agency

There’s some good news related to the Trump administration’s concerted attack on the Social Security Administration: Thus far, it doesn’t appear to have significantly affected the delivery of benefits. Checks are still going out and payments into beneficiaries’ bank accounts are still arriving on time.

Beyond that, however, the system is going to hell.

While Social Security appears to still be working well — superficially — under the surface the agency is suffering through a period of unprecedented turmoil. That’s the gist of a new report by Kathleen Romig and Devin O’Connor, Social Security experts at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Under the Trump administration, Romig and O’Connor observe, the Social Security Administration’s regional office staff “have been mostly eliminated, robbing front-line staff of key supports.” Headquarters staffing has been cut by nearly half, including technology experts. Field office and call center staff also have been eviscerated.

Few departments within SSA have been spared — not even the office tasked with helping members of Congress assist their constituents with Social Security issues and helping to develop legislation.

The so-called Office of Legislation and Congressional Affairs was cut to three employees from 50. Constituent caseworkers in congressional offices have been receiving “bounce-back emails and no-replies from legislative liaison offices that were previously responsive to congressional inquiries,” according to a letter sent by 50 Democratic House members to the SSA in July.

Even Republicans, who generally have been willing to go along with the administration’s rampage through agency budgets, raised the alarm about customer service failures at SSA, noting in a legislative markup that “there are significant service delivery challenges at SSA that are impacting critical services that millions of Americans count on. “

The agency’s staffing problems may be simmering under the surface, but it translates into chronically poor customer service. “Inadequate staffing at SSA directly harms the retirees, people with disabilities, and bereaved families the agency is responsible for serving,” Romig and O’Connor report.

“Because there aren’t enough workers in SSA’s local offices, applicants wait over a month on average for an appointment. Because there aren’t enough people answering the agency’s 800 number, most callers wait over two hours on average for an answer, as of early August,” they write. “Because there aren’t enough disability examiners, applicants wait eight months for an initial decision on their eligibility for disability benefits, with an additional seven-month wait for those who appeal.”

Meanwhile, more information has emerged about the incursion of untrained representatives of Elon Musk’s budget-cutting DOGE service into Social Security’s most carefully guarded databases. The outcome has been the exposure of workers’ and beneficiaries’ private personal information to outsiders, all without adequate oversight.

I’ve been following Trump’s campaign against Social Security from the outset. Although Trump has promised repeatedly that “we’re not touching Social Security,” actions speak louder than words, and his unconcern about the program, if not his outright hostility, have been screaming from the rooftops.

Among the weapons Trump could use to undermine the program, as I wrote, was “starving the program of administrative resources — think money and staff.” As it happened, Sure enough, within a month of Trump’s inauguration, the program announced plans to reduce its employee base to 50,000 from 57,000.

Its press release about the reduction referred to the program’s “bloated workforce.” That sounded like a cheap gag, since the truth is that the agency has been hopelessly understaffed for years.

The DOGE team showed its ignorance and incompetence at every turn, issuing inaccurate assertions about fraud at Social Security and then instituting operational changes that had no effect on fraud but inconvenienced thousands of beneficiaries. In March, for example, a DOGE employee went on Fox News with the claim that 40% of phone calls to the agency to change direct deposit information came from fraudsters. As a result, the agency mandated that such changes had to be made in person or online.

The true statistic misinterpreted by DOGE was that 40% of direct deposit fraud is connected with phone calls, not that 40% of all calls to change bank information is fraudulent. After the dime dropped at DOGE, the restriction was rescinded.

Since then, the Trump administration has acted from time to time as if the Social Security Administration is an arm of the White House. In March, it shut down SSA services in Maine because the state’s governor had challenged Trump face-to-face over his policies. (The decision was promptly reversed, but then-Acting Commissioner Leland Dudek admitted that he had taken the step in retaliation for the governor’s conflict with Trump.)

