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government accountability office
Automated Activation on ICE Body Cameras Is Common Sense
ICE rejected the recommendation to implement automated activation technology for use, making claims that are baseless and somewhat puzzling, especially since some federal law enforcement officers already use automated activation.
Oct 16, 2026
The Government Accountability Office, an independent non-partisan watchdog agency, released a report this month finding that the US Customs and Border Protection and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement have unsuccessfully implemented their body camera programs, with ICE failing to meet its own policy initiative of “accurately documenting events” to promote transparency and enhance public trust.
The GAO report noted, “ICE lacks a reasonable assurance of compliance with activation requirements in policy” and for this reason recommended that automated camera activation be used to ensure that body cameras are activated in accordance with its policy. ICE policy stipulates that agents activate their body cameras “as soon as practical at the beginning of an Enforcement Activity and deactivation when the activity is concluded.”
Automated activation technology guarantees that a body camera is automatically switched on the moment an officer draws their firearm or conducted energy device (commonly TASER) to capture as much as an enforcement activity (from start to finish) as possible.
Automated activation for body cameras is already used by federal law enforcement officers, so why not for ICE?
ICE however rejected the recommendation to implement automated activation technology for use with its body cameras citing “significant operational risks, including inadvertent or false activations during routine movement,” while suggesting that accidental activations of its body cameras could record sensitive information, violate privacy, and even contravene the First Amendment.
These claims are baseless and somewhat puzzling especially since some federal law enforcement officers already use automated activation, as do other police agencies across the country.
Consider the VA Police who are federal law enforcement officers of the US Department of Veterans Affairs. According to their policy, body cameras are automatically activated when an officer draws their firearm.
In the case of an accidental activation, VA Police policy classifies such footage under the category of “false activation” and when designated as such, denotes that the accidental footage can be stored for 30 days before deletion whereas the retention of footage categorized as “investigation” may be retained for as long as 25 years.
The VA Police use Axon body cameras, the same devices used by ICE and by many police departments in the US.
Axon body cameras have a “false activation cancellation” option as an additional feature of their body-cameras products, providing law enforcement officers with the ability to “stop accidental or undesired recordings” should they occur. The option is initiated with the simple press of a “cancel button” on the screen of the body camera.
There are obvious worries of the unauthorized deletion of recordings, but such concerns can be addressed with good policy. Consider Section 11 “Accidental Recordings” of the body camera policy of the San Jose Police Department (SJPD) as an example.
Section 11 outlines the process for the handling of body camera recordings that have no evidentiary or investigative value. In such circumstances, the “officer will submit a request for deletion via email” to their direct supervisor. The policy specifies that the request email is to be forwarded through the chain of command. The receiving commanding officer is then responsible for reviewing the accidental footage prior to approving (or denying) the request for deletion. The email chain provides a shared written record to deter any malfeasance and to ensure accountability.
As if all of this wasn’t enough to warrant automated body camera activation for use with its body cameras, ICE has maintained that it will only release footage that “is in the best interests of the agency.” Presumably then any “false activations” of ICE body cameras that capture sensitive information or violate privacy would not be released anyway.
Automated activation for body cameras is already used by federal law enforcement officers, so why not for ICE?
The logical conclusion is that ICE’s failure to adopt automated camera activation into its body camera program is merely a blatant attempt to evade any semblance of transparency and accountability.
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Trump Illegally Withheld Lifesaving Health Research Funds: Federal Watchdog
"Donald Trump is stealing taxpayers’ dollars that Congress set aside to improve Americans’ health," said a group of House Democrats.
Oct 08, 2026
An independent federal watchdog concluded on Wednesday that the Trump administration violated the law last year when it refused to spend $78 million that Congress appropriated to support lifesaving healthcare research.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) said that the US Department of Health and Human Services, headed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., violated the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 by withholding grant funds as the administration worked to gut the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Researchers and advocacy organizations say the grant freeze has derailed key patient safety research.
In response to the GAO's finding, the congressional Democrats who called for the investigation said that the report "confirms what we have known for over a year: Donald Trump is stealing taxpayers’ dollars that Congress set aside to improve Americans’ health."
