Government Executive - News

Trump uses State of the Union to call for end of DHS shutdown, declares ‘war on fraud’

Sean Michael Newhouse — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 23:31:00 -0500

Unlike in his 2025 address to Congress, President Donald Trump did not significantly discuss federal workforce issues over his roughly two-hour long State of the Union on Tuesday night.

He did, however, use the speech to call on congressional Democrats to end the funding lapse for the Homeland Security Department. The limited shutdown began on Feb. 14 due to disagreements between the parties on reforms to immigration enforcement following the killings of protestors by DHS agents.

“Tonight, I'm demanding the full and immediate restoration of all funding for the border security, homeland security of the United States, and also for helping people clean up their snow,” the president said.

Trump also declared a “war on fraud” to be led by Vice President JD Vance. Combatting fraud in government programs has been a priority of the second Trump administration since its start.

The Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, however, fell far short of its goal to find trillions in savings for the government, and multiple analyses found that DOGE overstated and miscalculated its savings.

Some experts also have accused the administration of weakening fraud prevention by making false claims and removing government watchdogs.

The president announced in the speech that in 2027 his administration would make the type of retirement account for federal employees, presumably a reference to thrift savings plans, available to the broader public due to many Americans not having access to 401(k) accounts. He said that the government would match contributions up to $1,000.

Trump also referenced his administration’s efforts to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, which has impacted federal employees, deregulatory agenda and deployments of federal agents across the country to combat crime.

The president touted $1,776 payments made in December to troops called “warrior dividends.” Trump said the money came from tariffs, but Defense One was the first to report that the funding came from housing allowances for service members.

Throughout the speech, Trump leveled several direct criticisms of congressional Democrats, at one point calling them “crazy” for not agreeing with his policies. The State of the Union also was occasionally interrupted by Democratic protests.

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2 CBP agents identified in Alex Pretti shooting

J. David McSwane, ProPublica — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 11:17:00 -0500

The two federal immigration agents who fired on Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti are identified in government records as Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez.

The records viewed by ProPublica list Ochoa, 43, and Gutierrez, 35, as the shooters during the deadly encounter last weekend that left Pretti dead and ignited massive protests and calls for criminal investigations.

Both men were assigned to Operation Metro Surge, an immigration enforcement dragnet launched in December that sent scores of armed and masked agents across the city.

CBP, which employs both men, has so far refused to release their names and has disclosed few other facts about the deadly incident, which came days after a different immigration agent shot and killed another Minneapolis protester, a 37-year-old mother of three named Renee Good.

Pretti’s killing, and the subsequent secrecy surrounding the agents involved, comes as the country confronts the consequences of President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown. The sweeps in cities across the country have been marked by scenes of violence, against immigrants and U.S. citizens, by agents allowed to hide their identities with masks — an almost unheard of practice in law enforcement. As a result, the public has been kept from one of the chief ways it has to hold officers involved in such altercations accountable: their identity.

Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers have called for a transparent investigation into the killing of Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse working at a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital.

“We must have a transparent, independent investigation into the Minnesota shooting, and those responsible—no matter their title—must be held accountable,” Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah, wrote on X on Monday.

The agency sent a notice to some members of Congress on Tuesday acknowledging that two agents fired Glock pistols during the altercation that left Pretti dead. That notice does not include the agents’ names. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees CBP, said the agents had been placed on leave after the Jan. 24 shooting. And after a week of protests and calls from lawmakers for a review, the Justice Department said Friday that its Civil Rights Division is investigating the shooting. A DOJ spokesperson did not answer questions, including whether DHS has shared materials, such as body-camera footage, with its investigators.

Ochoa is a Border Patrol agent who joined CBP in 2018. Gutierrez joined in 2014 and works for CBP’s Office of Field Operations. He is assigned to a special response team, which conducts high-risk operations like those of police SWAT units. Records show both men are from South Texas.

In the aftermath of the shooting, Gregory Bovino, who has orchestrated high-intensity immigration sweeps and arrests in a string of Democratic-led cities since early 2025, was removed from his role as Border Patrol commander at large and reassigned to his former post in El Centro, California.

A spokesperson for DHS declined to answer questions about the two agents and referred ProPublica to the FBI. The FBI declined to comment. ProPublica made several attempts to call Ochoa and Gutierrez but neither answered.

Ochoa, who goes by Jesse, graduated from the University of Texas-Pan American with a degree in criminal justice, according to his ex-wife, Angelica Ochoa. A longtime resident of the Rio Grande Valley, Ochoa had for years dreamed of working for the Border Patrol and finally landed a job there, she said. By the time the couple split in 2021, he had become a gun enthusiast with about 25 rifles, pistols and shotguns, Angelica Ochoa said.

DHS’ disclosure to Congress was drawn from an internal review of the agents’ body-camera footage, which has not been released to the public. State investigators, meanwhile, have accused their federal counterparts of blocking them from investigating the shooting.

“We don’t have any information on the shooters,” a Minneapolis city spokesperson said. A spokesperson for Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said Tuesday that his office also had “not been given the names, and we don’t have any new information on the investigation.”

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi Monday, accused the Justice Department of covering up evidence in both Pretti’s and Good’s killings.

“DOJ has also blocked prosecutors and agents from cooperating with state law enforcement officials and prevented state officials from accessing evidence,” the letter said.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, told CNN on Sunday that immigration agents should not be masked.

“They should not be anonymous. They should be identifiable. And they have to have rules of engagement that don’t allow them to terrorize and intimidate, harass and assault U.S. citizens and other people,” he said.

The notice to Congress said that the shooting happened when Pretti resisted arrest after officers were unable to get him and a female protester out of the street.

The CBP officer “attempted to move the woman and Pretti out of the roadway. The woman and Pretti did not move,” the report reads. “CBP personnel attempted to take Pretti into custody. Pretti resisted CBP personnel’s efforts and a struggle ensued.”

According to the report, one agent then yelled “He’s got a gun!” multiple times, and two others “discharged” their Glock pistols.

In videos widely shared online, Pretti can be seen holding up a phone, documenting the movements of federal agents and officers as they roamed the streets of a popular food and arts district. According to news reports, Pretti was concerned about the increasingly volatile siege of the city by federal agents.

In the videos, a masked agent appears to knock a woman to the ground. Pretti comes to her aid, getting between them, at which point the officer deploys pepper spray at his face. Two agents then grab Pretti and pull him to the ground, while more federal personnel pile on. During the struggle, the agents unleash a series of shots — approximately 10 — as onlookers scream.

Pretti was armed at the time of the encounter with a legally owned handgun, according to state and federal officials. Some analyses of bystander video appear to show a federal agent taking Pretti’s gun from his hip before the first shots were fired. The agents’ masks and the chaos of the altercation make it difficult to differentiate one from another.

Those videos appear to contradict the claims by Bovino and other officials, including DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, that Pretti had come to attack agents.

“The agents attempted to disarm the individual, but he violently resisted,” Bovino said in a Jan. 25 news conference. “Fearing for his life and the lives and safety of fellow officers, a Border Patrol agent fired defensive shots.”

In the initial aftermath, Stephen Miller, a top Trump aide and a leading force behind the immigration enforcement operations, called Pretti “a would-be assassin.” But Miller changed tack later in the week when he said in a statement that CBP officers “may not have been following” protocol related to confronting bystanders.

Additional video has surfaced showing Pretti in another altercation with federal agents 11 days before he was killed. The video shows Pretti yelling at the agents, who get in an SUV and start to drive away. Pretti then kicks out the taillight of the vehicle and the agents, who wore protective masks, jump out and tackle him to the ground.

It is unclear if any of the same agents were involved in both incidents.

Lauren Bonds, executive director of the National Police Accountability Project, said that many local and state police departments are “much more transparent” than CBP when officers shoot people. “More and more police departments are choosing to release bodycam footage or dashcam footage within a couple of days.”

Gil Kerlikowske, a former CBP commissioner, told ProPublica that it’s difficult to draw conclusions from the chaos in bystander videos. Still, he said, the shooting might have been prevented. Pretti’s attempt to help the woman knocked to the ground could have been seen as interfering with federal law enforcement, he said. But the decision by the officers to immediately use pepper spray created a chaotic scene that likely contributed to Pretti’s death.

“The other agent could have said ‘don’t interfere’ or ‘stand back,’” Kerlikowske said. “Rather than move immediately to pepper spray, you can arrest the person.” It’s part of a pattern, he said, of federal officers jumping straight to use of force in situations that could have been de-escalated but instead create danger for both agents and their targets.

Pretti’s death, and the federal government’s characterization of the event, sparked immediate protests, spurring thousands of people to go out into frigid conditions in Minneapolis and other American cities. The shooting has also drawn intense criticism from political leaders, including Walz, who has promised his state’s law enforcement will conduct its own criminal investigation.

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ICE officer fatally shoots driver through car window in Minneapolis

Max Nesterak and Madison McVan, Minnesota Reformer — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 15:11:00 -0500

An ICE officer shot a woman driving an SUV through her car window in south Minneapolis on Wednesday morning. The person is dead, according to a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security.

Video of the incident shared with the Reformer shows masked ICE officers approach a Honda Pilot stopped in the middle of Portland Avenue near 34th Street. One officer tells the driver to “get out of the f*cking car” and tries to open the door. The driver then slowly backs up and then pulls forward. An officer at the front of the vehicle fires three shots and the SUV travels a short distance before crashing into a parked car.

