https://www.bettycjung.net/FGC-2026b.htm
2026 U.S. Federal Government Changes (May - August)
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| 2025 Federal Government Changes | 2026 Federal Government Changes (January - April) | 2026 Federal Government Changes (May - August) |
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The content was originally added to my U.S. Federal Government & Other National Statistics Sites webpage, which included links to various federal government webpages with data that I thought would be useful for Public Health and other related-field professionals.
When resources started to be removed, starting January 20, 2025, I started posting these changes on LinkedIn and BlueSky, so people would know what was no longer available. And, then other changes started happening, and I decided to document these changes on the Govstats.htm page noted above.
Finally, on August 14, 2025, NBC news item How Trump is reshaping government data. The Trump administration has influenced data used by researchers, economists and scientists - an effort that drew more attention after the president fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicated that access to federal government resources would be compromised by these continual removal of data sources, I created the 2025 Federal Government Changes webpage to document changes to U.S. federal government data sources.
As 2026 begins, I have resigned myself to the fact that data changes will continue, and it is imperative that future generations should have a record of what has been happening since January 20, 2025.
So, here is the webpage for May - August 2026 changes. If you think other content should be included, please contact me: 
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Legal Action Trackers Tracking the lawsuits against the Trump administration Last updated January 16, 2026 Trump Administration Litigation Tracker Erasure in Action Save Our Signs The Decoding DOGE archive USAFACTS.org Decoding DOGE covered government data and agencies related to the Department of Government Efficiency in the early months of the second Trump administration. We're no longer making this newsletter. However, we've archived the issues below so you can still access context on major spending changes and DOGE decisions. |
Epstein Files Sources You are logged in as Jeffrey Epstein, jeevacation@gmail.com Search Epstein files using a Gmail format. The Jmail Encyclopedia the encyclopedia of people, places, and events from the Epstein scandal grounded in Jmail data.AI-generated from government-released emails and documents. A supplement to Wikipedia. |
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January 6, 2021 Insurrection January 6 Archive NPR.org The January 6th 2021 Coup Attempt A Gazpacho Labs project The January 6th 2021 Coup Attempt Justice Department Documents J6 Resources and Analysis Google Drive |
TBD |
9/4/2025 - If there wasn't a felon in the White House, taxpayer money wouldn't be wasted on contesting all the laws he is breaking and all the illegal actions he has been taking, like denying people of their rights (due process). [https://bsky.app/profile/bettycjung.bsky.social/post/3lxz3rxvrls2z]
2025 Highlights
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May Day in Seattle, May 1, 2026 Chief Justice Roberts fears that the SCOTUS is losing legitimacy. Wonder why? https://bsky.app/profile/666therealsatan666.bsky.social/post/3mkuyy42l7k2x May 2, 2026.
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When Revision is Wrong
Historical Negationism: This involves denying the veracity of facts or manipulating data to promote a false narrative, often seen in the denial of genocides. Dishonesty and Distortion: Intentionally misrepresenting the historical record to fit a particular ideology or political agenda is a misuse of history. "Whitewashing": This occurs when negative aspects of history are minimized or ignored to make the past seem more palatable or to protect certain beliefs or groups, as noted in Quora. Lack of Integrity: When sources are misrepresented, evidence is ignored, or conclusions are predetermined to serve an agenda rather than the pursuit of truth, the historical process is corrupted. The Key Distinction
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Not only is this in poor taste, it is sacrilegious. And, he calls himself a Christian? What a hypocrite. https://bsky.app/profile/bettycjung.bsky.social/post/3mkv6irdxuk2u
@FurkanGozukara 4/30/26. Absolute insanity. Donald Trump admits he judges the Chairman of the Federal Reserve not on economic policy or interest rates, but because the Fed didn't give Trump's real estate company a massive building renovation contract! The corruption is completely out in the open.
Conspiracy theories have been central to Donald Trump's political rise. He was a leading promoter of the "birther" conspiracy theory targeting then-President Barack Obama, embraced outlandish theories about a "deep state" in the government and still pushes false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
But conspiracy theories, and the people who support them, are unpredictable and hard to control. Now, Trump is increasingly the subject of conspiracy theories on both the left and the right, with many of his onetime supporters viewing him with growing skepticism.
The U.S. is withdrawing approximately 5,000 troops from Germany, Pentagon officials said, after President Donald Trump was angered by criticism from the German chancellor over the war with Iran. Speaking to students in Germany this week, Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the U.S. has "no strategy" and was being humiliated by Iran's leadership.
A federal appeals court granted the state of Louisiana's request to reinstate a nationwide requirement that abortion pills be dispensed in person. The ruling limits access by blocking people's ability to obtain mifepristone - one of the two pills used in medication abortions - through telehealth and by mail. Telehealth prescriptions have been key to maintaining abortion access in states that outlawed or restricted the practice after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
The numbers: A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll found that 61% of Americans believe it was a mistake to use military force against Iran.
Comparison: It wasn't until three years into the Iraq War that Americans reached a similar level of disapproval (59%).
And: Gallup found that 61% of Americans disapproved of the Vietnam War in 1971, after more than 50,000 U.S. troops died over years of fighting.
What to know: Today marks 60 days since the start of U.S. strikes against Iran. The president is required to seek congressional authorization for any military conflict past 60 days.
But: President Donald Trump told Congress today that the conflict "terminated" with the April 7 ceasefire, which he told reporters he believes gives "additional time" before he must seek congressional authorization.
Exclusive: Construction crews expanding Trump's signature southern border wall ran machinery through a 1,000-year-old, 200-foot-long ground etching that looks like a fish.
More: The etching, known as an intaglio, is a significant cultural heritage site for Native Americans and lies inside the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge.
Exclusive: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services inadvertently included some health care providers' Social Security numbers in a public database.
More: A CMS spokesperson said that the problem was a result of some providers entering information "in the wrong places" and that steps were taken to "address it promptly."
Misinformation from top health officials in the Trump administration has created a "crisis of public trust" - and Congress should conduct oversight hearings and possibly impeach officials such as Robert F Kennedy Jr, the secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), according to a recently released report.
Experts say that officials in the past year have focused intently on both vaccines and autism, including efforts to connect autism to the use of acetaminophen (frequently sold as Tylenol) during pregnancy, despite growing evidence of no link, and replacing all members of the federal autism committee with advisers who have anti-vaccine and pseudoscientific histories.
