its filing,” the plaintiffs in State of New Mexico v. Elon Musk move to voluntarily dismiss the case, since DOGE has formally wound down (although DOGE staffers do remain in government) and Elon Musk has left his role

The National Design Studio and OPM launch techforce.gov, a new site recruiting technical staff for a 2-year term to work on technical projects within agencies, a model that sounds similar to 18F and USDS, which were respectively completely destroyed and hollowed out by DOGE. The site features the typical design of NDS websites – a single page of large bold fonts on a black background with accordion elements to expand information. It also features AI images of a figure with a computer monitor head.

Acting in his role as CIO for the Treasury, Sam Corcos approves spending up to $1.5 million on up to 3000 licenses for ChatGPT at the agency, with more than $500,000 already obligated.

The National Design Studio launches another single-page site trumpaccounts.gov in cooperation with the US Treasury. This is to promote a program of special investment accounts that was passed by Congress but presented as if it’s a result of Trump’s personal largesse. It conveys a softer tone than many other of their sites, but still sticks to the same convention of a single page of text, with a FAQ presented as expandable accordions and a form to sign up for a mailing list.

Austin Raynor ends detailed position at DOGE

Austin Raynor leaves role as Senior Advisor at OPM (exits govt. service)

The National Design Studio launches a new blog named “Dev Index” with an article written about the modernization work at OPM for digitizing retirements that apparently has moved over to the NDS from OPM with Joe Gebbia. The article is written by Yat Choi and Dennis Li and thanks Edward Coristine and Zach Terrell for reviewing the content.

Gavin Kliger leaves role as Senior Advisor to the Director for Information Technology at OPM

In an end of year memo, the Defense Information Systems Agency reports that disruptions due to DOGE’s direct targeting and pushing of the deferred resignation program resulted in a critical loss of staff that affected the ability of the department to conduct operations and obtain software. In one example, a senior contracting officer’s departure even led to a lapse in an important cloud-computing contract.

Jaylee Adams starts as Producer at NDS.

Gavin Kliger starts as Chief Data Officer at DOD.

Ankur Bansal leaves role as Senior Advisor at DOE

Jeremy Lichtman leaves role as Advisor on Government Efficiency at USDA (exits govt. service)

Christopher Sweet leaves role as Special Assistant at HUD (exits govt. service)