The witness who took the video, Caitlin Callenson, said she was on a walk when she saw an ICE vehicle stuck in the snow. As more ICE vehicles arrived, bystanders blew whistles in protest, and the driver of the SUV tried to block the ICE vehicles.

Callenson said she did not see ICE agents attempting to detain anyone leading up to or after the shooting.

After the shots were fired, the driver was “then was completely slumped over in the vehicle,” said Emily Heller, another witness. Federal agents wouldn’t allow a man who said he is a physician to examine the driver, Heller said. Emergency medical technicians arrived 15 minutes later, she said.

Tricia McLaughlin, assistant Secretary Dept. of Homeland Security, writing on X, gave a different version of what happened: “One of these violent rioters weaponized her vehicle, attempting to run over our law enforcement officers in an attempt to kill them — an act of domestic terrorism. An ICE officer, fearing for his life, the lives of his fellow law enforcement and the safety of the public, fired defensive shots.”

Dozens of federal agents from ICE and the FBI, as well as Minneapolis police officers and Hennepin County sheriff’s deputies responded to the scene

As some federal officers attempted to leave, protestors blocked their vehicle. The officers fired a noxious gas at close range, causing distress and vomiting for many demonstrators and journalists.

Protests are ongoing.

Protesters hurled insults at Minneapolis Police officers, who are not supposed to assist with immigration enforcement, but were on the scene Wednesday morning.

City Council members including Robin Wonsley and Jamal Osman addressed the crowd, saying the area was an active crime scene, and that MPD was present to investigate.

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty issued a statement soon after the shooting saying she is “pushing hard for a local investigation which is the only way to ensure full transparency and review by our office.”

Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., called on Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who filmed herself observing ICE actions in Minneapolis on Tuesday, to immediately stop the ICE operation “to restore order and prevent further injuries.”

Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor J. Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com.

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2 National Guard members from West Virginia wounded in 'targeted' shooting in D.C.

Jennifer Shutt and Ariana Figueroa, States Newsroom — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 15:58:14 -0500

Two National Guard members from West Virginia were in critical condition Wednesday evening after being shot near the White House in Washington, D.C., officials said.

FBI Director Kash Patel, a Metropolitan Police Department leader and Mayor Muriel Bowser emphasized during a press conference the investigation was in the preliminary stages, but said the shooting was “targeted” and that one suspect, who was also shot, was in custody.

“At approximately 2:15 this afternoon, members of the D.C. National Guard were on high visibility patrols in the area of 17th and I Street Northwest when a suspect came around the corner, raised his arm with a firearm and discharged at the National Guard members,” MPD Executive Assistant Chief Jeffery Carroll said.

“There were other (National Guard) members that were in the area. They were able to, after some back and forth … subdue the individual and bring them into custody,” Carroll added. “Within moments, members of law enforcement in the area were also able to assist and bring that individual into custody.”

Numerous media reports identified the suspect as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who entered the U.S. in September 2021. States Newsroom has not independently confirmed the identity.

Carroll said there were no other suspects at the time of the press conference, in the early evening, and that law enforcement officials had reviewed video footage from the area where the shooting took place.

“It appears, like I said, to be a lone gunman that raised the firearm and ambushed these members of the National Guard, and he was quickly taken into custody by other National Guard members and law enforcement members,” he said.

The guardsmen were armed, but Carroll said investigators had not yet determined if they shot back or how the suspect, whom he did not name, was shot.

“At this point, we're still investigating exactly who shot the individual. It's not clear at this time,” he said.

Officials were also not yet sure “what kind of weapon” the suspect used during the shooting, which Carroll said “happened right in front of the Metro, although there is no indication that the perpetrator was on the Metro.” The Metro is the district’s public transit system.

Bowser reiterated during the press conference that the two National Guard members were in critical condition and referred to the shooting as “targeted.”

FBI and partners to lead investigation

Patel said the investigation will be treated as an assault on a federal law enforcement officer.

“The FBI will lead out on that mission with our interagency partners to include the Department of Homeland Security, Secret Service, ATF, DEA, and we're thankful for the mayor's assistance in this matter,” Patel said. “The Metropolitan Police Department and their skills in investigating homicides and gun shootings in this city is exceptional.

“We will work together collaboratively, because this is a matter of national security, because it's a matter of pride.”

West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey wrote on social media before the press conference that the guard members had died, though he later posted he was hearing “conflicting reports about the condition of our two Guard members and will provide additional updates once we receive more complete information.”

“Our prayers are with these brave service members, their families, and the entire Guard community,” he added.

President Donald Trump was briefed on the shooting and was “actively monitoring this tragic situation,” according to a statement from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. The shooting happened just one day before Thanksgiving.

Trump posted on social media that both guardsmen were "critically wounded” and taken to two separate hospitals. The shooter, he added, was “also severely wounded, but regardless, will pay a very steep price.”

Trump mobilized 800 National Guard members to the district in August, on the grounds of a “crime emergency,” despite a nearly 30-year low in violent crime in the city.

Some of the guard troops were instructed they would be carrying service weapons while deployed in the district, according to an Aug. 17 report in the Wall Street Journal.

Court rulings on National Guard

Last week, a District of Columbia federal judge found the Trump administration’s deployment of the National Guard in the city illegal. However, Judge Jia Cobb paused her order for three weeks to give the Trump administration time to remove the guard members along with appealing her ruling.

More than 2,000 members of the guard have remained in the district, and are expected to stay until the end of February, according to Cobb’s order.

The Trump administration on Wednesday asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in an emergency motion to intervene.

The Associated Press, citing a law enforcement official not authorized to speak publicly, reported the suspect sustained “injuries that are not believed to be life-threatening.”

The White House was placed on lockdown due to the shooting, according to a White House official. Trump and first lady Melania Trump are in Florida for the Thanksgiving holiday and were not present at the time of the shooting.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrote on social media that the department was "working with local law enforcement to gather more information."

The Department of Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

When Trump mobilized the Guard, he also federalized the district's police force for 30 days. While the federalization of the police force expired, Trump has kept the National Guard in the district.

Since then, Republican governors have agreed to send their own Guard members to the district, from Louisiana, Ohio, South Carolina and West Virginia, among others.

Lawmakers react

Members of Congress responded to the initial reports of the shooting with prayers and gratitude for the service members.

“Praying for the National Guard members wounded in this horrific shooting,” U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., wrote on social media. “Thankful for the brave law enforcement officers and first responders who swiftly apprehended a suspect. There is no place for violence in America.”

Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican and retired lieutenant colonel in the Iowa National Guard, called for prayers for the victims.

“Join me in praying for the two National Guardsmen shot in D.C. and their families,” she said. “Our men and women in uniform truly put their lives on the line to keep us safe and deserve our greatest respect.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote he was “closely monitoring the situation and am praying for the wounded National Guardsmen and their families.”

“My heart breaks for the victims of this horrific shooting in Washington DC near the White House,” Schumer wrote. “I thank all the first responders for their quick action to capture the suspect.”

Speaking in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, Vice President JD Vance, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, said the attack was “a somber reminder.”

“Our soldiers are the sword and the shield of the United States of America,” he said. “And as a person who goes into work every single day in that building and knows that there are a lot of people who wear the uniform of the United States Army, let me just say very personally thank them for what they're doing.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., wrote that his "thoughts and prayers are with the National Guardsmen who were attacked this afternoon. I urge you to keep them in your prayers too."

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., wrote the “National Guard has done heroic work this year working around the clock to make our nation’s capital safe again. We are forever grateful for the swift actions of law enforcement and for all those who risk their own lives to protect everyone else.”

Jacob Fischler, Leann Ray and Ashley Murray contributed to this report.

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Nonprofit files lawsuit to reinstate digital equity grants

Chris Teale — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 16:59:00 -0400

A nonprofit that was in line to receive digital equity grant funding filed a lawsuit last week to get their money back, months after President Donald Trump pulled the funding.

The National Digital Inclusion Alliance sued the Trump administration in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia over its decision to repeal the Digital Equity Act Competitive Grant Program, one of three grant programs funded by the Digital Equity Act. The administration pulled grant funding from the legislation in May.

In its complaint, the Ohio-based NDIA said the decision to end $2.75 billion in grant funding after it had been appropriated under law is unconstitutional and violates the Constitution’s separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches. NDIA urged the courts to reinstate the funding and allow it to resume projects in 11 states that it said would provide to 30,000 people through its new Digital Navigator + program.

“NDIA is taking the extraordinary step of suing the federal government for the 30,000 people who were counting on our Digital Navigator + program to help guide them through submitting job applications, accessing telehealth, attending classes, and staying safe online,” Angela Siefer, NDIA’s executive director, said in a statement. “Thousands more across the country stood to benefit from Digital Equity Act grants through other trusted community organizations. Let’s be very clear, the Digital Equity Act is not unconstitutional nor racist, it passed with overwhelming bipartisan support to ensure the United States can compete in today’s modern economy.”

NDIA said its new program would go “beyond internet adoption,” and would instead focus on boosting people’s digital skills to address needs in health, education, workforce development, technology access and social and civic engagement. NDIA’s program would have initially rolled out in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon and Washington, but it would have been made publicly available for everyone.

The organization was awarded $25.7 million in grant funds in January and had expected to kick off its efforts in March, according to a copy of the lawsuit. But what followed was a “sea change,” according to the suit, as Trump issued two executive orders in the early days of his administration to “terminate all discriminatory and illegal preferences, mandates, policies, programs, activities, guidance, regulations, enforcement actions, consent orders, and requirements.”