"The administration’s unilateral dismantling of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s grantmaking operations is an illegal impoundment of congressionally appropriated funds," said Reps. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), Doris Matsui (D-Calif.), and Don Beyer (D-Va.). "Under Article I of the Constitution, the power of the purse rests strictly with Congress, not the executive branch. Trump’s administration cannot simply refuse to spend the resources we authorized for lifesaving healthcare research. Republicans must join Democrats in demanding that the Constitution is upheld."
HHS is currently facing a lawsuit over its unlawful withholding of grant funds. The Society of General Internal Medicine and the North American Primary Care Research Group, the groups behind the suit, said the Trump administration's assault on AHRQ has "eliminated" the agency's "ability to process research grant applications, delayed decisions on pending applications, and withheld the use of funds that Congress specifically appropriated for healthcare research."
"As a result, millions of dollars intended to support innovative studies on healthcare delivery have gone unused," the groups said after filing the lawsuit late last year. "By halting these funds, HHS has abandoned support for the healthcare research that Congress expected and that the American public needs.”
AHRQ has not issued a single new research grant over the past 18 months, according to Josh Caplan, director of advocacy at the nonprofit AcademyHealth. Most of the agency's staff has left or been pushed out by the Trump administration, which has waged a wholesale assault on the government workforce since taking power last year.
"Those reductions include the entirety of the staff overseeing [AHRQ's] extramural grant program that reviews, issues awards, and manages federal investments, as well as nearly all staff supporting the US Preventive Services Task Force, dissemination and communication efforts, and intragovernmental experts," Caplan wrote in a blog post on Wednesday.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said Wednesday that the GAO's decision confirms that "President Trump lit health research funding on fire last year, and it’s clear as day he’s just done the same again this year."
"In fact, President Trump announced to the world just a few days ago that he was illegally cutting nearly $30 million more, and HHS has failed to detail to the committee exactly how it has spent down AHRQ funding for fiscal year 2026," said Murray. "This is research that has saved tens of thousands of lives and saved billions of dollars in healthcare costs—but President Trump and Secretary Kennedy are intent on breaking the law to cut it off, and Republicans in Congress have all but let them do it."
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Complaint Demands Broadcasters Stop Airing Trump's Illegal Taxpayer-Funded Ads
"This administration's repeated and flagrant violations of the law, including the Hatch Act, are an affront to taxpayers and our democracy."
Sep 29, 2026
The watchdog group Public Citizen this week filed a pair of complaints urging regulators and broadcasters to pull President Donald Trump's unlawful taxpayer-funded campaign advertisements off the air and demanding a federal investigation into them.
In recent weeks, amid mounting speculation that Republicans could lose their congressional majorities in the November midterm election, television stations have aired short videos that the White House claims are "public service announcements" but which a range of critics contend are obvious campaign ads—and illegal, as they clearly state they are "paid for by the US government."
Public Citizen's Tuesday complaint to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and broadcasters highlights that "at least three campaign ads, paid for by taxpayer dollars, appear to violate the federal law against using taxpayer funds to finance propaganda (5 USC §3107) and related provisions of the appropriations laws as well as the Hatch Act (5 USC §7324)."
While "broadcast stations are strictly prohibited from censoring or rejecting ads sponsored by legally qualified political candidates," the complaint notes, they also "may be held liable for airing any advertisement that is in violation of federal law," which "explicitly prohibits using appropriated public funds for government propaganda, self-aggrandizement, or partisan political advertising."
The group urges the FCC and FTC "to direct broadcasters to stop broadcasting these apparently illegal campaign advertisements and call on individual broadcasters to cease airing the campaign advertisements," emphasizing the responsibility of both agencies and broadcasters "to keep the airwaves fair and honest and operate in the 'public interest, convenience, and necessity.'"
The first ad, initially posted to the White House YouTube account earlier this month, features Trump pledging to "defeat communism, socialism, and Marxism, in America," and the song "Love Me" by JMSN, who did not sign off on its use. The second one aired Friday and includes clips from the president's Fourth of July weekend speech at Mount Rushmore. A third, resembling one of Trump's 2024 campaign ads, was played during "Saturday Night Live," "Fox News Sunday," and several football games.