Autism, HHS, and Public Health: Unpacking Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Year in Misinformation Autistic Self-Efficacy Network
The report includes a timeline of all HHS actions taken in the first year of the second Trump administration. Such changes have been "harmful to its mission" and "detrimental to the autistic community", such as widespread layoffs, reductions in force and terminations, cutting autism research by about $31m, and removing warnings about dangerous and unproven autism treatments from the website of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), said Zoe Gross, director of advocacy at ASAN.
Kennedy said in recent budget hearings that home health aides might be defrauding the government, because some caregivers were "getting paid to do things that they used to do as family members for free", Kennedy said. The assertion prompted "constant outrage" among disabled people and their loved ones, because paid family caregivers frequently can't work other jobs or support their family members without this assistance, Rosa said.
Last April, according to the report’s timeline, the administration made several high-profile moves, including issuing reduction-in-force notices and closing the office managing freedom of information requests, which diminished the capacity and transparency of health agencies.
Officials touted leucovorin, a B vitamin, as an autism treatment, and said that Tylenol use during pregnancy led to autism in a September announcement. Yet the FDA recently approved leucovorin only for a rare folate deficiency, not autism, and a growing body of research points to no link between autism and acetaminophen.
"We'd really like to see Congress hold RFK Jr and HHS broadly to account for everything they’ve done over this past year that has been so harmful to the autistic community and to public health generally, with oversight hearings," Gross said. "If, for example, RFK Jr is found in those hearings to have been derelict in his duty as secretary, then Congress should impeach him."
"Well, I wouldn't have to. I didn't say that," Trump responded. "I said that if we left right now, it would take them 20 years to rebuild. But we're not leaving right now. We’re gonna do it so nobody has to go back in two years or five years."
In reality, Trump did say - on camera - what the reporter told him he said. His denial was yet another case in which the president wrongly asserted he hadn’t said something he had said in a public forum.
It's one thing for the president to try to deny having made a remark someone claimed he made in a private meeting. For years, Trump has attempted something more brazen: denying he ever made remarks the public saw him make.
In December 2025, for example, when an ABC News reporter asked Trump on camera whether he would release the video of the US military's controversial follow-up strike on an alleged drug-trafficking boat in the Caribbean, Trump said, "I don't know what they have, but whatever they have we'd certainly release, no problem." But when another ABC News reporter reminded him five days later that he said he would have no problem releasing the video, Trump falsely claimed, "I didn’t say that. That's - you said that, I didn't say that. This is ABC fake news."
During his 2024 campaign, Trump falsely denied he had said “lock her up” about his 2016 election opponent, Hillary Clinton, though he had done so on multiple occasions at televised rallies attended by thousands of people. During the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, he denied having made two remarks he had made on camera the previous week.
Trump has also tried to inaccurately portray the nature of some of his previous public remarks. In an interview with Time magazine in April 2025, he wrongly claimed he had "obviously" been speaking "in jest" and exaggerating when he promised during his 2024 campaign to immediately end the war in Ukraine if he was elected again - though he publicly made the promise on more than 50 occasions in an entirely serious manner.
The numbers: A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll conducted April 24-28 found that 62% of Americans disapprove of Trump's job as president.
More: Trump's handling of the cost of living (76%), inflation (72%) and the war with Iran (66%) received the highest levels of disapproval.
Officials at the Food and Drug Administration have blocked publication of several studies supporting the safety of widely used vaccines against Covid-19 and shingles in recent months, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed. The studies, which cost millions of dollars in public funds, were conducted by scientists at the agency, who worked with data firms to analyze millions of patient records. They found serious side effects to be very rare.
In October, the scientists were directed to withdraw two Covid-19 vaccine studies that had been accepted for publication in medical journals. In February, top F.D.A. officials did not sign off on submitting abstracts about studies of Shingrix, a shingles vaccine, to a major drug safety conference. The withdrawal of the studies is the latest step by the administration to try to limit access to vaccines. It has sharply cut research funding for vaccine development, released unvetted information casting doubt on vaccines, and blocked other information supporting their safety, most recently a paper on Covid vaccine effectiveness by career scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In February, top F.D.A. officials did not sign off on submitting abstracts about studies of Shingrix, a shingles vaccine, to a major drug safety conference. Last June, Kennedy's office asked career C.D.C. staff members to delete from the agency's website a 17-page summary supporting the safety of thimerosal, an additive largely removed from vaccines 25 years ago. Career scientists were later called into Health and Human Services legal offices and grilled about how the summary had been posted in the first place, they previously told The New York Times.
In posts on a website and on social media in August, Mr. Kennedy called for a prominent journal to "immediately retract" a large Danish study concluding that the vaccine additive aluminum salts was safe. Dr. Christine Laine, the editor in chief of the journal, Annals of Internal Medicine, said Mr. Kennedy did not directly contact the journal seeking a retraction. The study was not retracted.
In recent weeks, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who was serving as interim leader of the C.D.C., canceled the publication of a report concluding that the Covid vaccine sharply cut the odds of hospitalizations and emergency room visits last winter, saying the study had limitations.
Dr. Aaron S. Kesselheim, a Harvard University medical professor who studies F.D.A. regulation, said he had worked with the agency on a number of research papers and found its work to meet "the highest standards of scientific investigation." He suggested that the request to pull the papers was an act of "censorship." He added: "At any other time in history, this would be a major scandal that would lead to congressional hearings and resignations of leadership, and I hope that's what happens next."
The withdrawn F.D.A. studies examined the safety of the Covid vaccines used in 2023 and 2024. The agency's scientists worked with outside data firms that compile and analyze massive data sets under contracts that cost taxpayers millions of dollars each year. Both studies saw some light of day before they were pulled from publication. One, which examined the Covid vaccine in people older than 65, was posted on a preprint server, which is a repository for studies that have not yet undergone peer review. The study reviewed the records of about 7.5 million Medicare beneficiaries who got the vaccine. The researchers focused on the period of about 21 days after they got the vaccine and compared it to the next 20 days. They were looking to see if there were more health problems in the period right after vaccination.
The study looked at 14 health outcomes potentially caused by the vaccine, including heart attacks, strokes and Guillain-Barré syndrome, an autoimmune condition sometimes associated with vaccines. They only found a concern with one outcome, anaphylaxis, a severe allergic reaction affecting about 1 in a million people, from the Pfizer vaccine. "No other statistically significant elevations in risk were observed," the study said.
The study was withdrawn after it had been accepted by the peer reviewed journal Drug Safety, according to people familiar with the work. Michael Stacey, a spokesman for the journal, said it deems submissions to be confidential and would not comment on them. The Times obtained a copy of the Covid vaccine safety study of people who were 6 months to 64 years old. An abstract of the study appeared at one conference and remains online. Its withdrawal was first reported by STAT News. That study examined the records of 4.2 million Covid vaccine recipients and examined their later experience with 17 conditions, including swelling of the brain, major blood clots, stroke and heart attacks. The study found rare cases of fever-related seizures and myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscle, known to be associated with Covid vaccines. "Given the available evidence, F.D.A. continues to conclude the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks," the study said.