In April, Trump tried to dragoon Social Security into his anti-immigrant campaign by declaring some 6,300 purportedly illegal immigrants to be “dead” in program records, even though they were very much alive. The administration said its goal was to deny the workers benefits, though under the law noncitizens without legal residency in the U.S. can’t collect benefits, even if they’ve made payroll contributions to the program.

The biggest threat to the public’s confidence in Social Security may be the administration’s raid on its secure databases, starting with a rampage by DOGE documented by then-Chief of Staff Tiffany Flick.

More has come out since Flick filed her account in court. Last month, Chuck Borges, formerly the program’s chief data officer, filed a whistleblower affidavit outlining his concerns about “serious data security lapses, evidently orchestrated by DOGE officials, currently employed as SSA employees, that risk the security of over 300 million Americans’ Social Security data.”

DOGE, Borges reported, created “a live copy of the country’s Social Security information” and placed it in a digital platform that could be easily accessed by those without authorization.

At issue is the so-called NUMIDENT database, which includes the “name, … place and date of birth, citizenship, race and ethnicity, parents’ names and social security numbers, phone number, address, and other personal information” of every applicant for a Social Security card.

“Should bad actors gain access to this cloud environment,” Borges asserts, “Americans may be susceptible to widespread identity theft, may lose vital healthcare and food benefits, and the government may be responsible for re-issuing every American a new Social Security Number at great cost.”

Trump has instituted the largest staffing cut in Social Security history, while the caseload per employee is higher than ever

(Center on Budget and Policy Priorities)

A federal court shut that access and activity down. But in June it was overruled by the Supreme Court, which unaccountably granted DOGE members access to the agency database “in order for those members to do their work.”

SSA didn’t respond to my request for comment on these issues or on increasing concern about the program’s functioning under its recently installed commissioner, Frank Bisignano.

Bisignano has been issuing self-congratulatory press releases boasting about improvements to customer service metrics at the agency — for example, phone answer times cut to an average of six minutes, down from 30 minutes last year. A press release issued in July attributed the improvement to “focused technology enhancements and process engineering.”

In fact, according to Romig and O’Connor, it’s more likely that the improvement happened because the agency reassigned 1,000 staffers from field offices, where they served clients face-to-face, to answering phones. The reassignments, Romig and O’Connor observed, “likely is coming at a steep cost to the rest of the agency’s work.”

At least 2,000 field office employees already had been pushed out by DOGE, so removing an additional 1,000 workers from the field only “deepens problems for people seeking in-person service — which were already considerable.”

Indeed, back in April the agency itself acknowledged that more than three dozen field offices around the country were in dire condition, suffering staff losses of 25% to 33% from DOGE’s “voluntary” resignation program that resulted in the loss of more than 7,000 workers overall, or 13% of the payroll.

Earlier this year, DOGE listed 47 Social Security offices due for closing, though it is not clear how many have actually been shuttered this year or what the schedule is for closing the rest.

Over the last decade or so, Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have been wringing their hands over what they say is Social Security’s impending fiscal crisis, caused by the exhaustion of its trust fund reserve sometime in the next decade. But that’s still the subject of conjecture.

What’s more certain is that the congressional cheeseparing and the DOGE raid that have produced the largest staffing cut in the program’s history — at a time when its caseload is at record size and is destined to grow even further — loom as a greater threat to most workers and beneficiaries.

“To raise customer service to acceptable levels, Congress must not only provide SSA with sufficient funding but also forcefully push back against the Administration’s current mismanagement of its existing resources,” Romig and O’Connor maintain.

They’re right. Isn’t it time for Capitol Hill to take firm, bipartisan action to protect America’s most important government service from its enemies?

WASHINGTON — Hours after the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, FBI Director Kash Patel declared online that “the subject” in the killing was in custody. The shooter was not. The two men who had been detained were quickly released. Utah officials acknowledged that the gunman remained at large.

The false assurance was more than a slip. It spotlighted the high-stakes uncertainty surrounding Patel’s leadership of the bureau when its credibility is under extraordinary pressure, as is his own.