The administration's decision to reject widespread criticism and air yet another "piece of taxpayer-funded political propaganda during the mass-viewing moment of Sunday football is appalling and alarming," declared Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert. "These illegal ads should immediately be pulled from the air, and the White House's many apparent violations of the law should be investigated."
After the first ad, Public Citizen submitted a complaint to the US Office of Special Counsel (OSC) and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) Forensic Audits and Investigative Service. The group sent another on Monday, arguing that the new "Final Battle" ad is a "brazen" violation of federal law that "doesn't even mention a pending government action. It simply tries to stir up hysteria among voters and depicts Trump as a great hero working to save the nation from grave threats."
"Like the other previous two campaign advertisements Trump and the White House are billing to taxpayers, these ads are designed to boost the character of Donald Trump, generally void of any legitimate government purpose, target the voting public shortly before the 2026 midterm elections, and constitute violations of the law against using government resources for propaganda purposes and the Hatch Act," the group continued.
"Public Citizen is once again writing your offices requesting an investigation into who produced these ads and at what cost to taxpayers, and to take appropriate remedial actions to enforce the federal law," the organization added.
Leading Democrats in the US Senate and House of Representatives said Monday that the White House used funding allocated for US Customs and Border Protection to pay for the ads. Government ethics experts, lawmakers, and other critics have ripped the ads, with some even pointing to them as further evidence that Trump should be impeached a historic third time.
"This administration's repeated and flagrant violations of the law, including the Hatch Act, are an affront to taxpayers and our democracy," said Craig Holman, a government ethics expert with Public Citizen. "The FCC and other oversight agencies are charged with ensuring this type of abuse of taxpayer funds does not happen. But that system only works if they take action."
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Trump's ICE Wasted Millions of Dollars on Deadly Immigrant Detention Drive: Audit
"Remember when Donald Trump promised to get rid of ‘waste, fraud, and abuse’ in Washington?" said one senior Democratic senator. "Well, GAO continues to uncover incompetence and waste at the highest levels of ICE."
Sep 25, 2026
The Trump administration's deadly immigration crackdown has not only resulted in widespread abuse of detained immigrants, it has also wasted millions of dollars on facilities and services that were never used, were quickly abandoned, or were far more expensive than necessary, according to an audit published Thursday by the Government Accountability Office.
The nonpartisan congressional watchdog found that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has poured billions of dollars into six detention expansion initiatives since January 2025 without the comprehensive planning needed to determine whether the investments were necessary, affordable, or capable of meeting federal detention standards.
"ICE pursued this and the other initiatives without necessary analysis and planning," the GAO said, concluding that the agency's approach has already resulted in "millions of dollars of waste."
The report contends that "urgent planning" is "needed to avoid further waste of taxpayer dollars."
Heather MacLeod, director of Homeland Security and Justice at GAO, said Friday that "we just saw a real lack of planning overall."
"The lack of planning has really led to stops and starts which have ultimately resulted in waste," she added.
Among the most striking examples highlighted in the report is the administration's purchase of 11 warehouses for roughly $1.07 billion, with plans to convert them into detention centers. ICE subsequently decided to sell seven of the properties. More than $20 million had already been spent on costs—including security and zoning assessments—that cannot be recovered.
In May, More Perfect Union detailed how members of Trump's inner circle were cashing in on the warehouse-buying spree.
The GAO also exposed spending for almost no apparent use at Guantánamo Bay. For example, after Trump ordered officials to expand immigration detention capacity at the US military base in Cuba, the Pentagon assembled tents intended to accommodate thousands of people. However, DHS subsequently determined that the tents failed to meet ICE detention standards and they were dismantled, costing approximately $2.85 million.
Meanwhile, an average of just 16 immigrants per day were detained at Guantánamo during fiscal year 2026. Pentagon and State Department inspectors general had previously found that roughly $68 million had been committed for immigration detention there between October 2024 and May 2026, while ICE separately committed approximately $43 million through June 2026.