Angela Rasmussen, an editor in chief of the journal Vaccine, said the paper had been withdrawn by the authors. Dr. Caleb Alexander, a drug safety and methodology expert at Johns Hopkins University, reviewed both studies at the request of The Times and said that "no study answers every question" but "there is nothing inherently problematic regarding these reports." "It's too bad that these haven't seen the full light of day," Dr. Alexander said in an email. "They provide useful information regarding the most commonly used COVID-19 vaccines."
Jeffrey Morris, director of the University of Pennsylvania biostatistics division, who also reviewed the study drafts at the request of The Times, said the studies were generally well done. "I think if there's any critique," he said, "it's that they don't do enough of these studies with the resources they have."
Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, a former high-ranking National Institutes of Health official and chief executive of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, said that F.D.A. leaders withdrawing papers from publication is a "pretty active act of sabotage." "This black box of decision making around data suppression should be having people very alarmed and very worried," said Dr. Marrazzo. She filed a whistle-blower complaint against the N.I.H., was fired by Mr. Kennedy and has since sued the agency, claiming that she was ousted for objecting to its policies.
By contrast, Mr. Kennedy's team has had lower standards for releasing information critical of vaccines. A memo by Dr. Prasad, the former head of the F.D.A.'s vaccine division, drew widespread news coverage by claiming that the Covid vaccine had been linked to the deaths of 10 children, a conclusion the agency has not backed up or explained. In February, agency officials did not sign off in time for staff to submit abstracts on two studies of the Shingrix vaccine to a drug safety conference, according to two people familiar with the decision. A senior administration official said the studies were not moving forward at the agency.
One study found the efficacy to be in line with findings from the clinical trials done before agency approval. A safety study also aligned with what was known, finding an elevated but low risk for Guillain-Barré syndrome, an autoimmune disease already noted in the vaccine’s label.
Dr. Helen Chu, an infectious disease doctor who was among 17 scientists fired from an influential vaccine advisory body at the C.D.C. last summer, said large studies by health agencies are closely watched by doctors and professional societies. They are important, she said, because they can examine the effect of a vaccine on millions of people, far more than the thousands that were tracked in clinical trials. "You really do need these studies for us to truly be safe and to make sure that vaccines continue to be safe," she said. "These types of studies have to be done and the results have to be published."
What happened: The union yesterday accused Kennedy Center officials of violating its contract by laying off employees without first negotiating with the union.
And: The suit also claims the Kennedy Center is using a planned closure for renovations "as cover to permanently eliminate union jobs."
Background: Trump has taken particular interest in the Kennedy Center this term, overhauling its leadership and announcing a two-year closure for renovations amid falling ticket sales.
Donald Trump has issued another verbal attack against Pope Leo, accusing the pontiff of "endangering a lot of Catholics" because "he thinks it's fine for Iran to have a nuclear weapon". The remarks come two days before Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, meets Leo at the Vatican in an effort to ease the tensions sparked by Trump's previous broadside against the Chicago-born pontiff over his condemnation of the US-Israeli war on Iran.
Speaking to Hugh Hewitt, a prominent conservative radio talkshow host on the US-based Salem News network, Trump said the pope "would rather talk about the fact that it's OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, and I don’t think that's very good".
"I think he's endangering a lot of Catholics and a lot of people," the president added. "But I guess if it's up to the pope, he thinks it's just fine for Iran to have a nuclear weapon."
Leo has never said that Iran should have nuclear weapons, but has repeatedly opposed the war on the country and the subsequent escalation of the conflict in Lebanon and the wider Middle East, calling for ceasefires and dialogue.
The numbers: A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll found 87% of Americans have a negative view of President Donald Trump's social media post appearing to depict himself as Jesus.
And: 69% also have a negative view of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth praying for "overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy."
Exclusive: Iran has damaged or destroyed at least 228 U.S. military structures or pieces of equipment in the Middle East since Feb. 28, a Washington Post analysis of satellite imagery found.
Why it matters: The extent of Iran's damage to U.S. military assets since the start of the U.S.-Israeli war is far larger than the Pentagon has acknowledged.
New: The FEMA Review Council voted today to approve a report recommending the Federal Emergency Management Agency staff be cut by 50%, among other changes.
Background: Trump created the panel last year and tasked it with modernizing and streamlining the agency, which oversees federal emergency response and recovery.
Then-FDA Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) Director Vinay Prasad forced FDA scientists to withdraw a paper that was undergoing peer review at Vaccine. This was among a number of unethical and deeply problematic actions being taken by Prasad and the FDA's triumvirate of malicious muppet podcasters power-tripping on literally having every Americans' access to lifesaving medication in their hands.
As Lawrence eventually reported, the paper concluded that the benefits of COVID-19 vaccination outweighed the risks for all people 6 months to 64 years old. Prasad blocked this manuscript because it showed that COVID vaccines are safe and everybody benefits from taking one.
Let me repeat that. The nation's top vaccine regulator forced FDA scientists to withdraw a study from peer review because it shows that COVID vaccines still work for everyone. I should add that this study was a routine study conducted as part of FDA's regulatory mandate to monitor vaccines as they are used in the real world. How well do they work? Did any major safety signals appear? Has anything changed with this update of the COVID boosters?
The FDA leads or contributes to many studies like this, in order to assess effectiveness in different populations with different risks. As an American taxpayer, I'm glad that my tax dollars go toward our national drug regulator staying on top of something as important as medicine to make sure it actually works and won't hurt us.
Christina Jewett/New York Times identified a similar study that was also pulled from the journal Drug Safety after it had been reviewed and accepted by the journal, under very similar circumstances to the study at Vaccine: at the direction of Vinay Prasad and his partners in unethical bad faith anti-vax regulatory shenanigans, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary and Acting Center for Drug Evaluation and Research Tracy Beth Høeg.
There were also two studies on Shingrix, the shingles vaccine, that were blocked from submission to a drug safety conference. It is becoming increasingly clear that FDA officials are actively interfering with established scientific processes to manipulate the evidence base. They are doing this to justify unsupported ideological policies at the expense of Americans’ health and well-being.
But this wasn't normal. There has never been a situation in our journal's history where the editors became aware that government scientists were forced by the nation's top vaccine regulatory official to withdraw a paper showing that COVID vaccines continue to work as they always have for the express purpose of stripping access to COVID vaccines for millions of Americans because of political demand.