Those orders came just days after the National Telecommunications and Information Administration started pushing grant money out the door in the waning days of former President Joe Biden’s administration. Before then, states had identified many creative ways to improve residents’ digital skills, address affordability and make the internet more accessible. But Trump took office and pledged to end the program, describing it as “unconstitutional” and calling for an end to “woke handouts based on race.”

NDIA said in its lawsuit it received a notice of its grant termination the day after Trump’s statement on his Truth Social platform. The group said it received a letter that “espouses a final, unappealable determination, without any supporting facts, reasoning, or analysis, that all Competitive Grant Program awards ‘were created with, and administered using, impermissible and unconstitutional racial preferences.’”

The lawsuit says Trump — who is named as a defendant alongside Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, NTIA Administrator Arielle Roth, acting National Institute of Standards and Technology Director Craig Burkhardt, and Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought — defied Congress’ clear will “by eliminating an entire statutory scheme based on a policy set forth” in his executive orders. This “violates the separation of powers, infringes Congress’s spending power under Article I, usurps the power delegated to the Courts under Article III, and far exceeds the constitutional authority of the Executive Branch,” the filing continues.

Other groups have expressed their support for NDIA’s lawsuit. Drew Garner, director of policy engagement at the nonprofit Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, said in a statement the digital equity grants and the legislation enabled by them “invests in the human infrastructure of broadband and helps people access affordable internet and devices and develop the skills necessary to use modern connectivity.”

“We all benefit when we are all connected — when workers connect with employers, patients connect with doctors, students connect with teachers, and small businesses connect with customers,” Revati Prasad, Benton’s executive director, said in a statement. “That’s what Congress designed the Digital Equity Competitive Grant Program to deliver — connectivity and opportunity for all. NDIA’s action today is an unfortunately necessary step to restoring Congress’s intention.”

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Dallas ICE facility is the site of another shooting at a federal building

Sean Michael Newhouse — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 14:11:00 -0400

Updated at 4:50 p.m. ET Sept. 24

A sniper early Wednesday shot three detainees, killing one, at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Dallas, according to the Homeland Security Department. The other two individuals are in critical condition.

A DHS press release reports that the sniper, who was found dead of a self-inflicted gun wound, shot from a nearby rooftop and “fired indiscriminately.” The victims were in a van at the facility’s entrance.

R. Joseph Rothrock, the FBI special agent in charge of the Dallas field office, said during a press conference that no members of law enforcement were hurt and that the agency is investigating the shooting as an act of targeted violence. Based on early evidence, he said that rounds found near the shooter had “messages that are anti-ICE in nature.”

DHS shared a photo of shell casings, one of which has the words “anti-ICE” on it.

There have been other recent violent incidents at immigration enforcement facilities in Texas. Ten people have been charged with respect to a July 4 attack on an ICE facility in Alvarado during which a responding local police officer was shot. On July 7, an individual shot at a Customs and Border Patrol building in McAllen, injuring a responding police officer and two employees before being killed in crossfire.

The Dallas facility also was the target of an in-person bomb threat in August.

“This must stop,” said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, at the press conference. “To every politician who is using rhetoric demonizing ICE and demonizing CBP — stop.”

ICE has been central to President Donald Trump’s attempts to conduct mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. Immigrant rights groups and Democrats have accused the agency of targeting individuals without criminal records, terrorizing migrants and blocking oversight.

Trump on Wednesday blamed the shooting on "Radical Left Democrats constantly demonizing Law Enforcement, calling for ICE to be demolished and comparing ICE Officers to 'Nazis.'"

"The Trump Administration is fully committed to backing Law Enforcement, Strong Borders, securing our Homeland, deporting Violent Illegal Criminals and fully rooting out the Left Wing Domestic Terrorism that is terrorizing our Country," he said on social media.

Administration officials made similar statements.

“For months, we’ve been warning politicians and the media to tone down their rhetoric about ICE law enforcement before someone was killed,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement. “This shooting must serve as a wake-up call to the far-left that their rhetoric about ICE has consequences.”

An individual also shot at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Atlanta headquarters in August, killing a responding police officer before committing suicide. Investigators said the shooter opposed the COVID-19 vaccine.

Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association National President Mathew Silverman said Wednesday's shooting "is a stark reminder of the dangers our federal officers face every day."

“FLEOA stands with the ICE agents and their families during this difficult time, and we call on leaders at every level to ensure that those who protect our communities have the resources, protection and support they need," he said in a statement.

This story has been updated with a statement from FLEOA and the president. DHS also has revised the number of individuals killed to two, including the shooter.

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4 GOP states send nearly 1,000 National Guard to D.C. for Trump crackdown

Ariana Figueroa, States Newsroom — Mon, 18 Aug 2025 18:18:00 -0400

Four Republican governors are sending nearly 1,000 National Guard members to the District of Columbia after President Donald Trump last week activated 800 members from the district’s Guard as part of his federal takeover of the nation's capital.

The deployment would bring the total number of National Guard troops to roughly 1,800 in the district's 68 square miles, following the president’s “crime emergency” declaration, even though violent crime in the district is at a 30-year low.

Because the district, home to more than 700,000 residents, is not a state, the president has the sole authority over its National Guard members.

The president has not only activated the National Guard but through the district's Home Rule Act is using the Metropolitan Police Department’s 3,400-member police force for immigration enforcement.

The 1,000 National Guard members sent from the states are expected to arrive in the district Monday and through the coming days and are expected to be armed, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine will send 150 military police from his state's National Guard; Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves will send 200 members; South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster approved 200 members; and West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey will send up to 400 National Guard members.

McMaster and Morrisey added that the federal government would cover the cost of deploying state troops.

Unknown how long Guard will stay

It’s unclear how long National Guard members will remain on duty in the district. National Guard members are usually deployed for natural disasters and kept in reserve. Most have civilian jobs and families that they are pulled away from when they are activated.

The Department of Defense did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.

The president has 23 days left in his emergency declaration and has signaled he wants to extend the emergency longer, as well as request funding from Congress to finance his plans for the district. He’s directed federal law enforcement officers to not only conduct local policing, but to clear out camps of homeless people.

It’s not the first time Republican governors have signaled they will deploy their National Guard members at Trump’s request. Iowa’s Kim Reynolds has stated she will send troops to help with the Trump administration’s mass deportation plans.

And last week Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee said he’s prepared to send his National Guard members to the district. He added that U.S. Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll told him that the military might request states to send troops to the district for law enforcement.

The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 generally bars the use of the military for domestic law enforcement purposes.

Lee’s office did not respond to States Newsroom's request for comment.

Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, declined a request from the Trump administration to send the state's National Guard to the district, according to Vermont Public.

DeWine, McMaster and Morrisey said the Pentagon made requests for additional National Guard members.

What other states might see deployments?

States Newsroom reached out to the offices of all 27 Republican governors to ask if the Trump administration had requested National Guard members.

The administration has not made any requests to Georgia, South Dakota and Virginia, according to spokespeople at those offices. Maryland, which borders the district and is led by Democratic Gov. Wes Moore, has not received a request from the Pentagon to send in National Guard members, according to a spokesperson for Moore’s office.

A spokesperson for Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt said there are no current plans for a deployment of National Guard troops from the state.

Laura Strimple, communications director for Republican Gov. Jim Pillen of Nebraska, said in a statement that the governor supported the president’s “initiatives to reduce crime and clean up the streets in our nation’s capital, including placing the Metropolitan Police Department under federal leadership and tasking the District of Columbia National Guard and National Guard troops from several nearby states with security in Washington.”

“At this time, the Nebraska National Guard is not part of this mission,” she added.

A spokesperson for Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis did not directly answer States Newsroom’s question if the state, which is preparing for Category 4 Hurricane Erin, had received a request from the Trump administration to send National Guard members to the district.

“We stand ready to mobilize any resources necessary in response to President Trump’s federal priorities,” the spokesperson said.

The rest of the state offices did not respond to States Newsroom’s requests for comment.

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How shrinking the EPA could make wildfire smoke even more dangerous

Matt Simon and Izzy Ross, Grist — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 17:59:00 -0400

For weeks, smoke from Canadian wildfires has poured down into the United States, drifting clear across the Atlantic into Europe. Pulmonologist Vivek Balasubramaniam, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, noticed more people calling in with asthma symptoms and asking for advice when smoke doused the region in early June.

“Walking outside those days, I mean, you could see the brown-orange discoloration to the air,” he said. “When you’re breathing in, you kind of feel like the air is a little heavier, a little harder to do things.”

Monitoring air quality is key to forecasting and assessing wildfire smoke. Right now, that’s a coordinated effort between federal, state, tribal, and local entities. Federally approved and privately operated monitors feed data into tools like the Environmental Protection Agency’s AirNow tool, and help forecast air quality and issue public health guidance. But air quality scientists worry that EPA budget and job cuts will make it difficult to get air quality information to people, endangering public health. And when it comes to longer-term research, some experts say community monitors won’t fill in the gap.

The Trump administration announced plans last month to reorganize the agency and cut staff back to levels last seen in the Reagan era, which could mean the elimination of thousands of jobs. The EPA’s proposed budget for 2026 would halve its funding, from $9.14 billion to $4.16 billion.

“This is really disappointing,” said Christi Chester-Schroeder, lead air quality scientist at IQAir, a free platform. “And honestly, it is sort of antithetical, in the sense that the healthcare costs associated with breathing poor quality error are really significant globally.”

Along with proposed cuts to grants for state and local air quality management and pollution control, the EPA is planning to restructure how it regulates air quality, dismantl ing two offices charged with regulating air and climate pollution and running such programs: the Office of Atmospheric Protection and the Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards.