The report also highlights the now-shuttered Florida facility commonly known as Alligator Alcatraz. The Federal Emergency Management Agency awarded Florida a $608.4 million detention support grant, even though there was no agreement or contract authorizing the facility to detain immigrants, according to senators who requested an investigation into the matter.
The GAO's findings came after Congress approved an unprecedented $45 billion for ICE detention expansion under Trump's so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a boon for the private prison industry. Yet the agency still lacks a comprehensive strategic plan governing how many beds it needs, where they should be located, or how to account for detainees' medical and other needs.
This, as more than 50 people have died in ICE custody during Trump’s second term.
ICE has also failed to adequately consider long-term affordability, according to the new report. As of July, the agency had spent $2.5 billion purchasing warehouses and detention facilities but had only estimated operating costs for the first three years—even though some of the funding supporting the expansion expires after fiscal year 2029.
A separate GAO investigation published in June found millions in waste and serious safety and operational deficiencies at Camp East Montana at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. The nation's largest immigrant detention facility opened last year under a $1.3 billion contract.
Responding Friday to the new GAO report, a DHS spokesperson told CBS News that ICE is "working at turbo speed on cost-effective and innovative ways to deliver on the American people's mandate for mass deportations of criminal illegal aliens."
Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said on social media in response to the GAO revelations: "Remember when Donald Trump promised to get rid of ‘waste, fraud, and abuse’ in Washington? Well, GAO continues to uncover incompetence and waste at the highest levels of ICE."
"Americans are outraged at ill-conceived immigration detention projects," he added, "and it’s time to hold DHS and ICE responsible."
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'Mostly Made Up'? GAO Exposes Billions in Bullshit Elon Musk Claims About DOGE
DOGE was a "slapdash and deceptive effort" that only succeeded in "putting Americans’ sensitive data at risk and hollowing out critical agencies," said US Sen. Gary Peters.
Aug 06, 2026
A report from the Government Accountability Office released Thursday details how Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency wildly exaggerated the savings it was able to deliver for the US federal government.
The report, requested by Sens. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), finds that DOGE used a number of tricks to inflate the value of its purported savings, including taking credit for ending leases that were already in the process of being terminated and falsely claiming to have canceled contracts that were left intact.
The report also finds that DOGE "did not provide sufficient information to verify the method used to calculate 96%" of savings purportedly achieved through grant cancellations.
And in cases where DOGE actually was responsible for terminating a contract or cancelling a lease, the report notes that it "did not consistently use its stated methodology for calculating savings or disclose limitations in a sufficient manner."
Even in instances where the department followed its stated methodology, the report adds, "it did not account for many complexities and nuances of federal contracting," such as obligations or settlement costs that may have come from ending a contract.
In touting the GAO report, Peters said it exposed DOGE as a "slapdash and deceptive effort" at streamlining government spending that only succeeded in "putting Americans’ sensitive data at risk and hollowing out critical agencies."
Blumenthal accused the Trump administration of using DOGE as cover to "recklessly slash government programs, ransacking critical services and resources and proudly displaying supposed 'savings.'"
Jessica Tillipman, associate dean for government procurement law at the George Washington University Law School, highlighted a number of DOGE flubs in a social media post breaking down the GAO report, including a "favorite example" of DOGE claiming $28 million in savings related to an Air Force contract that in reality only saved around $600,000.
Eric Boehm, writer for libertarian magazine Reason, said that the GAO report revealed that the savings Musk and his minions claimed from their work was "mostly just made up."
In his assessment, Blumenthal said the report only "underscores the need for increased transparency and accountability from the Trump administration so the American public can better understand DOGE’s activities as the organization guts vital government programs."
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Trump’s Budget Cuts Will Only Make Things Worse for Struggling Rural Hospitals
The budget bill will put enormous strain on rural hospitals, which are often the largest local employer in addition to crucial care providers.
Sep 14, 2025
Bari Senecal waits outside the emergency department at Columbia Memorial Hospital in Hudson, New York. “I do construction. I fell three stories,” Senecal explains. “I was on top of the scaffold and this new kid we hired didn’t put the braces on correctly.”