Patel now approaches congressional oversight hearings this week facing not just questions about that investigation but broader doubts about whether he can stabilize a federal law enforcement agency fragmented by political fights and internal upheaval.

Democrats are poised to press Patel on a purge of senior executives that has prompted a lawsuit, his pursuit of President Trump’s grievances over the Russia investigation long after it ended, and a realignment of resources that has prioritized illegal immigration and street crime over the FBI’s traditional pursuits.

The hearings will offer Patel his most consequential stage yet, and perhaps the clearest test of whether he can convince the country that the FBI, under his watch, can avoid compounding its mistakes in a time of political violence and deepening distrust.

“Because of the skepticism that some members of the Senate have had and still have, it’s extremely important that he perform very well at these oversight hearings” on Tuesday and Wednesday, said Gregory Brower, the FBI’s former top congressional affairs official.

The FBI declined to comment about Patel’s coming testimony.

Inaccurate claim after Kirk shooting

Kirk’s killing was always going to be a closely scrutinized investigation, not only because it was the latest burst of political violence in the U.S. but also because of Kirk’s friendships with Trump, Patel and other administration figures and allies.

While agents investigated, Patel posted on X that “the subject for the horrific shooting today that took the life of Charlie Kirk is now in custody.” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said at a near-contemporaneous news conference that “whoever did this, we will find you,” suggesting authorities were still searching. Patel soon after posted that the person “in custody” had been released.

Two people were initially held for questioning in the case, but neither was a suspect.

As the search stretched on, Patel angrily vented to FBI personnel Thursday about what he perceived as a failure to keep him informed, including that he was not quickly shown a photograph of the suspected shooter. That’s according to people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to discuss it by name and spoke on condition of anonymity to the Associated Press. The New York Times earlier reported details of the call.

Asked about the scrutiny of Patel’s performance, the FBI said it had worked with local law enforcement to bring the suspect, Tyler Robinson, to justice and “will continue to be transparent.”

Patel’s overall response did not go unnoticed in conservative circles. One prominent GOP strategist, Christopher Rufo, posted that it was “time for Republicans to assess whether Kash Patel is the right man to run the FBI.”

FBI personnel purge

On the same day Kirk was killed, Patel also faced a lawsuit from three FBI senior executives fired in an August purge that they characterized as a Trump administration retribution campaign.

Among them was Brian Driscoll, who as acting FBI director in the early days of the administration resisted Justice Department demands for names of agents who investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. Driscoll alleged in the lawsuit that he was let go after he challenged the leadership’s desire to terminate an FBI pilot who had been wrongly identified on social media as having been part of the FBI search for classified documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Trump, while out of office, was indicted for his role in Jan. 6 and the classified documents case.

The upheaval continues a trend that began before Patel took over, when more than a half-dozen senior executives were forced out under a Justice Department rationale that they could not be “trusted” to implement Trump’s agenda.

There’s since been significant turnover in leadership at the FBI’s 55 field offices. Some left because of promotions or retirements, but others because of ultimatums to accept new assignments or resign. The head of the Salt Lake City office, an experienced counterterrorism investigator, was pushed out of her position weeks before Kirk was killed at a Utah college, said people familiar with the move.

FBI’s priorities shift

Patel arrived at the FBI having been a sharp critic of its leadership, including for the Trump indictments and investigations that he says politicized the institution. Under Patel and Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, the FBI and Justice Department have become entangled in their own politically fraught investigations, such as one focused on New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James.

He’s moved quickly to remake the bureau, with the FBI and Justice Department working to investigate one of the Republican president’s chief grievances — the years-old Trump-Russia investigation. Trump calls that probe, which found that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help him get elected but did not establish a criminal conspiracy between Russia and Trump’s campaign, a “hoax.”

The Justice Department appeared to confirm in an unusual statement that it was investigating former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan, pivotal players in the Russia investigation, but did not say for what. Bondi has directed that evidence be presented to a grand jury.