Throughout the world, scientific, academic, and professional institutions have failed to meet the moment because they are unwilling to show moral leadership. They do not have the courage to say when something is wrong.
I think that FDA officials, who are supposed to be dedicated to serving the interests of the American people, should not commit scientific misconduct to justify ideologically-driven vaccine policies that will demonstrably harm or kill Americans. FDA officials should make regulatory decisions about drugs and vaccines based on what the evidence shows is most beneficial for the public, not for the FDA officials' political masters. This is naked, shameless corruption of processes put in place to protect people. I think this is morally wrong.
I think that if Vaccine is to be taken seriously as a leading specialty journal about vaccination, then we should make it clear that we will not quietly tolerate our journal being used by the FDA to contribute to morally and scientifically unacceptable vaccination policy. We cannot be complicit with corrupt regulatory officials attempting to prevent people from accessing vaccines for political reasons, because it is fundamentally wrong to do so. Telling Americans the truth about the science our most powerful vaccine regulator tried to suppress is the right thing to do.
Donald Trump has signed off on a plan to fire Marty Makary, the commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, after a series of high-profile agency decisions put the FDA head in the crosshairs of the White House and Republican lawmakers.
Makary's tenure at the FDA has been marked by several controversial decisions on drugs and vaccines amid plummeting staff morale over layoffs and the appointments of divisive officials. Recent political clashes include abortion, drugs and vaping, but decisions to pull back publications on the safety of shingles and Covid vaccines, among other immunization decisions, have also rocked public health. There have also been concerns about the transition from two clinical trials to one, the commissioner's new priority review vouchers and "data-free" regulatory decisions.
Trump "upbraided" Makary and made a series of calls over the weekend to pressure him into approving fruit-flavored vapes for the first time after Makary overrode agency scientists to halt the approval, according to the Wall Street Journal. The new flavours, reportedly part of Trump's plan to appeal to younger voters, were approved on Tuesday. The news release does not include any comments from Makary, which is unusual, and attributes moves like these to "President Trump's leadership".
Vaping is a divisive issue in public health, since it can be used as a smoking cessation aid but it also carries its own health risks. But the greater risk is political interference - or even the appearance of it = in regulatory decisions, experts say.
"Public trust is built up not over months, but over decades. On the other hand, you can destroy it in mere months," Peter Lurie said. "In a very short period of time, they have managed to undermine years of trust that the agency has built up with the public and industry because of their unpredictable practices and the general chaos."
There has been sharp backlash from the public to new restrictions on vaccines and how they are brought to market – and leaders are aware of the unpopular decisions, Lurie said. "Vaccines have really gotten their attention. They do understand that they've gone too far for the American people on vaccines."
"I think we're going to start seeing a big pattern of this," Rasmussen said of top-level interference with research publication. "It just seems like this is the tip of the iceberg, and the FDA is just a complete mess." The FDA may serve as a testing ground for leaders to override experts and staff since most people don’t pay attention to the inner workings of the FDA, Rasmussen said.
"They see what they can get away with administratively, and see what people notice," she said. While the FDA is "incredibly boring" to many members of the public, it's also "really powerful from a regulatory perspective", Rasmussen said. "So you could do something totally boring that nobody pays attention to and, boom, millions of people don’t have access to a drug or vaccine that they need."
The numbers: A NewsGuard survey found 24% of American adults believe the shooting at the White House correspondents' dinner last month was staged.
And: 24% believe the 2024 attempted assassination of Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, was staged and 16% think the gunman found at a Trump golf course was fake.
Today: The Cultural Landscape Foundation sued to stop the Trump administration from making changes to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
The changes: The Trump administration is working to resurface the pool to make its bottom "American Flag Blue."
And late Monday night, he unleashed a wild social media flurry that stood out even by his often-outlandish standards: posting and reposting more than 50 times in less than an hour. Those included long-debunked theories about Dominion voting machines deleting millions of votes in the 2020 election, posts about the decade-old Hillary Clinton email server controversy, a made-up claim about a GOP senator from a hoax website, unflattering AI images of prominent Democrats, three derogatory videos about Black people (including one captioned "Always scheming...") and two separate posts advocating for the arrest of former President Barack Obama.
It's the kind of behavior that undeniably prompts concern. But Trump, who turns 80 in June, has so far avoided a true reckoning about it. And that’s in large part because he’s spent more than a decade doing bizarre things in public, long before he was considered elderly.But there is increasing evidence that Americans are growing more concerned about his conduct.
The displays this week are hardly the only recent examples of Trump's odd behavior. Last month, Trump repeatedly claimed Iran had agreed to all of his demands, which to this day appears completely baseless. His rhetoric about the war has been consistently, remarkably detached from reality. At one point, he claimed his own vice president had departed on an airplane to Pakistan to negotiate an end to the war. Except JD Vance was still on terra firma (and ultimately didn't go).
Some former Trump allies even floated invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office after he threatened to destroy a "whole civilization" and commit apparent war crimes in Iran. And earlier this month, Trump had a series of public appearances where his speeches were meandering and often puzzling, including a particularly disjointed May 1 appearance in The Villages in Florida, where he cursed several times and yelled about a malfunctioning microphone.
Trump's incessant lies and other falsehoods - like on the Iran war - have also frequently been met with shrugs as he repeats them. After notching more than 30,000 false and misleading claims in his first term, Trump botching the facts isn't even news anymore.
But people can only suspend their disbelief for so long. When the flubs become more obvious and frequent, observers often start to wonder what's going on and whether age is playing a role. Plus, voters may have a harder time overlooking Trump's gaffes as he becomes less popular - as recent poll numbers show is happening. Indeed, in addition to his high disapproval ratings, the data is clear that Americans increasingly see Trump as, well, a bit off.
A recent poll from Reuters and Ipsos showed 61% of Americans and even 30% of Republicans said Trump had become "more erratic with age." Another showed Americans said 71%-26% that Trump is not "even-tempered" - wider than the 62%-37% split that the Pew Research Center showed after the 2024 election.
A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll last month showed 59% of Americans said Trump didn't have the mental sharpness required to serve as president - the highest such number to date and a full 16 points higher than in 2023. And the same poll showed 67% of Americans said Trump doesn't carefully consider important decisions. Even 30% of Republicans agreed with that statement.
Just think about what that's saying: A majority of people believe the leader of the country, who is entrusted with making life-and-death decisions, doesn't do so with care. That's a remarkably dim view of Trump as president. And it's one that not coincidentally has set in as Trump's popularity has hit an all-time low. It's not that people never noticed these things - they're just getting more difficult to ignore.
