Newsletter: DOGE Evasions, Trump Attacks, and Another Potentially Erroneous CECOT Removal

Once again, the Trump administration and the Department of Government Efficiency are doing all they can to avoid any scrutiny over their reckless cuts to the federal government — this time asking the U.S. Supreme Court to help them dodge accountability.

On Wednesday, the administration asked the court to block a lower court’s limited discovery order requiring DOGE to turn over documents to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and submit to depositions. And on Friday afternoon, Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily halted that order.

Of course, that request wasn’t about upholding the law — it was about shielding DOGE’s actions from public scrutiny. That’s why we had submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court opposing the administration’s application for a stay, arguing that factual discovery is necessary to allow a court to take a close look at how DOGE actually operates so as to determine whether it is a “federal agency” under FOIA.

• As we’ve written about before, the question of whether DOGE is an “agency” isn’t a mere technicality: Claiming otherwise allows it to avoid transparency and conduct its work in secret. It also defies reality.
• Our brief includes previously undisclosed records we obtained that undermine the government’s claims about DOGE’s structure and operations.
• Despite statements by various agencies that they don’t have DOGE teams in their never-before seen FOIA responses, other documents show DOGE-linked individuals embedded in those agencies. Another agency confirmed it had a DOGE team, but identified people working across multiple agencies, contradicting the government’s claim in litigation that DOGE members work directly for the agencies — and suggesting DOGE’s reach is broader than acknowledged. 

DOGE’s actions aren’t the only abuses of power we’re working to expose. This week, we sued the IRS, Treasury, and Education Department for records related to President Trump’s unprecedented political interference at Harvard University.

This week, the administration escalated its attacks on the university, cutting another $60 million in federal grants and barring the university from enrolling international students, a key funding source. 

• This follows two prior rounds of funding freezes as well as Trump’s statements encouraging the IRS to revoke the university’s tax-exempt status. 
• On Friday, a federal judge blocked the administration from cutting off the enrollment of foreign students, after Harvard sued, claiming the action was a First Amendment violation.

Our lawsuit seeks the release of documents that could shed light on how President Trump is using the power of the federal government to punish his critics and silence anyone who doesn’t bend to political pressure. 

• This isn’t just about Harvard — it’s about all organizations serving the public good. Trump has also threatened to revoke the tax-exempt status of other universities, government accountability groups, and climate organizations, and has taken punitive actions against law firms that have legally challenged his policies or worked for his political opponents. 
• The point is to chill dissent and scare institutions into inaction. And it will succeed unless we stop it.

On the Records

Yet Another Potentially Erroneous Removal to Notorious El Salvador Prison

As the Trump administration attempts to fulfill its goal of deporting as many as one million immigrants from the United States a year, it’s ignored several key responsibilities of accountable and democratic governance. One is the constitutional right to due process. Another appears to be ensuring that monumental decisions like removing people from the country are based on correct information.

Records we obtained, reported on by USA Today, reveal that the administration may have sent the wrong man — one with no reported criminal history — to the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador. CECOT is also where Kilmar Abrego Garcia was mistakenly sent, and remains, based on an “administrative error.”

• The records include a September 2024 presentation from the Texas Department of Public Safety, which contains purported identifiers of Tren de Aragua gang affiliation as well as some slides focused on specific individuals who’d had previous interactions with law enforcement.
• The information about those individuals, many of whom would later be sent to CECOT, was pulled from the Texas Gang Database, or TxGANG, which as USA Today noted has had major issues with regard to validation.

One of the individuals in the slides was identified as Francisco Garcia Casique. But the mugshot next to his profile, which accused him of being a member of Tren de Aragua, was of a completely different man.

• The real Garcia Casique, according to his family, is a 24-year-old who was working as a barber in Texas before Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained him and later sent him to CECOT.
• Like others who were sent to the prison without due process, his family denounces the claims of alleged gang ties. And he has no criminal record, in the United States or Venezuela.
• While the incorrect entry in TxGANG was reportedly removed last month when law enforcement officials realized the error, federal officials have insisted the database entry is not what prompted Garcia Casique’s removal. Read more at USA Today.

Other Stories We’re Following

Trump Administration

• In approving soda ban for food stamps, USDA reverses decades of policy (New York Times)
• FDA may limit future Covid-19 shots to older people and those at risk of serious infection (CNN)
• FEMA senior officials exit en masse as Trump targets agency (Reuters)
• Trump Justice Dept. considers removing key check on lawmaker prosecutions (Washington Post)
• Trump’s DOJ focuses in on voter fraud, with a murky assist from DOGE (NPR)
• Trump selects $175 billion Golden Dome defense shield design, appoints leader (Reuters)

In the States

• Louisiana becomes first state to use DOGE voter maintenance database (KNOE 8 News)
• Judge deals blow to Arizona case over 2020 Republican electors (Washington Post)
• On education, DeSantis’s Florida paved the way for Trump’s America (New York Times) 

Threats to Education

• Republican plan to tax elite colleges could hit in unexpected places (New York Times)
• DOJ to use False Claims Act to crack down on diversity initiatives at colleges (CNN)
• Religious education lost at the Supreme Court. But it’s winning everywhere else. (New York Times) 

Civil Rights

• Police secretly monitored New Orleans with facial recognition cameras (Washington Post)
• The Big Takeover: The secret plans to give Trump command of America’s police (Phoenix New Times)
• Justice Department to end oversight of local police accused of abuses (New York Times)
• Verizon ends DEI policies to get FCC’s blessing for its $20 billion Frontier deal (NPR)

Government Transparency and Public Records Law

• The case of the ‘lost’ FOIA requests (Bloomberg)

Immigration

• ICE agents wait in hallways of immigration court as Trump seeks to deliver on mass arrest pledge (Associated Press)
• How Trump officials debated handling of the Abrego Garcia Case: ‘Keep him where he is’ (New York Times)
• Judge orders U.S. to maintain custody of migrants sent to South Sudan (Washington Post)
• Supreme Court allows Trump to cancel protected status for Venezuelans for now (Washington Post)
• Judge blasts ‘embarrassing retraction of charges’ in Newark mayor’s case (Washington Post)