We're getting more confirmation of the careless and criminal way DOGE operated... in no particular order, here's a collection: 1)
Whistleblower says Trump officials thought USAID did 'just abortions,' asked for 'Barney-style' slides before gutting agency, per new book. Enrich's new book "Into the Wood Chipper: A Whistleblower's Account of How the Trump Administration Shredded USAID" will be published on Tuesday, and The Handbasket is proud to share an exclusive excerpt.
2)
DOGE's secret voter data deal was 'alarming,' court finds. A federal appeals court Friday raised serious concerns about a secret voter data agreement involving the Trump administration and ordered a lower court to take another look at a case challenging its access to Social Security data. The decision comes after new evidence emerged in January showing that Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) personnel worked with an outside political group seeking to challenge election results — something that was not disclosed during earlier court proceedings.
3)
Management of Agency Reforms and Workforce Planning Needed to Address Severe Risks to Future IRS Operations and
DOGE cuts threaten the agency's "core operations," a recent Treasury watchdog report warns (via The Lever). Within the first seven months of the Trump administration, officials canceled more than 75 percent of taxpayer-facing contracts held by the IRS. That threatens the agency's "core operations," a recent Treasury watchdog report warns, including return processing, customer service, compliance enforcement, and telephone interpreter services. The IRS also lost 17 percent of its staff in 2025, creating work backlogs and skill gaps that could lead to headaches for filers this season.
4)
I Watched 6 Hours of DOGE Bro Testimony. Here's What They Had to Say For Themselves and
DOGE Bros Had More Fun Burning Down Government Than Testifying About It. Over the course of a six hour long or so deposition, Justin Fox, a former investment banker turned DOGE bro, refused to define what he believes counts as DEI; admitted he used ChatGPT to scan government contracts for terms such as "Black" and "homosexual" but not "white" or "caucasian;" and said that one of the grants he helped slash was "not for the benefit of humankind" before walking that claim back.
5)
When DOGE Unleashed ChatGPT on the Humanities and
New disclosures reveal how DOGE actually worked. Depositions offer insight into what Elon Musk's group was up to. Members describe a club-like atmosphere in which they pushed for grant and contract cancellations across the government with little oversight.
BONUS:
6)
The broken database that could upend the 2026 election. President Trump and the election conspiracy theorists he surrounds himself with are determined to exclude people from voting in the 2026 election based on one database: the Department of Homeland Security's Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE). Why? SAVE is an incomplete and flawed database that has been shown to produce a massive number of false positives, incorrectly identifying American citizens as aliens. Thus, using SAVE to exclude voters buttresses the lie that a significant number of undocumented immigrants vote in elections.
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DOGE on metafilter previously:
https://www.metafilter.com/tags/doge
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