The Supreme Court ruled this evening that a widely used abortion medication could continue to be prescribed by telemedicine and sent to patients across the country by mail. The two most conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, dissented.
The court's order halted a lower-court ruling that would have made it much more difficult for women in states with abortion bans to access the medication, called mifepristone. That decision will now remain blocked, perhaps for months, while litigation continues in the lower courts.
With Dr. Makary's departure, the F.D.A. is leaderless. It's not alone: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hasn't had a permanent director in months (and the most recent one lasted only four weeks). There is no surgeon general. Over the past year and a half, many parts of the U.S. public health system have been dismantled. Staff members have been fired, seemingly haphazardly; funding for core data systems, logistics and community partnerships has been cut; research funding is moving at a glacial pace; and longstanding guidelines have changed on a dime.
But overall, we've witnessed the erosion of the agency's prestige and capacity - inconsistent standards, showy headlines at the expense of serious priorities, and immense confusion about what scientific evidence does and does not say. Under Dr. Makary's leadership, the agency refused to review a new flu vaccine (and then reversed course), introduced a program meant to speed up the approval process for rare-disease medications and then ran it in a way that opened it up to political interference and shared unsubstantiated hunches (such as linking Tylenol to autism). Along the way, the United States lost countless high-quality staff members of impeccable integrity whose work kept us all safe from diseases and from unsafe food and medicines.
The decisions at the top determine whether people get safe and effective treatments faster than they do today; whether the food, drugs and devices in our homes are demonstrably safer; and, most of all, whether we can trust what we're being told.
President Trump has for weeks downplayed the economic toll of his war with Iran, citing a bevy of inaccurate statistics. His remarks to reporters in recent days underscored his approach, as he asserted that the economic hardship Americans might face was not a factor in his negotiations to end the conflict. "I don't think about Americans' financial situation," he said. "I don't think about anybody. I think about one thing: We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That's all." Kush Desai, a White House spokesman, said the president had always been clearabout the war's temporary disruptions to the economy as inflation rises. "The administration remains laser-focused on cutting costs and accelerating growth on the home front," Mr. Desai said. "As these policies continue taking effect,and as traffic in the Strait of Hormuz normalizes after the Iranian nuclear threat is neutralized, both energy prices and inflation will drop again."
Here's a fact check. Trump Cites Inaccurate Data to Downplay Economic Toll of Iran War. False. Mr. Trump is exaggerating the rate of inflation under the Biden administration and understating the rate of inflation under his own administration. Inflation did reach the highest point in four decades - not in the "history of the country" - in the summer of 2022, at about 9 percent that June. But inflation reached higher points in the 1910s, 1970s and 1980s. Inflation had fallen to 3 percentin January 2025, when Mr. Trump took office.
In the three months before the United States attacked Iran on Feb. 28, inflation reached 2.7 percent in December, 2.4 percent in January and 2.4 percent inFebruary - not 1.7 percent, as Mr. Trump said. After the war began, inflation increased to 3.3 percent in March and again to 3.8 percent in April. Those figures are all higher than inflation at the end of the Biden administration.
This is misleading. Mr. Trump shared a chart that showed the price of oil at $120 a barrel under Mr. Biden and $90 under Mr. Trump, comparing the highest point of gas prices under the Biden administration with a recent low under his administration. The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, rose to $120 per barrel in June 2022, but had fallen to about $80 a barrel by January 2025, when Mr. Trump took office. The price continued to fall in Mr. Trump's first year back in office, before surging at the onset of the war in Iran.
False. Government and independent data sources show that the opposite is true.Gas prices have continued to climb. Gas prices rose to $4.56 a gallon on May 7, according to the AAA motor club, from $4.54 a day earlier. That was about 53 percent higher since the start of the war on Feb. 28, when the national average price of gas was $2.98. Gas prices averaged $4.45 per gallon in the week ending on May 4, according to the Energy Information Administration, a government statistical agency. That was about 52 percent than the $2.94 in the week ending on Feb. 23.
This is exaggerated. Mr. Trump has a point that a tiny amount of oil imported to the United States travels through the Strait of Hormuz. But he is wrong that the United States does not use the waterway at all. The Energy Information Administration estimated that in 2024, the year with the latest available data, the United States imported about 500,000 barrels of crude oil per day through the Strait of Hormuz, equal to about 7 percent of total crude oil and condensate imports and 2 percent of consumption.
The United States also relies on the strait to import and export other goods. The United States imports about 12 to 17 percent of several commonly usedmaterials for fertilizer (monoammonium phosphate, diammonium phosphate andurea). About 22 percent of aluminum imports and about 25 percent of helium imports also travel through the Strait of Hormuz. The Persian Gulf accounts for nearly 20 percent of all American exports of sauces and condiments, 20 percent of waterborne passenger cars and 15 percent of trucks, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Summary: Pro-vaccine groups successfully lobbied Republican lawmakers to block anti-vaccine bills; Both sides expect more anti-vaccine bills in future legislative sessions; White House directed Kennedy to pause anti-vaccine actions before midterms.
The failures show a limit to the political power of the MAHA coalition groups that had set out this year to pass laws against mandatory vaccinations in at least 10 states, hoping to capitalize on a rise in anti-vaccine sentiment and their role in helping elect President Donald Trump.
Pro-vaccine groups and medical associations including American Families for Vaccines, the American Academy of Pediatrics and others lobbied in statehouses against bills seeking to end policies like school vaccine mandates, according to Reuters interviews with seven organizations. Vaccine advocates used polling data and personal appeals to convince lawmakers in Republican-controlled states such as West Virginia, Louisiana and Florida that their constituents support vaccination and that the MAHA-backed bills posed a threat to public health.
"Even though this is an increasingly partisan space, Republicans across the board are not anti-vaccine and there are lawmakers that really just want sensible, transparent vaccine policy," said Dr. Erin Abramsohn, executive director of the Infectious Disease Prevention Network, which fought anti-vaccine bills in 10 states this year. A February Reuters/Ipsos poll found that a bipartisan majority of Americans support school vaccination requirements and think vaccines are safe for children.
Kennedy, a long-time anti-vaccine activist, has used his post to advance several actions against mandatory inoculations including removing some shots from the childhood immunization schedule. While anti-vaccine bills have been proposed before, more emerged this year due to the coordinated efforts of MAHA groups, the groups told Reuters.To convince Republican lawmakers to oppose the bills, the pro-vaccine groups pointed to polling that showed constituents value vaccine mandates as a public health tool and said the elected officials could face political consequences if they supported anti-vaccine legislation."There's a lot of people running for office, so this could potentially hurt them... in future elections if they were to vote against public health," said Elizabeth Faber, director of programs at the Iowa Public Health Association.