Like 70 million Americans, Senecal qualifies for Medicaid, the state and federally-funded public health insurance program for low-income patients. She also qualifies for Medicare. She’s what’s known as being “dual-eligible.”
At Columbia Memorial, 63% of patient service revenue is reimbursed through a combination of the two programs. But “we run a deficit every year,” says Dorothy Urschel, CEO of Columbia Memorial Health. “For many, many years, we’ve been reimbursed at well below cost.”
The hospital has the only emergency room serving the more than 110,000 residents scattered among two predominately rural counties. “Of course, we’re struggling,” says Urschel. “But rural community hospitals always struggle.”
Columbia Memorial already closed its maternity ward in 2020—part of a distressingly common trend. A recent study from the Journal of the American Medical Association found that more than half of rural counties now have no hospital-based obstetric services whatsoever.
Like other rural hospitals across the country, Columbia Memorial is bracing for the loss of Medicaid-covered patients and funding because of the Republican reconciliation bill, dubbed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which was signed by US President Donald Trump this summer.
Over the last decade more than 100 rural hospitals have closed across the country—50 of them in just the last eight years.
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the bill will cut $911 billion in federal Medicaid spending over the next decade and result in an estimated 10.3 million people losing their Medicaid health insurance. Add in cuts to the Affordable Care Act and the number of people expected to lose their insurance rises to 16 million.
According to Larry Levitt, vice president for health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, this amounts to “the biggest rollback in federal support for health coverage ever.” And it will put enormous strain on rural hospitals especially—which in Columbia County and elsewhere are often the largest local employer in addition to crucial care providers.
The GOP staggered these cuts so that the worst effects of the budget changes won’t be felt until after the midterm elections in 2026 are safely past. But “some rural hospitals around the country have already started closing” in anticipation of the cuts, warns Michael Chameides, a member of the Columbia County Board of Supervisors.
Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.) provided a list of 338 rural hospitals in danger of either closing or drastically scaling back services. All 338 had experienced three consecutive years of negative total profit margins and were in the top 10% of institutions with patients on Medicaid.
Rural hospitals facing disaster are identified individually according to which state will see the losses. Kentucky, Louisiana, and California top the list with 35, 33, and 28 rural hospitals identified as at risk of closure, respectively. New York has 11. (Columbia Memorial isn’t officially one of them, but Garnet Medical Health Center Catskills, another Hudson Valley hospital, is.)
An estimated 1,796 hospitals remain in rural America, but those numbers obscure the level at which the services they offer may have already contracted. According to the Government Accountability Office, over the last decade more than 100 rural hospitals have closed across the country—50 of them in just the last eight years.
In New York and every other state, as federal funding runs dry it will be up to the governor and legislature to make provisions for struggling rural hospitals—or stand by and watch them collapse.
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Nonpartisan Watchdog Agency Finds Trump Admin Illegally Withheld Head Start Funds
"The Trump administration broke the law and denied communities the funding they need to create jobs, grow their economies, and support working families," said one Democratic lawmaker.
Jul 23, 2025
The Trump administration has violated at least two federal laws by withholding close to $1 billion from Head Start, the program that provides preschool education to low-income families, a nonpartisan watchdog agency found on Wednesday.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) determined that the U.S. Health and Human Services Department (HHS) illegally impounded crucial funds from Head Start between January 20 and April 15 of this year, when it distributed only 65% of the money it had provided to the early childhood education program over the same period in 2024.
Head Start lost more than $825 million over that time period, forcing some centers to close.
The GAO found that withholding the funds violated the Head Start Act and the Impoundment Control Act (ICA), which restricts the president's ability to rescind or delay funding that has already been appropriated by Congress.
"HHS has not provided the information we requested regarding factual information and its legal views concerning the potential impoundment of appropriated funds," said the GAO. "Yet publicly available evidence, including data recorded by HHS on its Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System, indicates that between January 20, 2025, and April 15, 2025, HHS withheld from disbursement funds appropriated for Head Start. Based on this evidence, we conclude that HHS violated the ICA."
The office added in its decision that "the Constitution grants the president no unilateral authority to withhold funds from obligation... If the administration wishes to make changes to the appropriation provided for Head Start, it must propose legislation for consideration by Congress."