The EPA plans to create two new offices to clear a backlog of state plans to meet national air quality standards. A spokesperson said in an email that the new Office of State Air Partnerships would “improve coordination with state, local, and tribal air permitting agencies” to “resolve permitting concerns more efficiently and ensure EPA is working with states, not against them, to advance our shared mission.” The Office of Clean Air Programs would “align statutory obligations and essential functions with centers of expertise to create greater transparency in our regulatory work.”

Pushback on staffing and funding cuts has been constant. A U.S. District Court judge in Maryland ruled last week that the agency’s termination of $600 million in grants to help communities address pollution was unlawful. And the largest federal workers union was part of a coalition that sued this spring to halt cuts. A federal judge ruled in their favor in May, blocking new layoff and reorganization notices.

“EPA is complying with the court’s preliminary injunction,” said an EPA spokesperson of the lawsuit in an email. “In line with the court’s order and guidance received by the Department of Justice, EPA is moving forward with only reorganization planning activities.”

But the agency has already been hamstrung, according to Cathleen Kelly, a senior fellow at the left-leaning think tank Center for American Progress, who said that eliminating the current air monitoring offices would harm research and public health — even if some of their components are preserved elsewhere.

“It will leave communities more vulnerable when wildfire smoke makes the air unhealthy to breathe, for example, or when corporate polluters release unlawful amounts of pollution and on bad air quality days that increase asthma attacks and land kids and adults that are struggling to breathe in the hospital,” she said.

Overall, air quality in the U.S. has improved in the decades since the Clean Air Act was enacted in 1970 and began more strictly regulating industrial pollution. The EPA’s own sophisticated monitors have been able to track changes over time, confirming how effective air quality regulations are.

That progress has been curtailed as wildfire smoke has become more prevalent, and even one bad wildfire season can put the health of communities at risk, with Indigenous nations, low-income communities, and communities of color disproportionately affected. The American Lung Association says nearly half of Americans live with unhealthy levels of air pollution, and that wildfire smoke is a major factor. It can spread far from its source, affecting urban areas that are already dealing with pollution from industry and transportation as well as rural communities with less monitoring because they have fewer people.

As the EPA seeks to cut jobs, some experts worry there won’t be the staff — or the institutional expertise — to process and distribute that data even if air quality monitors continue to collect readings. And as the EPA guts environmental regulations, like rolling back clean air rules for power plants, it may be harder for scientists to properly assess impacts to public health.

“That’s, to me, the most concerning consequence,” said Tarik Benmarhnia, a professor of environmental epidemiology at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography who studies wildfire smoke.

The main hazard in wildfire smoke is PM 2.5, or particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns (a millionth of a meter). This is bad for anyone to breathe, but especially hazardous for those with asthma or heart conditions. As wildfire smoke travels through the atmosphere, it also changes chemically to produce the toxic gas ozone, making breathing the stuff even more hazardous.

Canadian scientists are also worried that the fires are burning across soils heavily polluted by mining operations, so the smoke could be laced with toxicants like arsenic and lead.

As climate change exacerbates droughts and raises temperatures — which sucks up the moisture in vegetation — more landscapes are burning and loading the atmosphere with smoke. Recent research has shown that the human health impact of PM 2.5 from wildfire smoke can be up to 10 times higher than other sources of particulate matter, said Benmarhnia. A study published last month in the journal Communications Earth and Environment found that between 2006 and 2020, climate change contributed to 15,000 deaths due to particulate matter from wildfire smoke.

To understand how wildfire smoke is affecting people’s health and warn them of its dangers, it needs to be measured. Places like the Great Lakes that aren’t used to dealing with wildfires and their fallout are just now solidifying public health awareness campaigns.

“The first statewide air quality alert for fine particulate matter from wildfire smoke was in 2023,” said Aaron Ferguson, who manages the Climate and Tracking Unit at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. “That’s really when we first started developing a lot of our public health guidance and response strategies.”

That work relies in part on more than 40 air quality stations run by the state through EPA grants that are still in place for now.

Increasingly, federal air quality monitors have been supplemented by private companies and community monitoring efforts, including among tribal nations, rural areas and places federal and state governments have neglected. Free services like PurpleAir and IQAir provide hyper-local air quality readings for people to determine if they need to shelter from wildfire smoke.

“What people are using this for is to decide when to let the kids out with asthma, or when to go cycling if they’re an athlete,” said Adrian Dybwad, CEO and founder of PurpleAir.

Pierce Mayville, the air quality scientist for the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, said those monitors are “huge” when it comes to getting people usable, practical information, providing near-real-time information about air quality. They have one and are setting up another.

“If we see the level really high in the purple, then we let people know,” Mayville said. “People can look at the map and see a live-time view of what’s going on so they can keep track of the air quality in their area.”

What Benmarhnia and other scientists need is a steady stream of reliable data, especially from advanced sensors that determine the composition of wildfire smoke, like if it contains heavy metals. Cheaper instruments just measure the amount of PM 2.5 in the air, not what it’s made of. They can then correlate that data with hospital emissions in a given area to get insights into what makes wildfire emissions so deadly.

“In order to be able to better test these hypotheses, we need these federally funded monitors and networks and data,” Benmarhnia said. “This is critical. Without that, it would be impossible to do this type of research and better understand what is going on.”

"This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist's weekly newsletter here."

This coverage is made possible in part through a partnership with Grist and Interlochen Public Radio in northern Michigan.

This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/wildfires/how-shrinking-the-epa-could-make-wildfire-smoke-even-more-dangerous/.

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org

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U.S. senators call for security funding boost after Minnesota assassination

Jennifer Shutt, Ariana Figueroa, and Shauneen Miranda, States Newsroom — Tue, 17 Jun 2025 18:49:00 -0400

U.S. senators emerged from a briefing with federal law enforcement officials Tuesday saying they’ll likely boost funding on safety and security for members and their families in an upcoming government funding bill.

The hour-long briefing by U.S. Capitol Police and the Senate sergeant-at-arms followed the weekend assassination of a Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband as well as the attempted murder of a state senator and his wife.

The gunman had a list of Democratic elected officials, including members of Congress, and their home addresses, which renewed long-standing security concerns among lawmakers.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., spoke about the shootings during a floor speech shortly after the meeting, pressing for an end to political violence.

“I'm profoundly grateful to local law enforcement that the alleged shooter is in custody and I look forward to seeing him prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," Thune said. "There is no place for this kind of violence in our country. None."

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said that Sens. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Dave McCormick, R-Pa., suggested during the closed-door meeting that Congress bolster funding for member safety.

“The Capitol Police and the sergeant at arms gave a very detailed discussion of how they can protect members here, back in our states, at our homes, in our offices,” Schumer said. “The violence, threats against elected officials, including people in the Senate, has dramatically increased, and that means we need more protection. We need more money.”

The USCP and other law enforcement agencies, Schumer said, are taking some immediate steps to bolster security, though he said “there are other things that will take a little while with more resources.”

Schumer also called on political leaders to be more cautious about how they discuss policy differences.

“The rhetoric that's encouraging violence is coming from too many powerful people in this country,” Schumer said. “And we need firm, strong denouncement of all violence and violent rhetoric — that should be from the president and from all of the elected officials.”

Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., called the meeting “very productive,” but didn’t want to elaborate.

“I'm not going to comment any more,” Smith told reporters. “I think it's important for members’ safety that we don't talk a lot about what is being done to keep us safe in order to keep us safe.”

Support for funding increase

Senate Appropriations ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., said she expects the panel will increase funding for USCP in the bill that covers the upcoming fiscal year.

“I believe we need to do that,” Murray said.

Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said the current situation is “incredibly concerning, gravely concerning.”

“And I appreciate the prompt and thorough bipartisan response,” Coons said.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., who is running for governor in Alabama, said USCP will increase its security measures for members of Congress.

“They’re going to try to do as much as they can, that’s about it,” he said after the briefing. “You know, security at home and here.”

Asked whether there’s a legislative solution or anything lawmakers can do, Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., told reporters “there’s a cultural solution.”

Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., did not go into details about the meeting but said “everybody is having a very robust discussion about the sort of heightened security, dangerous environment we’re all operating in right now and what to do about that, both tactically to meet some of that threat, but also how to reduce the volatility of the environment that we're in every day.”

The New Mexico Democrat is the ranking member on the Senate Appropriations Legislative Branch Subcommittee, which funds USCP and the sergeant at arms.

Asked about boosting USCP funding, Heinrich said this is “an obvious place that lawmakers will look,” but added that senators should be strategic about funding.

“We also just need to be smart and targeted about this,” he said. “There are a lot of things that can be done that don’t require a lot of funding that would reduce the scale of the target that is on the backs of anybody in public office these days.”

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Former USAID official, three contractors plead guilty in $550M bribery scheme

Nick Wakeman — Fri, 13 Jun 2025 16:48:00 -0400

Three contractors, a former government contracting officer, and two companies have admitted to a decades-long bribery scheme involving contracts worth over $550 million.

A Thursday Justice Department announcement lists the contractors involved as Walter Barnes, owner of PM Consulting Group, which did business as Vistant; Darryl Britt, owner of Apprio; and Paul Young, president of a subcontractor to Apprio and Vistant.

They pled guilty to federal conspiracy to commit bribery charges. Roderick Watson, formerly a contracting officer with the U.S. Agency for International Development, pled guilty to bribery of a public official.

Apprio and Vistant admitted to criminal liability and entered into three-year deferred prosecution agreements. The companies must continue to cooperate with Justice implement compliance and ethics programs, and make progress reports to the department.