Iranian money has kept moving through those two digital ledgers during the U.S. and Israeli war against the Islamic Republic. Sun and Binance, the crypto exchange owned by Zhao, are both prominent backers of World Liberty Financial, the crypto firm co-founded by Trump and his family.
Still, the Iran transactions highlight the potentially conflicted position in which the Trumps' sprawling business interests have placed the U.S. presidency. The family-owned Trump Organization real-estate empire, for example, continues to pursue foreign deals. The use of the blockchains by institutions in a country the United States is at war with is a "dramatic irony," said John Reed Stark, a former chief of the Securities and Exchange Commission's Office of Internet Enforcement. "The entities doing crypto financing through these platforms are the very ones that the president is trying to defeat in the war."
The administration denies that Trump's businesses pose any conflict of interest. About three-quarters of the Iranian funds that passed through Binance were in Tron's cryptocurrency. Nobitex encouraged clients to use Tron's crypto to trade anonymously without "endangering assets due to sanctions," Reuters reported.The Iranian company has publicly said it switches addresses to make tracing and intercepting transfers harder.In statements to Reuters, Nobitex denied having direct Iranian government connections or assisting the state, and said that any illicit funds moving through the exchange did so without management approval or awareness.
It is unclear whether Tron and BNB Chain were aware their networks were used by the central bank and Nobitex, which has not been specifically sanctioned. Doing business with Iranian entities falls under general Western sanctions. Reuters could not determine why the United States has not sanctioned Nobitex. Since taking office, Trump has launched a suite of crypto-friendly policies and U.S. regulators have paused enforcement actions against crypto companies and moguls. The Securities and Exchange Commission settled a lawsuit against Sun for alleged fraud in March for $10 million without Sun admitting any wrongdoing.
The Trump administration announced today that it had created a new $1.8 billion fund to compensate people who say they were unfairly targeted by the Biden Justice Department and Democrats. The move could funnel taxpayer money to President Trump's political allies.
The unusual fund was created in exchange for the president dropping his $10 billion lawsuit against the I.R.S. It was an apparent effort to skirt oversight by a judge, who had expressed concern that the suit represented self-dealing between the president and a department run by his former defense lawyer, Todd Blanche.
New: Emails between the Government Accountability Office and Trump officials showed that agencies refused to cooperate with a probe into the U.S. DOGE Service's handling of sensitive data.
Notable: The GAO has determined that the Treasury Department violated its security rules in giving a DOGE staffer access to the government's payment system.
President Donald Trump earlier this year bought as much as $680,000 in stock of Eli Lilly, the maker of blockbuster obesity drugs, as the agencies he oversees undertook an agenda that largely benefited the company. In healthcare, however, the trades for Lilly - a company valued by the stock market at just under $1 trillion - stand out. That's because the timing of Trump's purchases coincides with several favorable government decisions benefiting the drugmaker's GLP-1 business, including progress toward a long-held goal: qualifying the drugs for reimbursement from Medicare, the government health insurance program primarily serving seniors, when they are prescribed for weight loss.
The disclosure forms -which bear Trump's distinct signature - give ranges rather than exact dollar amounts for the trades. They show seven purchases of Lilly stock made on the president's behalf through the end of March, the first of which occurred on Jan. 6.
The appearance of a potential conflict of interest is enough to trouble ethics experts. "A president who buys or sells the stock of a company whose value is affected by his administration's actions undermines the public's trust in two ways," said Kathleen Clark, a legal ethicist at Washington University in St. Louis. First, she said, the public should believe government actions are motivated by common good, not personal enrichment. And second, the public should believe that those within government aren’t benefiting from inside information. A ban on stock trading by the president would require an act of Congress, though some lawmakers have resisted such legislation. Members of Congress are also permitted to buy and sell stocks.
The Justice Department revealed today that President Trump, his family and his businesses will be shielded from being investigated or prosecuted over their taxes. The provision was signed by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and quietly posted on the department's website. It's part of an extraordinary new agreement the president struck with his own administration to settle his lawsuit against the I.R.S., where officials had mapped out a plan to fight Trump's claims.
Protection from audit could be quite beneficial for Trump. In 2024, my colleagues found that a loss in an I.R.S. audit could cost him more than $100 million. Also part of the deal is a $1.8 billion compensation fund for people who claim to have been the target of politically motivated prosecutions. That fund has been loudly criticized by Democrats as a way to funnel taxpayer money to Trump’s allies. Some Republicans in Congress also voiced concerns. John Thune, the Senate majority leader, rarely publicly criticizes Trump but said he "was not a big fan" of the fund.
That's the first thing they don't want you to know. And by "they," I'm referring specifically to the Trump administration's public health officials and the billionaires who helped elect them, including Musk. They don't want you to know they're likely responsible for the Ebola outbreak. If it winds up in the U.S., they'll be responsible for that, too. They would hate for you to know that.
So, the U.S. has spent the last year ignoring Ebola, letting it spread without detection. Now we have a major Ebola outbreak. How predictable... It's all over the news now, except for the important parts. The World Health Organization has declared a public health emergency of international concern over a recent outbreak in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. An American doctor has tested positive. Just over the last few days, cases and deaths have skyrocketed. Global health officials have reported that the actual numbers could be "much higher than reported." Yes, that makes sense, because Elon Musk and his tech goons dismantled the teams and tools we would've used to track and contain exactly that kind of outbreak.
Experts are going on the news and insisting that Ebola only spreads through direct contact with bodily fluids. There's a big but here. Here's the second thing they don't want you to know: Ebola has airborne potential. They also state that "Ebola viruses have the potential to evolve in the future into pathogens that spread mainly by the respiratory route," especially if the virus is allowed to spread and mutate. Topping it all off, the researchers also found evidence of Ebola "superspreader" patients, and that Ebola has an incredibly low "infectious dose." It takes as few as 10 particles to infect you. So, there you have it.
Here's the third thing they don't want you to know: As I wrote early last year, one simple tool can give you peace of mind regardless of what virus is making headlines. It's an N95 mask. Our politicians and media have gone to great lengths to convince us all that they're not necessary, or that they don't work, or that they can make things worse. It's all baloney.
Maybe the super rich don't want to actively depopulate the earth, but they certainly do want to withdraw all of their money and hole up in bunkers. They don't want to pay for things like Ebola prevention, even as they joke about it. They don't want to spend money on protecting your health. In the end, their negligence translates into a very similar consequence. Whether it's intentional or not, their greed and myopia will subject us to ever more pandemics and disasters. Meanwhile, they believe they'll be able to hide from the consequences in their bunkers.