Previously, the GAO has advised Congress that the Trump administration illegally withheld funds for an electric vehicle charging system and for the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
"Today's legal opinion from the nonpartisan GAO reaffirms a simple truth: The power of the purse belongs to Congress, not the president," said U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.), ranking member of the House Budget Committee. "By blocking these investments, the Trump administration broke the law and denied communities the funding they need to create jobs, grow their economies, and support working families."
"Instead of trying to destroy preschool programs and breaking our laws to hurt working families, President Trump needs to ensure every penny of these funds get out in a timely, consistent way moving forward."
The administration has proposed entirely eliminating Head Start, which provides education to more than 750,000 children. Earlier this month it announced that children who are undocumented immigrants will no longer be accepted into the program—prompting a lawsuit that was filed this week by 21 Democratic state attorneys general.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who serves as vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, condemned President Donald Trump for "stealing money from preschool programs."
"No president in modern history has demonstrated such contempt for working and low-income American families as Donald Trump," said Murray, noting that a Head Start program in her state's Lower Yakima Valley was among those that had to temporarily close earlier this year, impacting more than 400 children and more than 70 staffers.
"Today, a top government watchdog confirmed what we've known for months: President Trump has illegally held up vast sums of funding for Head Start programs across America—blocking funding that working families count on every day for pre-K and so many critical services Head Start offers," said Murray.
"Trump has signaled he would like to eliminate Head Start—but that's not his choice to make," she added. "Congress delivered this funding for Head Start on a bipartisan basis, and instead of trying to destroy preschool programs and breaking our laws to hurt working families, President Trump needs to ensure every penny of these funds get out in a timely, consistent way moving forward—and he must also finally get out the rest of the investments he has been robbing the American people of."
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Rebalancing Checks and Balances: How to Curb Executive Abuse
President Trump has conclusively demonstrated that the executive branch cannot be trusted to police itself in following the law. Congress must act to prevent future overreach.
Apr 25, 2025
In his second term, U.S. President Donald Trump has moved aggressively to expand the authority of the executive branch, thereby upending our traditional system of checks and balances among the three branches of government. Reforming this system while he still holds office will be impossible, but he will eventually move on, and Congress should be planning now for changes to the system of shared governance to limit outsize executive authority and prevent future autocratic abuses.
Although President Trump has pushed the envelope further than most could have imagined possible, his abuse of power is reminiscent of the Nixon administration. After the Watergate scandal and the resignation of President Richard Nixon, Congress took steps, such as the Anti-Impoundment Act, to curb presidential excesses. Following the second Trump administration, an even more fundamental restructuring may be in order.
One thrust of Trump’s second term has been a concerted effort to sideline the legal referees charged with checking abuses. Nearly a score of inspectors generals charged with addressing fraud and abuse have been summarily dismissed without cause. The Office of Government Ethics has been decapitated. The head of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel charged with enforcement of civil service laws, such as whistleblower protection, has been removed.
America did not intend to elect a dictator.
The net result is that violations of laws and ethics go unchecked because independent oversight has been neutralized. To prevent the recurrence of future lawless regimes, Congress should reinstitute some of the checks Mr. Trump has shredded but in a way that insulates them from unilateral executive reversal. Congress needs to strengthen the institutional guardrails against executive violations of ethical standards and for protection of federal employees from illegal actions and enforceable standards for scientific integrity.
One step would be a statute relocating inspectors general (IGs) within the legislative branch. IGs do not perform an inherently executive function as they lack authority to implement their recommendations. Congress should appoint fixed-term IGs and team them with the Government Accountability Office (GAO), another legislative body, to keep this strengthened watchdog function beyond executive obstruction.
In this restructuring, the independent IGs could also conduct scientific integrity reviews to resolve challenges to the accuracy of scientific and technical agency information. This would put control of scientific and technical data and analyses beyond the unilateral control of the very bureaucracies responsible for creating them and thereby prevent them from peddling disinformation. Moreover, uniform procedures would facilitate the use of expert scientists from other agencies, universities, and other institutions to serve as review panels.