Critics of the new Russia inquiry consider it a transparent attempt to turn the page from the fierce backlash the FBI and Justice Department endured from Trump’s base following the July announcement that those agencies would not be releasing any additional documents from the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking investigation.

Patel has meanwhile elevated the fight against street crime, drug trafficking and illegal immigration to the top of the FBI’s agenda, in alignment with Trump’s agenda.

The bureau defends its aggressive policing in American cities that the Trump administration contends have been consumed by crime, despite falling crime rates in recent years in the cities targeted. Patel says the thousands of resulting arrests, many immigration-related, are “what happens when you let good cops be good cops.”

Critics say the street crime focus draws attention and resources from the sophisticated public corruption and national security threats for which the bureau has long been primarily, if not solely, responsible for investigating.

Tucker writes for the Associated Press.

Paramount has named Kenneth R. Weinstein, former head of a conservative-leaning Washington think tank, to be ombudsman for CBS News, fulfilling a condition of winning the Trump administration’s approval for an $8-billion merger.

The company announced Monday “that complaints from consumers, employees and others” about CBS News stories will go to Weinstein, who will help determine if remedial action is necessary.

Weinstein, who served as president and chief executive of the Hudson Institute, will report to Jeff Shell, who is president of Paramount under new owner and CEO David Ellison.

Weinstein will address complaints about news coverage in consultation with Shell, CBS President and CEO George Cheeks and CBS News Executive Editor Tom Cibrowski.

Paramount buyer Skydance Media agreed to appoint an ombudsman in order to get regulatory clearance for its acquisition of the media company, which closed in August.

The Federal Communications Commission said Skydance agreed to commit to “viewpoint diversity, nondiscrimination and enhanced localism” in its news coverage when the agency announced its approval of the deal.

“Americans no longer trust the legacy national news media to report fully, accurately, and fairly. It is time for a change,” FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said in a statement at the time of the approval. “That is why I welcome Skydance’s commitment to make significant changes at the once storied CBS broadcast network.”

Under Skydance’s ownership, CBS News has already shown a willingness to respond to Trump White House beefs with its coverage. On Friday the division announced a new policy for its Washington public affairs program “Face the Nation,” which will no longer edit taped interviews.

The policy shift came after U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem complained that her Aug. 31 “Face the Nation” interview, which was trimmed for time, deleted harsh allegations against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man wrongly deported to his native El Salvador. He was returned to the U.S., where he faces deportation efforts.

In addition to his work at the Hudson Institute, where he still holds a chair, Weinstein served on multiple advisory boards including the United States Agency for Global Media when it was known as the Broadcasting Board of Governors. The agency, currently headed on an interim basis by Kari Lake, oversees the funding for government-run media outlets such as Voice of America.

Weinstein also holds a doctorate in government from Harvard University and has taught political theory at Georgetown University and Claremont McKenna College.

“I’ve known [Weinstein] for many years and have respect for his integrity, sound judgment and thoughtful approach to complex issues,” Shell said in a statement. “Ken brings not only a wealth of experience in media and beyond but also a calm measured perspective that makes him exceptionally well-suited to serve as our Ombudsman.”

Two Senate Republicans have opened yet another investigation into the deadly Palisades fire, adding to a long list of ongoing probes aimed at determining whether local officials prepared sufficiently for the emergency.

The investigation will look at whether emergency preparations were sufficient, including an examination of whether there was enough reservoir water to respond to the deadly wildfire.

Sens. Rick Scott of Florida and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin announced Monday that they were leading the congressional investigation, which they said is necessary to “uncover and expose the truth” about how the state and local governments responded to the major blaze, which broke out amid hurricane-force winds and quickly overwhelmed firefighting resources.

“Families in this community deserve answers and accountability,” Scott and Johnson wrote in a joint statement.

The new probe is the latest in a string of ongoing investigations into the start of the fire and how officials responded. It comes almost nine months since the fire broke out on Jan. 7, killing 12 and largely destroying Pacific Palisades. That same day, the Eaton fire erupted in Altadena, killing 19 people and devastating the foothill community.