Watson faces the stiffest penalty – up to 15 years in prison. His sentencing is set for Oct. 6.

Barnes, Britt and Young face maximum sentences of five years each. Britt’s sentencing is set for July 28, Young’s is scheduled for Sept. 3 and Barnes will be sentenced Oct. 14.

The bribery scheme began in 2013, when Watson agreed to use his contacting officer position in exchange for bribes to influence contract awards to Apprio. Vistant was a subcontractor to Apprio, according to Justice.

The contracts were 8(a) set-aside awards and when Apprio graduated from the program, the two companies switched positions with Vistant becoming the 8(a) prime and Apprio the sub.

Vistant won contracts influenced by Watson from 2018-to-2022. During this time, Britt and Barnes paid bribes to Watson. Often the payments were concealed by passing them through Young, a subcontractor to the two companies.

Justice said the bribes consisted of cash, laptops, thousands of dollars in tickets to a suite at an NBA game, a country club wedding, downpayments on two residential mortgages, cell phones, and jobs for relatives.

The department also alleges that Watson and Barnes defrauded a licensed Small Business Investment Company to enter into a credit agreement. Ahead of entering into the agreement, Watson vouched for Barnes and Vistant about their performance as a contractor.

With the credit agreement in place, Barnes had Vistant issue stock warrants that would make the SBIC a 40% owner of Vistant if exercised. The agreement included a $14 million loan to Vistant, which allowed Barnes to pay himself a $10 million dividend.

Britt and Apprio convinced a private equity firm to purchase a 20% stake in his company through an investment pool. The PE firm paid $4 million for the stake and gave Vistant a $4 million loan, secured by shares of Apprio stock.

Justice says that Britt, Barnes and Watson committed fraud when they made “false material representations” while negotiating these financial agreements.

Washington Technology has written about both Vistant and Apprio over the years.

When Vistant known PM Consulting, the company ranked No. 11 on the 2020 Washington Technology Fast 50.

Barnes also wrote several guest columns for Washington Technology. Topics included tips on working with subcontractors, and COVID 19’s impact on the market. His last column was titled: “All the things I wish I knew when I started my business.”

In October 2022, Barnes also appeared as a guest on our podcast that was known as Project 38 at the time.

Most of our coverage of Apprio featured contract award announcements and personnel moves.

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Gerry Connolly remembered for his passion and bipartisanship

Nick Wakeman — Wed, 21 May 2025 12:35:26 -0400

Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., died Wednesday morning after a battle with esophageal cancer. He was 75 years old.

Connolly is leaving behind a legacy as a legislator who fought for the federal workforce, government contractors and the economic development of his home region of Northern Virginia.

In April, Connolly announced he would not seek re-election in 2026 and would step down from his post as the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee. He first announced his diagnosis in November, shortly after easily winning a ninth term to the House.

“Gerry lived his life to give back to others and make our community better,” his family wrote in a statement. “He looked out for the disadvantaged and voiceless.”

Connolly was an outspoken advocate for federal workers, many of whom lived in his district in Fairfax County. He authored the Telework Enhancement Act of 2010 that established a framework for telework across government. He consistently introduced legislation promoting pay raises for federal employees.

He was also a harsh critic of the second Trump administration's efforts to rollback protections for federal workers.

He helped write the 2014 Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act, known as FITARA, which sought to streamline how the government buys technology. He also championed the Modernizing Government Technology Act, which established the Technology Modernization Fund.

Even with opposing many of the Trump administration’s initiatives, he leaves a legacy of bipartisanship through across the aisle on FITARA and the MGT Act.

“He got the big picture, so we worked on lot of things together,” said Tom Davis, a Republican who retired from Congress in 2008, clearing the way for Connolly to take his seat. “He was the first call I made when I decided not to run again.”

They were members of opposing parties, but Davis said Connolly picked up where he left off on issues involving federal procurement.

“No one really cares about procurement, but Gerry dug his teeth into it," Davis said.

“He was a good and decent man who took public service seriously,” said Stan Soloway, a former Defense Department official and a past CEO of the Professional Services Council. “His expertise across the spectrum of government management, IT, procurement, human capital and other issues was unmatched in Congress.”

Jerry McGinn, executive director Greg and Camille Baroni Center for Government Contracting at George Mason University, called Connolly a “tireless advocate” for the government contracting community.

“His passion for the federal and contractor workforce was particularly profound, which he demonstrated time and time again at GovCon events across the region. His voice will be greatly missed,” McGinn said.

Connolly set an example for others, said Greg Baroni, founder and CEO of Attain Enterprises.

“He was a true public servant – principled, passionate and deeply committed to the people he served. His leadership, sharp intellect, and unwavering dedication to our Northern Virginia community and to the nation set a powerful example,” Baroni said. “His positive impact will be felt for generations to come.”

Prior to joining Congress, Connolly served on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors for 14 years and five were as chairman.

“But more important than his accomplishments in elected office, Gerry lived by the ethos of ‘bloom where you are planted,’” the family wrote.

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Transgender troops ban, nationwide freeze argued in U.S. appeals court

Ashley Murray, States Newsroom — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 17:07:00 -0400

A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Tuesday grilled the Trump administration and the attorney for transgender service members who won a lower court order reversing President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender troops.

One judge on the panel voiced serious concerns about the lack of evidence the Defense Department cited when instituting the ban, while another expressed skepticism that the lower court’s nationwide order — instead of applying only to the transgender individuals who brought the case — was appropriate.

Administration officials appealed the case to the D.C. Circuit after district Judge Ana Reyes, appointed by former President Joe Biden, granted a broad preliminary injunction blocking Trump’s Jan. 27 executive order.

Eight active-duty service members and transgender individuals who are actively pursuing enlistment in the armed forces brought the case against Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, among other officials and three branches of the U.S. military.

Trump’s January order asserted the “adoption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual's sex conflicts with a soldier's commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one's personal life.” Further, the order said that being transgender is “not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.”

The Trump administration is expected to “imminently” escalate a separate case on the same issue to the Supreme Court, U.S. Department of Justice attorney Jason Manion said in court Tuesday.

Evidence

Judges on the appeals bench queried both sides on whether the government has evidence to prove transgender individuals cannot fulfill military duties, and if the order bans all trans troops or only those diagnosed with gender dysphoria, a clinical diagnosis involving distress when a person’s gender identity differs from their sex at birth.

“If the military said people with red hair are just too fragile and vulnerable, we are going to kick them all out of the military, and we are going to not allow any of them ever to join, and we have no evidence of that, but we think they're a threat to military preparedness, to unit cohesion, and too costly, and so we're just going to kick them out?” asked Judge Cornelia Pillard, who was appointed during President Barack Obama’s second term.

Manion replied the transgender ban “policy relies on a condition that is marked by severe clinical distress.”

Under military deference — meaning the courts generally defer to the president and military on national security questions — the judges should accept Trump’s and Hegseth’s word on the policy, Manion said.

“If there are mental conditions that will impair someone's ability to function in the military, or that the military could rationally judge would impair that, then that's more than enough to satisfy rational basis review,” he said.

Pillard pushed back: Isn’t that the case for all people wanting to join the military, not just transgender individuals? Thousands of transgender troops are already serving, she said.

“If the concerns are with depression or suicidality, there already are standards that would screen someone out for those things, right?” Pillard said.

Trial court ‘overreach’?

Judge Neomi Rao challenged the plaintiffs’ likelihood to succeed, highlighting that the Supreme Court generally views broad orders from district judges as “overreach.”

Reyes’ order covers all transgender troops and those seeking to enlist, not just the eight plaintiffs who brought the case.

“The district court imposed effectively a universal injunction on this policy, going beyond any relief to these particular plaintiffs. So even putting aside the constitutional question, isn't the government likely to succeed on challenging this remedy?” asked Rao, who was appointed during Trump’s first term.

Shannon Minter, civil rights attorney for the plaintiffs, said “the very nature of the injury” justifies far-reaching court protection.

“This is one of those cases where the injury alleged resides directly in the categorical nature of the policy itself, which declares that transgender people as a group lack the virtues of honesty, discipline, selflessness, integrity, that as such, they have to be purged from the military because they're transgender, and because the government has this very negative view of what it means to be a transgender person,” Minter said.

In a separate case, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s ruling that allowed transgender troops to continue serving, denying the government’s appeal.

U.S. Supreme Court case upcoming

Judge Gregory Katsas, appointed during Trump’s first term, asked Manion, “Can you tell us anything about the government's plans for seeking Supreme Court (review)?”

“I can't give you an exact date, but it will be very, very quickly, very soon, and I think that may well be quite relevant to this court’s analysis as well,” Manion said.

Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Foundation, who are representing plaintiffs in the 9th Circuit case, released a statement Tuesday afternoon saying they “stand ready to continue to zealously represent our clients as we have at every juncture.”

“Transgender service members have been openly serving our country with honor and distinction for almost a decade and have met and are meeting every neutral service-based standard. The U.S. Supreme Court should reject the invitation to stay the district court’s injunction so that they can impose their discriminatory ban while the litigation proceeds,” the statement said.

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Trump said cuts wouldn’t affect public safety. Then he fired hundreds of workers who help fight wildfires.

Mark Olalde , ProPublica — Mon, 14 Apr 2025 17:02:00 -0400

President Donald Trump’s executive orders shrinking the federal workforce make a notable exception for public safety staff, including those who fight wildland fires. But ongoing cuts, funding freezes and hiring pauses have weakened the nation’s already strained firefighting force by hitting support staff who play crucial roles in preventing and battling blazes.