Similarly, institutions charged with enforcing civil service protections, such as the Office of Special Counsel and the Office of Government Ethics, should be moved into the legislative branch, as well, to prevent them from executive nullification.
Most fundamentally, the executive should not be able to control the judges who decide on disputes the executive branch has with its employees, contractors, and others. Basic fairness requires that these referees be impartial and not under the direct control of one party in the disagreement.
These referee positions are also not inherently executive in nature. For example, under the Competition in Contracting Act of 1984, Congress designated its GAO to serve as an independent and impartial forum for the resolution of disputes concerning the awards of federal contracts. Similarly, investigations into and reviews of employment abuses and related disputes could be handled by statutorily relocated Offices of Special Counsel and Government Ethics.
Significantly, one of the more insidious recent Trump initiatives is asserting his authority to summarily remove administrative law judges (ALJs) who preside over hearings regarding administrative or legal disputes between federal agencies and affected parties. The prospect of removal at will undoubtedly pressures ALJs to alter their decisions to favor the executive agencies.
Mr. Trump is also attempting (once again) to sideline the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), the civil service court which hears legal disputes about the illegal termination or treatment of federal employees. During his first term, President Trump shuttered MSPB by refusing to appoint any persons to fill MSPB vacancies. The three-member MSPB soon lost a quorum to decided cases and entered the Biden administration with a backlog of undecided appeals of more than 3,700 cases.
In his current term, Trump is trying the same approach, seeking to remove one of the two remaining MSPB members midway in her five-year term. As a result, the MSPB has once again been shuttered and may not reopen for years,
To enforce the basic rule of law, Congress should move the cadres of administrative law judges and the MSPB to the judicial branch so that the basic fairness of these decision-makers is safeguarded and they are shielded from further executive interference.
While President Trump may claim that he is implementing the will of the public, a recent Wall Street Journal poll found broad bipartisan support for limiting Trump’s unilateral executive authority. America did not intend to elect a dictator.
Yet, the principal takeaway from events of the past few months is that President Trump has conclusively demonstrated that the executive branch cannot be trusted to police itself in following the law. To prevent future presidents from assuming the same authoritarian posture as Trump, Congress must act decisively to fundamentally rebalance our system of checks and balances.
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Keystone, 'Safest Pipeline in the World,' Ruptures—Again
President Donald Trump wants to revive Keystone XL, a highly controversial extension of the tar sands pipeline system, despite three massive leaks over the past eight years.
Apr 08, 2025
This is a developing story... Please check back for possible updates...
The Keystone pipeline—which carries hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude oil nearly 2,700 miles from the Alberta tar sands to refineries in Illinois and Oklahoma daily—was abruptly shut down Tuesday morning following a rupture in North Dakota, marking yet another accident along what proponents have called the "safest pipeline in the world."
South Bow, the Canadian company that manages the Keystone system, said it shut down the pipeline—which transports an average of around 624,000 barrels of crude oil per day—after detection systems sounded the alarm on a pressure drop. The company said the spill is confined to an agricultural field about 60 miles southwest of Fargo.
"The affected segment has been isolated, and operations and containment resources have been mobilized to site," the company said, according to The Associated Press. "Our primary focus right now is the safety of onsite personnel and mitigating risk to the environment."
As the AP reported:
It wasn't clear what caused the rupture of the underground pipeline or the amount of crude oil released into the field. An employee working at the site near Fort Ransom heard a "mechanical bang" and shut down the pipeline within about two minutes, said Bill Suess, spill investigation program manager with the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality. Oil surfaced about 300 yards (274 meters) south of the pump station in a field and emergency personnel responded, Suess said.
A proposed extension known as Keystone XL would have carried more tar sands oil—widely considered the world's dirtiest fuel—to refineries along the Gulf of Mexico. Opponents warned of the danger of leaks, with a 2021 report from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office noting that there were 22 accidents along the conduit between 2010 and 2020. These include leaks of more than 100,000 gallons per spill in 2017, 2019, and 2022.
"Keystone's incident history illustrates the problematic pipeline's systemic issues," Bill Caram, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust, said in a statement Tuesday. "The Keystone pipeline appears to be on track to hit its average of about a significant failure every year. It's time to address this pipeline's shortcomings."