There's one last thing they don't want you to know. It's called elite panic.Researchers at Rutgers University coined this term in the early 2000s. As they documented, institutions go out of their way to suppress justified fear in civilian populations. Why? Because they don't trust them to act with accurate information about threats. They spread misinformation, out of fear that ordinary citizens will overreact and start rioting, looting, or revolting. The strategy usually backfires, often igniting the exact panic they hoped to prevent.
We can see elite panic everywhere now. It's the primary doctrine of our media, to control the narrative over diseases like Ebola. They follow a simple strategy. Have you noticed?
They bombard you with stories that trigger your fear response. Then they diffuse that fear response by telling you not to worry, there's no cause for concern, and so on. That's elite panic at work. The elites are panicking, but not about the threat. They’re panicking about how you'll react.
They don't believe you have the intelligence to protect yourself without freaking out and making things worse. They think you'll rush out and buy a bunch of toilet paper. They're scared you'll drive shortages at stores and gas stations. They're worried you'll start riots and damage their property. They're worried you'll crash the stock market. They're worried you won't show up for work. They're worried that you'll also start to do reasonable things. They're terrified you'll demand that the government pay for things like N95 masks, because they're responsible for this mess. They're worried you'll want tests, and vaccines. That's what keeps them up at night. Not the Ebola virus. You.
The fools in charge don't want to spend money on Ebola prevention or precautions. They don't want you to know they're the ones responsible for this outbreak. They don't want you to know they'll be responsible if it spreads to the U.S. They don't want you to know its airborne potential, because they don't trust you to handle that information like a mature adult. But they're also worried that you will handle it like a responsible adult, and demand they do something other than hold press conferences about it and tell you to wash your hands. They don't want you to know there's one simple tool that can protect you, because it makes them uncomfortable and it might hurt their income streams if people protect themselves. In fact, there are several tools-and some of us have spent years learning about them.
We're also not spreading conspiracies. Is it strange that hantavirus and Ebola are both making headlines at the same time? No, it's not strange. It's the consequences that climate scientists have predicted for years now. As Ed Yong wrote in an underrated Atlantic article years ago, we've entered the pandemicene, an era where zoonotic viruses increasingly pose threats to us. Hundreds of these viruses are waiting to spill over into humans as we overheat the planet and destroy what's left of wild habitats. This is what's happening.
Meanwhile, who's actually freaking out? The Epstein class, that's who, and everyone who falls for their stories. Go online and look at the Reddit threads. The people freaking out now are the ones who've been living in denial for the last four years, pretending that they'll never have to wear a mask or flip on an air purifier ever again. There's no need to freak out over Ebola, even if it has airborne potential, even if our dumb Epstein class rulers made this happen with their reckless budget cuts, even if it starts to spread in the U.S.
If you still believe in civic action, call your representatives. Ask them why our government let a billionaire with no knowledge or training in public health kill the funding for Ebola prevention. Ask them why they let him lie about restoring it. Ask them what they're going to do to fix this problem. When they sputter platitudes, tell them what you've learned from this article. Action is not panic. Action is action. We know what to do. So, let's do it.
Two police officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, filed a lawsuit today in an effort to block a $1.8 billion fund created this week by the Justice Department to pay people who claim mistreatment by the federal government.
The officers accused the Trump administration of creating a "slush fund" to reward the pro-Trump rioters who had tried to stop the certification of the 2020 election. Multiple Jan. 6 rioters have expressed excitement about the prospect of getting paid.
The latest: House Democrats said yesterday that if they win a House majority in the midterms they will launch an investigation into the Trump administration's $1.8 billion "Anti-Weaponization Fund."
The details: The fund will use taxpayer dollars to pay individuals who claim to have been targeted by the federal government because of their politics.
Related: Two police officers who defended the Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021 attack carried out by Trump supporters filed a lawsuit today seeking to block the fund.
Exclusive: White House opposition to an American doctor working in the Democratic Republic of Congo returning to the United States delayed him from being evacuated and receiving care after he contracted Ebola.
Why it matters: Doctors say early treatment and isolation are key to treating Ebola, which can progress to multi-organ failure in a matter of days.
White House response: "This is absolutely false and another reason why the Washington Post is no longer worth the paper it's printed on," said a spokesperson.
What happened: Trump today suggested the Senate should replace its parliamentarian, a nonpartisan official who advises on Senate procedures, Elizabeth MacDonough.
Why: Trump accused MacDonough of bias against Republicans. His criticism came after she rejected an attempt to include money for Trump's ballroom in a bill funding immigration enforcement.
After a highly contentious private meeting today with the acting attorney general, Senate Republicans abruptly abandoned plans to advance a bill to provide $72 billion for President Trump's immigration crackdown. The reason: Members of the president's own party had deep concerns about the Justice Department's new $1.8 billion fund to pay people who claim to have been politically persecuted.
Republicans had already appeared ready to reject a separate White House demand that $1 billion in security funds for Trump's ballroom project be included in the bill. But because of Senate rules around advancing filibuster-proof bills, they would have been forced to weigh in tonight on the Trump administration's unusual new fund. And several Republican senators were unwilling to support it.
Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, met with senators for two hours, attempting to defend the fund. But multiple senators were left unsatisfied with the lack of guardrails around the money. "It is in real trouble," Susan Collins, a Republican senator said, adding, "and it should be."
The decision by senators to abandon today's immigration vote - and leave Washington for a week - underscored the toxic dynamic between the White House and Congress. Republican senators have grown frustrated with Trump's retribution-driven intervention in recent primaries.
New: A Washington Post analysis found Trump's use of vulgar language, personal insults and self-aggrandizing rhetoric in social media posts and speeches has increased significantly since his first term.
The numbers: 93% of his speeches this term contain a vulgar term, up from about 40% last term.
And: Trump's vulgar or insulting social media posts have tripled compared with a similar period in his first term.
Yesterday: A federal judge ruled the Trump administration could not choose to ignore the Presidential Records Act, which Trump officials recently argued was unconstitutional.
Background: Several advocacy groups sued to stop the administration from implementing a new records policy that experts said weakened safeguards.
HHS is again ordering changes to the CDC website that are at odds with the recommendations of the public health agency's scientists. Earlier this week, the CDC was told to take down a webpage that explained how people who have multiple sexual partners can reduce their risk of contracting mpox.
( The archived page can be viewed here. ) Asked why, an HHS spokesperson said it "was not medically accurate" and didn't "align with Administration priorities."