Most notably, about 700 Forest Service employees terminated in mid-February’s “Valentine’s Day massacre” are red-card-carrying staffers, an agency spokesperson confirmed to ProPublica. These workers hold other full-time jobs in the agency, but they’ve been trained to aid firefighting crews, such as by providing logistical support during blazes. They also assist with prescribed burns, which reduce flammable vegetation and prevent bigger fires, but the burns can only move forward if there’s a certain number of staff available to contain them. (Non-firefighting employees without a red card cannot perform such tasks.)

Red-card-carrying employees are the “backbone” of the firefighting force, and their loss will have “a significant impact,” said Frank Beum, a board member of the National Association of Forest Service Retirees who spent more than four decades with the agency and ran the Rocky Mountain Region. “There are not enough primary firefighters to do the full job that needs to be done when we have a high fire season.”

ProPublica spoke to employees across the Forest Service — which manages an area of land nearly twice the size of California — including staff working in firefighting, facilities, timber sales and other roles, to learn how sweeping personnel changes are affecting the agency’s ability to function. The employees said cuts, which have hit the agency’s recreation, wildlife, IT and other divisions, show the Trump administration is shifting the agency’s focus away from environmental stewardship and toward industry and firefighting.

But notwithstanding Trump’s stated guardrails, the cuts have affected the Forest Service’s more than 10,000-person-strong firefighting force. Hiring has slowed as there are fewer employees to get new workers up to speed and people are confused about which job titles can be hired. Other cuts have led to the cancellation of some training programs and prescribed burns.

“It’s all really muddled in chaos, which is sort of the point,” one Forest Service employee told ProPublica.

“This agency is no longer serving its mission,” another added.

The employees asked not to be named for fear of retribution.

The Forest Service did not respond to questions about the impact of cuts other than to clarify the number of terminated employees. The Forest Service spokesperson said about 2,000 probationary employees — typically new staff and those who were recently promoted, groups that have fewer workplace protections — were fired in February. Others with knowledge of the terminations, including a representative of a federal union and a Senate staffer, said the original number of terminated employees was 3,400 but that decreased, likely as workers were brought back in divisions such as timber sales.

The White House and a representative from the Department of Government Efficiency did not respond to requests for comment.

In early March, an independent federal board that reviews employees’ complaints compelled the Department of Agriculture, the Forest Service’s parent department, to reinstate more than 5,700 terminated probationary employees for 45 days. During their first weeks back on the payroll, many, including Forest Service personnel, were put on paid administrative leave and given no work.

The administration and DOGE continue working toward layoffs amid court challenges to their moves. Word circulated throughout the Forest Service in March that departmental leadership had compiled lists containing the names of thousands of additional Forest Service employees who could be soon laid off, according to some workers.

Additionally, understaffing in the agency’s information technology unit is threatening firefighting operations, according to an agency employee. In December, the branch chief overseeing IT for the agency’s fire and aviation division left the job. The Department of Agriculture posted the job opening, describing the division as providing “support to the interagency wildland fire community’s technical needs.” This includes overseeing software that firefighting crews use to request equipment — everything from fire-resistant clothing to hoses — from the agency’s warehouses so first responders have uninterrupted access to lifesaving equipment.

The day after Trump’s inauguration, the Department of Agriculture removed the IT job posting. The position remains unfilled, according to an employee with knowledge of the situation.

The hiring of new firefighters has also bogged down amid the deluge of sometimes-conflicting orders from the administration and DOGE, Forest Service staffers said.

“We are really, really behind onboarding our employees right now,” a Forest Service firefighter told ProPublica.

The staffing issues exacerbate challenges that predate the second Trump administration. To address a massive budget shortfall, the Forest Service under President Joe Biden last year paused the hiring of seasonal workers, except those working on wildfires. (Firefighters did see a permanent pay increase codified by Congress in its recently approved spending bill.)

Still, many permanent employees, including many firefighters, work on a seasonal basis and are placed on an unpaid status for several months each year when there is less work. Uncertainty within the federal government has led many of these employees to give up on government work and look elsewhere.

“Some of our people have taken other jobs,” one Forest Service employee told ProPublica. “People aren’t going to wait around.”

Cuts to the agency’s legal department will also curb its ability to care for the nation’s forests and fight wildfires, an employee told ProPublica. Large prescribed burns and other vegetation-removal projects require environmental review, a process that is often targeted with lawsuits, including by green groups concerned that the efforts go too far in removing trees.

A smaller legal staff could lead to fewer prescribed burns, increasing the risk of catastrophic fires, according to a lawyer for the Department of Agriculture who worked on Forest Service projects. The lawyer was fired in the mid-February purge of probationary employees.

“Every time we lose a case out West, it means the Forest Service can’t do a project, at least temporarily,” the lawyer said.

“They’re going to get sued more, and they’re going to lose more,” said the lawyer, who was reinstated in March following the board ruling that the Department of Agriculture’s mass firings were illegal.

The employee received back pay but was immediately put on administrative leave. Because of the cuts to support staff, it was several weeks before many of the returning employees were reissued government laptops and badges and allowed to do any work.

“Government efficiency at its finest,” the lawyer said.

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

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Senate GOP budget resolution sets stage for raising debt limit by as much as $5 trillion

Jennifer Shutt, States Newsroom — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 15:33:00 -0400

U.S. Senate Republicans released an updated budget resolution Wednesday that sets a May 9 deadline for more than a dozen committees to approve their slice of the massive package that will permanently extend the GOP tax cuts and make significant reductions in spending.

The 70-page budget resolution, however, includes different guidelines for the House and Senate committees, allowing GOP leaders to sidestep their differences on policy for the moment, but not the long haul.

The budget resolution also sets the stage for the House to raise the debt limit by $4 trillion and the Senate to lift it by not more than $5 trillion in the reconciliation package.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., wrote in a statement that final approval of the budget resolution would “unlock the ability for the appropriate Senate committees to fully fund our border needs for four years, provide much-needed financial relief to our military at a time of great danger, make the 2017 tax cuts permanent to energize the economy, and do what has been promised for decades: go through every line item of the budget to cut wasteful and unnecessary spending — hopefully by the trillions.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., released a statement of his own, saying the “parliamentarian has reviewed the Budget Committee’s substitute amendment and deemed it appropriate for consideration under the Budget Act.”

“It is now time for the Senate to move forward with this budget resolution in order to further advance our shared Republican agenda in Congress,” Thune wrote.

The Senate parliamentarian is the nonpartisan scorekeeper who ensures everything included in a reconciliation bill meets the chamber’s strict rules.

Here comes the vote-a-rama

The complicated reconciliation process will allow the GOP to approve its core policy goals without needing support from Democrats in the Senate, where 60 votes are usually needed to advance legislation. Reconciliation does, however, come with several hoops to jump through.

One of those hurdles will come later this week when the Senate endures the dreaded vote-a-rama; a marathon amendment voting session that typically lasts overnight. After that, senators will be able to send the budget resolution to the House for final approval.

The tax-and-spending blueprint released Wednesday will send a dozen House committees instructions on how to draft their pieces of the package, while 10 Senate committees will write bills.

Typically, the committee instructions, which just include a budget target, are similar, if not identical, for the House and Senate. But differences of opinion between Republican leaders about how much to cut federal spending, as well as other disagreements, led to differing instructions.

The House has a significantly higher threshold for cutting government spending than the Senate.

The Agriculture Committee needs to slice at least $230 billion; Education and Workforce must reduce spending by a minimum of $330 billion; Energy and Commerce needs to cut no less than $880 billion; Financial Services must find at least $1 billion in savings; Natural Resources has a minimum of $1 billion; Oversight and Government Reform has a floor of $50 billion; and the Transportation Committee needs to reduce deficits by $10 billion or more.

House committees that can increase the federal deficit include the Armed Services Committee with a cap of $100 billion in new spending, Homeland Security with a $90 billion ceiling for new funding for programs it oversees, Judiciary with a maximum of $110 billion and Ways and Means, which can increase deficits up to $4.5 trillion for tax cuts.

Spending cuts in Senate

Senators set a much lower bar for themselves in terms of spending cuts, though the way the reconciliation instructions are written, as a floor and not a ceiling, will give leeway for those committees to cut much more.

Four Senate committees — Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry; Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs; Energy and Natural Resources; and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, or HELP — must each find at least $1 billion in spending cuts over the 10-year budget window.

Senate committees also got instructions for increasing the deficit, which will allow them to spend up to the dollar amount outlined in the budget resolution. Those committees include Armed Services at $150 billion; Commerce, Science and Transportation with $20 billion; Environment and Public Works at $1 billion; Finance with $1.5 trillion in new deficits, likely for tax cuts; Homeland Security at $175 billion and Judiciary with $175 billion.

Once the House and Senate both vote to adopt the same budget resolution, the committees can formally begin drafting and marking up their bills.

Those bills, according to the instructions, must be sent to the Budget committees before May 9. That panel will then bundle all of the various pieces together into one reconciliation package and send it to the floor.

The House and Senate must vote to approve the same reconciliation package before it can go to President Donald Trump for his signature and become law.

Republicans have a paper-thin majority in the House and will need to ensure that lawmakers from across the party support all of the elements going into the reconciliation package. Even a few defectors in that chamber could block the bill from moving forward.

Senate GOP leaders have a bit more wiggle room, but cannot lose more than three of their members and pass a reconciliation bill.

