A new lawsuit says Trump and his government are unconstitutional

What has DOGE done in Trump’s first 100 days? Source: How well did Trump, Musk, Ramaswamy, DOGE and NPR trackers have complied?

Trump announced that Musk and Ramaswamy would lead DOGE a week after the election, marked by inefficiency.

Trump called DOGE a very big success in an interview with Time. He said they found hundreds of billions of dollars of waste. “It’s a scam. It’s illegal, in my opinion, so much of the stuff that we found, but I think DOGE has been a big success from that standpoint.”

Some agencies have upwards of a dozen DOGE-affiliated personnel, while others have just one or two. A small number of DOGE-linked staffers have been working at multiple federal agencies at the same time.

On its website, DOGE claims $160 billion has been saved through canceling contracts, firing workers and other measures. NPR reports that the tracker is plagued with errors.

The five contract cancels that account for the most savings, amounting to almost $7.5 billion in the DOGE tracker, represent just under $1 billion in potential savings. They include a contract that was never awarded, one that was already terminated and another that doesn’t appear to be canceled at all, as DOGE continues to use misleading math.

Source: What has DOGE done in Trump’s first 100 days?

Facing the Rulings: A Federal Workforce That Can’t Run Without a “Penrose”? An Employee’s Perspective of the Open Federal Lobby

“They are roving in search of cuts they can put up on their wall to get that number up, whether it’s cutting staff, contracts, leases, grants, programs, offices, whatever,” said one General Services Administration worker who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from the Trump administration.

From the beginning, Trump and Musk zeroed in on federal workers, saying they want to “dismantle government bureaucracy” and root out what Trump calls “rogue bureaucrats.”

Tens of thousands of workers were targeted by the opening volley because they were recent hires or had been promoted to new roles.

Some firings were so abrupt that agencies scrambled to bring back terminated staff, including those at the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration who oversee the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile. Employees were fired, then sacked again before being fired again.

The legal system has caused challenges to those terminated to work their way through, but some agencies say court-ordered reinstated caused significant administrative burdens. The Supreme Court and a federal appeals court paused those rulings this month, clearing the way for firings to continue.

Musk pushed for federal employees to resign to get paid through September without having to work. Some workers who accepted the offer have since been told they can’t actually take it.

A Department of Agriculture employee, who spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation in their job, was approved to take the resignation offer and was supposed to go on administrative leave on May 1. The employee was told in an email that their job was deemed “mission critical” and that they should “reconsider their enroll”. They still plan to resign.

“At this point, it’s their loss after firing [probationary employees], rehiring, uncertainty, mental anguish, being kept in the dark about decisions that affect your livelihood,” the employee said. “It isn’t fair to Americans because we will all feel the effects of agencies that can’t run effectively, but that’s not my fault. It’s the fault of the decision makers.”

The federal government is the nation’s largest employer and more than 80% of its employees live outside of Washington, D.C. so the layoffs are likely to affect communities across the country.

The employee at the IRS said that people are dropping like flies when it comes to those they are eligible for retirement. “That makes a lot of work for everyone else, especially since they can’t hire. Many people can’t do their jobs because there aren’t enough of them.

“We believe that a number of people on the government payroll are dead, so they can’t respond, and we also believe that some people are not real people.” Musk said in a cabinet meeting that there were fictional individuals that were collecting paychecks.

Musk has also claimed that Social Security is plagued with a lot of fraudulent activity, such as benefits going to dead people and recipients who are impossibly listed as well over 100 years old. His claims have been debunked by the Social Security Administration’s inspector general and its acting commissioner, Leland Dudek.

DOGE’s access to federal data and immigration policies has reshaped the federal workforce: NPR analysis of FDA employees’ frustrations and frustrations

Even as the administration demands workers return to the office, it’s also looking to cut the federal government’s real estate footprint by 25%, according to an NPR analysis. Some offices in which federal employees are assigned have been told that may close in the near future, and some have been changed after public outcry.

The goal of remote work was to bring down the taxpayer burden and be more efficient, said an FDA employee who asked to remain anonymous. The employee was assigned to an office with insufficient space. This is not sustainable. They are going to have to build bigger spaces if they want to be heard, said the employee who asked not to be named.

Many workers say that a freeze on government payment cards is preventing them from being able to do their jobs and they are unable to buy supplies and services,book travel and carry out mandated work. Long delays now occur when spending is approved by leadership at some agencies.

One Bureau of Land Management worker said that they were overjoyed when the department approved their expenditures to install a vault toilet at one of their field offices. “It took weeks to get this approved when it was not an issue before.”

Have information or evidence to share about DOGE’s access to data and other activities inside the federal government? Reach out to these authors through encrypted communications on Signal: Stephen Fowler is available at stphnfwlr.25 and Shannon Bond is available at shannonbond.01. Please use a nonwork device.

Other court documents reveal that a small number of DOGE employees have essentially unlimited access to different federal systems that could be combined to create dossiers about American citizens and noncitizens in violation of privacy laws.

Its data access is also being used to further the Trump administration’s immigration policies: The Department of Homeland Security announced last week that DOGE helped overhaul an immigration database to serve as “a single, reliable source for verifying non-citizen status nationwide.”

What is certain is that DOGE has already reshaped the federal workforce: More than 100,000 federal workers have been fired or taken buyouts to leave the civil service so far, though ongoing court battles mean that number is likely to change in the coming months. Add in planned reduction-in-force efforts across agencies and close to 10% of the 2.5 million-person federal workforce could be gone by the end of the fiscal year.

DOGE has not Delivered on What the American People Really Really Want: Insights, Challenges, and Responses to Trump’s Second Term

He said he would have to keep doing it, in order to make sure that the waste and fraud that they stopped doesn’t come back.

“Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Many of DOGE’s initiatives have been reversed or delayed after legal setbacks and backlash in the court of public opinion. Since Jan. 20, dozens of federal lawsuits have challenged DOGE’s activities or mentioned its actions, according to NPR’s review of district court dockets across the U.S.

Despite the claims of 100 days into Trump’s second term, DOGE has not delivered on its promised savings, efficiency or transparency.

Trump has touted these moves as restoring accountability. He has repeatedly argued that the American people, through the 2024 election, gave him a mandate to eliminate waste, fraud and inefficiency in the federal government.

The lawsuits stated that Trump’s executive order had caused irreparable harm and requested that the court to throw it out. They have also asked the court to void agencies’ “reduction in force” or RIF plans, arguing that the compressed timeline — only a matter of weeks — set forth by the Trump administration for submitting those plans for approval could not have allowed for proper compliance with statutory and regulatory requirements.

The president and Musk are accused in a lawsuit of violating the Constitution because they weren’t given the green light by Congress.

The coalition of labor unions, nonprofits and local governments includes Chicago, Baltimore, and Harris County, Texas.

Yet Congress, which is led by Republican allies of Trump, has largely chosen to remain silent as the administration fires federal workers, shuts down government programs and closes federal buildings.