Demetre Daskalakis, a former top CDC scientist who served as deputy coordinator of the Biden administration's mpox response, disputed the assertion that the information on the webpage was inaccurate. "Providing advice to people that is actionable is what public health should do and we did that," he said. "The document went through CDC scientific clearance."
Last fall, HHS told the CDC to stop using the term mpox and revert to calling the disease monkeypox, a term the WHO has advised against using. And HHS secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccines critic, instructed the agency to change a webpage on vaccines and autism to state that claims the two are not linked aren't evidence based. - Helen Branswell
Tax experts say this grant of immunity is shocking in the breadth of protection it offers the president and could undermine confidence in the fairness of the tax system.
"This is an unprecedented remedy," said former IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel, noting that Trump should be treated like every other American. "People expect the same tax rules and enforcement framework to apply to everybody."
The IRS probe revolved around whether Trump doubled-dipped in cutting his taxes, according to a 2024 report by The New York Times and ProPublica - specifically whether he used the same losses from his Chicago skyscraper to cut them twice in future filings, a big no-no. The report said Trump could owe more than $100 million, including penalties, if he were to lose the audit battle.
"The president and his affiliates might not pay the taxes they should," said DeBot, policy director at New York University's Tax Law Center. "This is giving the president and his affiliates completely different set of rules than everyday taxpayers." The immunity is especially useful to Trump. His company includes hundreds of separate businesses, making his tax returns complicated. He also has a reputation for aggressively cutting his taxes, which some experts find suspicious - and at least in one case deemed now illegal.
After his Atlantic City casinos collapsed under heavy debt in the mid-1990s, for instance, Trump claimed about $1 billion in losses to cut his tax bill, even though lenders had forgiven hundreds of millions of dollars he owed. Trump argued the debt was never technically forgiven because he had exchanged equity in the bankrupt casino business for it - a tax maneuver Congress later barred as an abusive tax loophole. Through that technique and other tax shelters and deductions, Trump was able pay just $750 in federal taxes in 2016 and 2017, and zero in 2020, according to a congressional investigation after his first term.
Trump's settlement with the IRS refers only to existing audits, not future examinations, so the president and his family are not off the hook for any alleged abuses in future tax returns. Parts of the settlement are being challenged in court. The compensation fund is being attacked by police officers who helped defend the U.S. Capitol from Trump's supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. They have sued to block anyone - including the rioters - from receiving payouts.
Some law experts expect the tax immunity will be challenged in court, too. "This is the president trying to play every role in the system, acting as plaintiff, defendant, and his own judge and jury to extract extraordinary windfalls," said New York University’s DeBot, adding that giving broad immunity "stretches beyond what DOJ actually has authority to do."
https://bsky.app/profile/thetnholler.bsky.social/post/3mmij2tbvjk2o
The Department of Justice is acknowledging it has removed from its website news releases about criminal cases related to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot, calling the information about the prosecutions "partisan propaganda."
On Monday, the Justice Department announced the creation of a $1.776 billion fund meant to compensate Trump allies who feel they were unjustly investigated and prosecuted. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has not ruled out that rioters convicted of violence will be eligible for payouts, prompting bipartisan anger in Congress.
After a journalist on Friday observed on the social media platform X that the Justice Department was "quietly" removing news releases on its website that were related to the Jan. 6 attack, including about a Texas man who pleaded guilty to assault and also faced separate state charges of soliciting a minor, the department responded through its "rapid response" account that there was "nothing 'quiet' about it."
"We are proud to reverse the DOJ's weaponization under the Biden administration. We will do everything in our power to make whole those who were persecuted for political purposes," the post said. "This includes stripping DOJ's website of partisan propaganda."
Among the releases removed from the site were those concerning seditious conspiracy cases against members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, far-right extremist groups. The Justice Department, in an unopposed motion last month, asked a federal appeals court to vacate those seditious conspiracy convictions, a request that was granted Thursday. The department on Friday moved to dismiss the cases against the group members.
The Department of Justice acknowledged that it has removed webpages that detail charges, convictions, and other information related to the myriad defendants involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.
After Washington Post staff writer Meryl Kornfield posted to X on May 22 that the DOJ was "quietly deleting info about the Capitol attack" from its website, the official DOJ Rapid Response X account fired back, saying there was "nothing 'quiet' about it." The account posted that it was "proud to reverse" the agency's "weaponization" under former President Joe Biden.
"We will do everything in our power to make whole those who were persecuted for political purposes," DOJ Rapid Response wrote on its X account. "This includes stripping DOJ's website of partisan propaganda."
What's left of Jan. 6 history? According to Kornfield, among the documents purged was a news release about a man who went to the Capitol with bear spray and is still facing an ongoing child solicitation case. She also attached links to two other news releases, which were preserved using the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.
A May 24 search of the DOJ's archives performed by USA TODAY showed that some news releases related to Jan. 6 were still available, including when members of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy charges, an announcement that 13 people were charged in federal court two days after the incident, and then-Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen's official statement about the riot published Jan. 7, 2021.
More generally, an archival search for the term "Capitol breach" returned just 11 results. A search for the same term in press releases published after Jan. 20, 2025 - the first day of Trump's second term - returned zero results.
Reframing the events of Jan. 6. While DOJ Rapid Response characterized the news releases as partisan propaganda, critics argue that the Trump administration is systematically working to rewrite the events of Jan. 6. As one of Trump's first acts in his second term, more than 1,500 people involved in the riot were granted full, complete, and unconditional pardons.
USA TODAY reported in April that the DOJ asked a federal appeals court to throw out seditious conspiracy convictions given to leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers for their involvement in the Capitol riot, going a step further than the commuted sentences Trump granted in January 2025.
The Trump administration has also overseen sweeping cuts targeting prosecutors, FBI agents, and others who worked on cases related to the riot launched by his supporters that rocked the country in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, according to previous reporting by USA TODAY.
Jan. 6 payouts? More recently, the Jan. 6 defendants have been thrust back into the spotlight, following Trump's announcement of a $1.776 billion "anti-weaponization fund," which could be used to pay those involved in the riot payouts. The money is part of a settlement of a $10 billion lawsuit filed by Trump and his family against the IRS.
The DOJ has said the money will be available for "victims of lawfare and weaponization" under the Biden administration - a descriptor Trump has repeatedly used for his supporters who faced charges or convictions after storming the Capitol on Jan. 6.
"These were people that were weaponized and really treated brutally by a system that was so corrupt with corrupt people running it," Trump said earlier this month. "They're getting reimbursed for their legal fees and the other things that they had to suffer."
Graphic source: Crowd Blue
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