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Judge bars DOGE access to sensitive personal information at 3 federal agencies

Shauneen Miranda, States Newsroom — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 16:00:00 -0400

The U.S. Department of Education, Office of Personnel Management and Treasury Department were temporarily barred by a federal judge on Monday from disclosing the “personally identifiable information” of a lawsuit’s plaintiffs and organization members to Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service.

U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman, who issued the preliminary injunction, wrote in her opinion that “no matter how important or urgent the President’s DOGE agenda may be, federal agencies must execute it in accordance with the law” and “that likely did not happen in this case.”

The Maryland federal judge had earlier issued a temporary restraining order in the case, though she declined to include the Treasury Department in that due to a federal judge in New York granting a preliminary injunction that blocked DOGE from accessing that department’s payment systems.

DOGE access

The American Federation of Teachers, as well as a group of labor unions, membership organizations and several U.S. military veterans, filed a lawsuit in February over allegations that the three government entities gave the Department of Government Efficiency access to systems with sensitive and private data, in violation of the Privacy Act.

According to the Justice Department, the 1974 law “establishes a code of fair information practices that governs the collection, maintenance, use, and dissemination of information about individuals that is maintained in systems of records by federal agencies.”

The Department of Government Efficiency — which is not an actual department — has sought to drastically reduce federal government spending and go after what its staffers see as waste.

“The plaintiffs have shown that Education, OPM, and Treasury likely violated the APA by granting DOGE affiliates sweeping access to their sensitive personal information in defiance of the Privacy Act,” Boardman wrote in her opinion.

She asked both parties to submit a joint status report by close of business on March 31 after meeting to discuss “whether the government intends to file a notice of appeal or whether the Court should enter a scheduling order.”

‘Running roughshod’

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said “Musk’s operatives have been running roughshod over Americans’ privacy, and today the court correctly decided to uphold the firewall between their activities and the personal data of tens of millions of people” in a Monday statement.

Weingarten, who leads one of the country’s largest teachers unions, added that “Musk and DOGE must be held to account, and this preliminary injunction is a significant and important step forward.”

Meanwhile, the Education Department continues to see drastic changes.

Last week, President Donald Trump directed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure” of the department to the maximum extent that is legally permissible.

The agency also announced that it would be cutting more than 1,300 employees through a “reduction in force” process.

“Waste, fraud, and abuse have been deeply entrenched in our broken system for far too long. It takes direct access to the system to identify and fix it,” Harrison Fields, White House principal deputy press secretary, said in a statement to States Newsroom.

“DOGE will continue to shine a light on the fraud they uncover as the American people deserve to know what their government has been spending their hard earned tax dollars on,” Fields said.

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Shutdown averted: Enough Senate Democrats vote with the GOP to pass a government funding bill

Sean Michael Newhouse — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 18:26:27 -0400

The Senate on Friday approved, 54-46, a House-passed continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown that would have otherwise begun at midnight.

The key vote occurred earlier when 10 Democrats voted with most Senate Republicans to reach the 60-vote threshold needed to end debate on the bill, which will largely maintain current funding amounts for the rest of the fiscal year.

While Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., had said that Democrats wouldn’t vote for the bill, he reversed himself Thursday. In a floor speech, he argued that a shutdown would more easily enable President Donald Trump and de facto Department of Government Efficiency leader Elon Musk to eliminate federal programs and furlough employees.

Some Democrats said they wanted to use the shutdown fight to push back against DOGE cuts across the government.

Before the vote on final passage, Senate Democrats offered amendments that were mostly rejected in party-line votes. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, however, did vote for an amendment from Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., that he said would shut down DOGE.

The House passed the CR on Tuesday in a mostly party-line vote.

The federal government has been operating under a CR since the last fiscal year ended on Sept. 30.

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To avert a government shutdown, Senate Democratic leader says he’ll vote with the GOP

Sean Michael Newhouse — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 19:52:21 -0400

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on Thursday evening that he would vote to keep the government open, but he’s not happy about it.

“While the [continuing resolution] bill is very bad, the potential for a shutdown has consequences for America that are much, much worse,” he said in a floor speech.

Schumer’s comments are a change in tune from Wednesday when he said that Democrats would not provide the votes needed to approve the House-passed stopgap funding measure. He argued that the Senate should instead vote on a “clean” bill that would maintain spending levels for 30 days to enable bipartisan negotiations.

House Republicans on Tuesday passed in a mostly party-line vote legislation that would largely maintain current funding amounts for the rest of the fiscal year. If the Senate doesn’t pass the House bill or otherwise reach an agreement, a shutdown would begin after Friday.

It’s uncertain if enough Senate Democrats will vote with Schumer to get the CR over a 60-vote procedural hurdle before it can be passed with a simple majority.

Some Democrats have said they want to use the shutdown fight to push back against cuts across government spearheaded by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency. In contrast, Schumer argued in his speech that a shutdown would more easily enable Trump and Musk to eliminate federal programs and furlough employees without guarantees they’d be brought back.

The federal government has been operating under a CR since the last fiscal year ended on Sept. 30.

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Government shutdown prospects increase after Schumer says Democrats won’t vote for GOP funding bill

Sean Michael Newhouse — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 18:10:00 -0400

The likelihood of a government shutdown increased Wednesday after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said that Democrats would not provide the votes needed to approve a House-passed continuing resolution.

Schumer posted on X that Democrats are united behind a “clean” measure that would maintain spending levels for 30 days to enable bipartisan negotiations.

Some Democrats have said they want to use the shutdown fight to push back against cuts across government spearheaded by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency. They also argue that the House-passed CR cuts funding for nondefense programs and services by $13 billion from fiscal 2024 levels.

The House is in recess for the remainder of the week for House Democrats’ retreat, complicating any effort to avert a shutdown besides the Senate passing the House bill.

The federal government has been operating under a CR since the last fiscal year ended on Sept. 30.

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House passes GOP funding bill to avoid government shutdown

Sean Michael Newhouse — Tue, 11 Mar 2025 18:08:00 -0400

The House on Tuesday passed, 217-213, in a narrow, mostly party-line vote legislation to largely maintain current funding levels for the rest of the fiscal year in order to avert a government shutdown.

"In a shameful display of coordinated political theater, Democrats are willing to run out the clock on funding the government in a failed attempt to block the America First agenda," Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., posted on X following the vote. "Now it’s decision time for Senate Democrats: cast a vote to keep the government open or be responsible for shutting it down."

Senate Democrats are needed to attain the 60 votes for passage. They have been generally mum on if they’d support it. Some have said they want to use the shutdown fight to push back against cuts across government spearheaded by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, derided Republicans for not including her and her colleagues in negotiations and said they should therefore not count on Democrats’ votes.

“If House Republicans don’t think they need us when writing a bill, why should they expect us to support the bill?” Murray said on the Senate floor Tuesday.

The Senate has until Friday to clear the House-passed bill or otherwise reach an agreement to avoid a shutdown. House Republicans canceled votes for Wednesday, suggesting they will leave town for the week after Tuesday’s votes and making it more likely that at least a short-term shutdown would occur if the Senate does not approve the House bill.

House GOP leadership had few votes to spare with Democrats almost uniformly opposed to the continuing resolution.

Ahead of the vote, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., announced that he would vote against it, arguing the bill largely maintains spending from the Biden administration.

House Democrats contended the CR gives a “blank check” to Musk and cuts funding for nondefense programs and services by $13 billion from fiscal 2024 levels. Democrats have instead called for a “clean,” short-term CR to buy appropriators more time to write full-year appropriations bills that would set line-by-line funding levels across government.

Eric Katz contributed to this report

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Partnership for Public Service lays off dozens of staff

Frank Konkel — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 13:28:00 -0500

The Partnership for Public Service laid off dozens of employees on Friday, multiple people who themselves were laid off told Government Executive.

The layoffs came one week after staff received a memo foreshadowing a potentially significant downsizing due—at least in part—to forecasts of few if any new government contracts from the Trump administration for training and other services the organization provides. Layoffs totaled more than 40 people, according to three people familiar, more than a quarter of its entire workforce.

The layoffs at the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit come at the same time as the Trump administration has taken steps to fire tens of thousands of probationary civil servants, directed agencies to slash workforces and cull consultancies.

The Partnership for Public Service layoffs impacted several teams, including operations and events, the Public Service Leadership Institute, the Center for Presidential Transition and research teams. In addition to its training programs and research, which have upskilled civil servants and informed nearly every federal agency, the Partnership for Public Service organizes the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals gala to recognize outstanding civil service.

"To protect our future existence, we are reshaping the organization in significant ways," Partnership for Public Service CEO Max Stier said in a statement on LinkedIn. "Sadly, the Partnership today reduced our workforce by more than a quarter. Our people have always been our greatest asset, and this was undoubtedly the most difficult decision I have made as president and CEO. Our team is made up of smart, dedicated and hardworking people who have committed themselves to making our government work better. The Partnership is a better organization because of their contributions, and I will do everything I can to support those impacted in their next steps."

"As the Partnership enters a new phase, our work will look different, but we remain steadfast in pursuing meaningful change and advocating for both a better federal government and the millions of employees who ensure it continues to work on our behalf both now and in the future," Stier added.

“It’s obviously disappointing,” one former employee told Government Executive. “It’s a sign of a broader impact to come beyond just federal agencies.”

This story was updated to include comment from the Partnership for Public Service.

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FBI releases new information about killing of a Border Patrol agent in Vermont

Sean Michael Newhouse — Wed, 22 Jan 2025 14:31:00 -0500

David “Chris” Maland, the Border Patrol agent killed Monday, was shot while conducting a traffic stop in a Vermont town near the Canadian border, according to the FBI’s latest update on the case.