Following more than a decade of pressure from climate, environmental, Indigenous, and other groups, then-President Joe Biden revoked Keystone XL's permit on his first day in office in January 2021. President Donald Trump, who campaigned on a "drill, baby, drill" platform, now wants to revive Keystone XL.
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Sanders Warns Musk's Call for $700 Billion in Cuts Is a 'Prelude' to Social Security Privatization
"Why do you lie so much about Social Security? To get people to lose faith in the system, and then you can give it over to Wall Street," said Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Mar 11, 2025
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders warned late Monday that billionaire Elon Musk's new call for up to $700 billion in cuts to mandatory federal spending is an alarming step in the direction of Social Security privatization, a longstanding—and deeply unpopular—goal of right-wing politicians and corporate-funded think tanks.
Musk, who is spearheading a large-scale assault on federal agencies and workers, told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow on Monday that "waste and fraud" in "entitlement spending"—a category that includes Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—is "the big one to eliminate," estimating that up to $700 billion could be cut from such programs.
It's not clear where Musk, who has lied repeatedly about Social Security in recent weeks, got the $700 billion figure. As Rolling Stone's Andrew Perez noted, "There is no expert on the planet who thinks there is $700 billion worth of annual fraud in America's safety net programs."
"Musk at one point in the interview cited a Government Accountability Office report which estimated that the government may lose between $233 billion and $521 billion annually to fraud, but that report covered the whole of the federal government—not just those programs," Perez wrote.
A 2024 report from the Social Security Administration's inspector general found that of the $8.6 trillion in Social Security benefits paid out between 2015 and 2022, roughly $71.8 billion was dispensed improperly—0.84% of the total.
"I think this is a prelude not only to cutting benefits, but to privatizing Social Security itself. I think that's in the back of their mind."
Musk also baselessly claimed that mandatory federal spending on programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid is a "mechanism by which the Democrats attract and retain illegal immigrants, by essentially paying them to come here and then turning them into voters." (In reality, undocumented immigrants pay taxes that help finance Social Security and Medicare but cannot receive benefits from the programs.)
Sanders (I-Vt.) couldn't hide his disgust when he was asked during a CNN appearance to respond to Musk's remarks.
"Well, he has called Social Security a Ponzi scheme. They have already laid off 2,500 employees of the Social Security Administration," said Sanders. "If you ask me, I think this is a prelude not only to cutting benefits, but to privatizing Social Security itself. I think that's in the back of their mind."
"Why do you lie so much about Social Security? Why do you make it look like it's a broken, dysfunctional system?" Sanders asked. "The reason is to get people to lose faith in the system, and then you can give it over to Wall Street. That's my view."
Musk's latest attack on Social Security, a remarkably efficient program that has never missed a payment, came as his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has effectively taken over the Social Security Administration (SSA) and is pushing for massive cuts to the agency's staff and budget based on egregious lies.
"Appearing to misread a chart, for example, Musk said on social media in February that DOGE had identified payments to 'tens of millions' of deceased Americans—an incorrect assertion repeated by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt," The Washington Post reported last week.
Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees—a union engaged in a legal fight against the Trump administration's purge of the federal workforce—wrote Monday that Musk's latest comments show that he "doesn't just want to cut the SSA workforce."
"He wants to eliminate Social Security entirely," Kelley added.
Joel Payne, chief communications officer at MoveOn Civic Action, said in a statement Tuesday that "Elon Musk and the Trump-led Republican Party are promising exactly what they have been trying to do for years: gut Social Security."
" Republicans want to illegally fire tens of thousands of workers responsible for making sure American seniors get their Social Security and then let Musk take his chainsaw to our benefits," said Payne. "We won't let them do it. Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and Republicans need to keep their hands off our Social Security."
The progressive advocacy group Social Security Works sounded a similarly defiant note.
"Elon Musk is a conman and a criminal, born with an emerald mine instead of a moral compass," the group wrote on social media. "Of course he wants to destroy Social Security, because he can't get his tiny greedy fingers on it any other way. HELL NO!"
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