Federal law enforcement officials said Tuesday that a German national who was in the U.S. on a current visa also died from the shootout and that a third individual was injured and is being treated at a hospital.

The FBI said that its investigation is “extremely active.”

Paul Perez, the president of the Border Patrol Union, said in a Fox News interview that Maland was responding to intelligence.

“[Homeland Security Investigations] was involved. This was…I don’t want to say a targeted operation, but it wasn’t random,” he said, referring to the agency that investigates the illegal movement of people, goods and contraband in the U.S.

Maland, an Air Force veteran, was a security officer at the Pentagon during the Sept. 11 attacks, his family told The Association Press.

“Every single day, our Border Patrol agents put themselves in harm’s way so that Americans and our homeland are safe and secure,” acting DHS secretary Benjamine Huffman said in a statement. “My prayers and deepest condolences are with our department, the agent’s family, loved ones and colleagues.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark E. Green, R-Tenn., expressed gratitude for Maland’s “nearly a decade of service protecting our communities in the force.”

“We must never forget that the men and women in green on the frontlines of this border crisis defend our homeland at great personal cost,” he said in a statement. “Far too often these courageous public servants, like Agent Maland, pay the ultimate price.”

Vermont’s congressional delegation — independent Sen. Bernie Sanders and Democrats Sen. Peter Welch and Rep. Becca Balint — also expressed their “deepest condolences.”

“Border Patrol agents do important work protecting our borders. They deserve our full support in terms of staffing, pay and working conditions,” they said in a statement. “We look forward to working with the agency to make sure that they have all the resources they need to do the enormously important work that is their responsibility. Together, we must do everything possible to prevent future tragedies like what happened today.”

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What to know about President Jimmy Carter lying in state at the U.S. Capitol

Shauneen Miranda, States Newsroom — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 16:10:43 -0500

Former President Jimmy Carter will lie in state at the U.S. Capitol rotunda in Washington, D.C., beginning Tuesday at 7 p.m. EST.

Carter, who died Dec. 29 at 100 in his hometown of Plains, Ga., lived the longest of any U.S. president in history. The tradition of lying in state allows for people to pay their respects to a late government official or military officer through a public viewing at the Capitol.

Visitors can get in a line to the Capitol Visitor Center starting at 6 p.m. on Second and East Capitol streets, U.S. Capitol Police said in a news release.

The rotunda will be open until midnight Tuesday and reopen Wednesday at 7 a.m., according to USCP. Public viewing will end Thursday at 7 a.m.

USCP advised visitors to prepare for cold weather conditions while waiting in a line that will flow out of the Capitol Visitor Center.

Visitors are not allowed to bring “flowers, sealed envelopes, or other offerings” and must turn off cell phones and electronic devices, USCP said.

Visitors are also prohibited from taking photos and videos when in the rotunda and encouraged to use public transportation as there will be no public parking on the Capitol grounds.

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Johnson retains speakership, pledges to roll back 'totalitarian' administrative state

Sean Michael Newhouse — Fri, 03 Jan 2025 14:49:00 -0500

Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., overcame doubters on Friday by winning the House speakership on the first ballot, although at one point it looked like there would be a second vote.

"As heirs to the American Revolution and the descendants of patriots who defied tyranny, in the coming months we are going to pass legislation to roll back the totalitarian fourth branch of government known as the administrative state," he said in a speech following the vote. "We're going to drastically cut back the size and scope of government. We're going to return the power back to the people. And in coordination with President Trump and his administration, we're going to create a leaner, faster and more efficient federal workforce. We need to do that."

House Republicans have a narrow majority in the new 119th Congress, whose members were also sworn in Friday, and Johnson had few votes to spare.

Ultimately, Johnson’s only GOP detractor was Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who voted for Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn. Massie previously announced that he would not support the speaker, arguing he would “not be able to achieve the mandate voters gave Trump and Congress in November.”

Trump endorsed Johnson, wishing him luck on Friday morning. The final vote tally for Johnson was 218-215-1.

Initially, Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., voted for Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Rep. Keith Self, R-Texas, backed Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., but the pair changed their votes shortly after meeting with Johnson off the House floor.

Norman and Self are both members of the House Freedom Caucus, which frequently clashes with GOP leadership. Many Republicans criticized Johnson over his handling of the latest continuing resolution to fund the government through March 14.

House Democrats voted solidly for Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.

Johnson has previously said he wants to curtail telework for federal employees and backs Trump’s nongovernmental advisory panel to cut government spending, which will be led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.

“Government is too big. It does too many things, and it does almost nothing well,” Johnson said in December. “We believe it's an historic moment for the country, and these two gentlemen are going to help navigate through this exciting new day.”

On Friday, Johnson said he would create a working group of independent experts to work with Musk and Ramaswamy’s initiative on implementing government and spending reforms and to review audits of federal agencies.

Updated with quote from Johnson

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New Orleans attack prompts tighter security in D.C. ahead of inauguration, Carter funeral

Jennifer Shutt, States Newsroom — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 17:03:00 -0500

Law enforcement agencies in the nation's capital were closely monitoring security Thursday following a terrorist attack in New Orleans and a vehicle explosion outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas.

The violent incidents took place just ahead of several high-profile events in Washington, D.C., including the swearing-in of the new Congress on Friday, the certification of the Electoral College vote on Monday, former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral next week and the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump on Jan. 20.

Matthew Young, assistant special agent in charge at the U.S. Secret Service, said in a statement the agency would “adjust our security plans as needed.”

“While we cannot comment on protective means or methods, what we can say is that we will continue to work with our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners in assessing the ever-changing threat landscape and will adjust our security plans as needed,” Young said. “Our mission is to provide a safe and secure environment for our protectees, and all individuals involved in these events.”

The Secret Service has already designated Congress’ certification of the Electoral College, Carter’s funeral at Washington National Cathedral on Jan. 9 and the inauguration as National Special Security Events, which puts the agency in charge of planning and security logistics.

Those special security events are somewhat common for major political events, like the Republican and Democratic national conventions this summer and for presidential inaugurations.

This is, however, the first year the certification of the Electoral College on Monday will hold that designation after a mob attacked the U.S. Capitol during the last certification.

'An abundance of caution'

The Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., posted on social media that while “there is no known threat to the District of Columbia, out of an abundance of caution, MPD has heightened its security posture across the city in light of recent events.”

“Whenever an incident occurs in the country, MPD closely monitors the situation, evaluates intelligence and assesses our security posture,” MPD wrote in the statement. “As the nation’s capital, we maintain a heightened level of security at all times to ensure the safety of our residents, businesses and visitors.”

The U.S. Capitol Police said in a written statement that they “have already been ramping up security, as planned, ahead of a busy month at the U.S. Capitol.”

USCP had to close off several streets near the building on Thursday after someone drove on a sidewalk a few blocks away.

“Before 10 a.m., our officers spotted a car that had been driving along the sidewalk, near Peace Circle, and into the grassy area near Third Street, NW, & Constitution Avenue,” USCP wrote on social media. “Officers took the man into custody. Please continue to avoid the area while we investigate the car.”

The person was later charged with reckless driving after the USCP bomb squad determined there was no explosive device inside the car.

At least 15 people died and 37 were injured in New Orleans early Wednesday after a man drove a truck onto Bourbon Street in what law enforcement has declared a terrorist attack.

Local and federal law enforcement agencies are also investigating the explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on Wednesday. Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, is a close Trump associate.

Officials say they have not found any link between the two attacks, though they are investigating further.

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FBI confirms New Orleans attack was a terrorist incident

Sean Michael Newhouse — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 16:28:00 -0500

FBI officials said Thursday that the individual believed to be behind the New Orleans New Year’s Day attack was “100% inspired by ISIS,” noting that he posted videos supporting the Islamic militant organization, said he had joined the group and an ISIS flag was found with his vehicle.

Christopher Raia, the deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, said at a press conference Thursday that the attack, which killed at least 14 people and injured 35 more, was an act of terrorism. The FBI is the lead agency investigating the incident.

Officials previously identified the driver as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old U.S. citizen from Texas and Army veteran who was killed by police in an ensuing shootout.

Raia also said that the FBI does not currently assess that anyone else was involved in the New Orleans attack and that there is no definitive link between it and the explosion Wednesday of a Tesla Cybertruck outside of the Trump hotel in Las Vegas. The only fatality of that incident was an individual in the vehicle.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said at the press conference that more than 1,000 federal, state and local officers have been involved in the investigation, and Raia said that the FBI is surging staff to New Orleans.

“Special agents in multiple field offices across the country have been deployed and are assisting with potential aspects of this investigation and following up on every lead,” he said, noting the agency has received more than 400 tips.

FBI bomb technicians recovered two improvised explosive devices from near the attack; Raia said surveillance footage shows Jabbar placing them there.

Additionally, FBI’s Evidence Response Team is involved in collecting and processing evidence, and FBI specialists are providing assistance to victims and their family members.

Joshua Jackson — the special agent in charge for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives New Orleans field division — said at the press conference that an agency team is helping secure the Sugar Bowl that is taking place in New Orleans on Thursday. The college football playoff was scheduled to take place on New Year’s Day but was pushed back following the attack.

Jackson said that ATF security resources also would be available for the Super Bowl, which New Orleans is hosting next month, and March’s Mardi Gras celebration.

Republican members of Congress — including Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., — urged the FBI to be transparent during its investigation into the attack.

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