The congressional investigation appears to focus only on the Palisades fire, and will look specifically at what water resources were — or weren’t — available, and why.

The Times first reported that the Santa Ynez Reservoir, located in the heart of Pacific Palisades, was empty when the fire broke out, and remained that way as firefighters experienced dry hydrants and water pressure issues. The 117-million-gallon water storage complex had been closed for repairs to its cover for nearly a year, officials said.

After The Times’ reporting on the reservoir, Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered an investigation into the city’s water system and how it may have hampered firefighting efforts.

Times reporting also exposed poor preparation and deployment by the Los Angeles Fire Department, even as city officials were repeatedly warned about life-threatening winds and red flag conditions. Top brass at the agency decided not to deploy roughly 1,000 available firefighters and dozens of water-carrying engines in advance of the Palisades fire.

The announcement of this federal investigation comes a few weeks after Scott — the former governor of hurricane-prone Florida — met with former reality star Spencer Pratt to tour some of the areas destroyed by the Palisades fire. At the time of their meeting, Pratt, who lost a home in the fire, was demanding a congressional investigation — an action that Scott said he would do his “best to make sure it happens.”

Pratt has also sued the city, alleging it failed to maintain an adequate water supply and other infrastructure.

In recent weeks, Scott has sent letters to several agencies seeking answers about how California used federal funds for wildfire management and response. In an August letter to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Scott said it appeared that the state and the city of Los Angeles had not used the agency’s funds “wisely or appropriately.”

The response to the January firestorm, particularly in the Palisades, has become a polarizing topic — and rife with misinformation —among national and local political leaders, from President Trump to developer Rick Caruso, a former mayoral contender against L.A.’s current mayor, Karen Bass. Caruso, who owns Palisades Village mall, became an immediate critic of the city’s response, blasting officials for struggling to meet water demands during the fire fight.

But fire and water experts have repeatedly said that the conditions during the fire were unprecedented, and one that no urban water system could have been properly prepared.

Still, understanding what, if anything, went wrong during the Palisades fire appears to have struck somewhat of a bipartisan note. Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday said his team will “absolutely welcome” this additional review.

“It complements the thorough investigations already taking place — including by the federal government, the state, and an independent review by the nation’s leading fire experts,” Newsom said in a statement. “From day one, we’ve embraced transparency because Californians deserve nothing less.”

Los Angeles officials last month delayed releasing one of those reports, so as not to interfere with a federal investigation into the cause of the Palisades fire.

The new congressional investigation, which will be led by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, will give senators the power to issue subpoenas and seek documents for the committee’s review.

Exposing years-old concerns about California’s resilience to wildfires, a government whistleblower and other witnesses in a recent state trial alleged that cleanup operations after some of the largest fires in state history were plagued by mismanagement and overspending — and that toxic contamination was at times left behind in local communities.

Steven Larson, a former state debris operations manager in the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, failed to convince a jury that he was wrongly fired by the agency for flagging those and other issues to his supervisors. After a three-week trial in Sacramento, the jury found Larson was retaliated against, but also that the agency had other, legitimate reasons for dismissing him from his post, according to court records.

Still, the little-discussed trial provided a rare window into a billion-dollar public-private industry that is rapidly expanding — and becoming increasingly expensive for taxpayers and lucrative for contractors — given the increased threat of fires from climate change.

It raised serious questions about the state’s fire response and management capabilities at a time when the Trump administration says it is aggressively searching for “waste, fraud and abuse” in government spending, proposing cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and clashing with state leaders over the best way to respond to future wildfires in California.

The allegations raised in the trial also come as FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers are overseeing similar debris removal work — by some of the same contractors — following the wildfires that destroyed much of Pacific Palisades and parts of Altadena in January, and as fresh complaints arise around that work, as The Times recently reported.

Steve Larson poses for a portrait at Elk Grove Park on Sept. 1. Larson, who was a former state debris operations manager in the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, is a whistleblower alleging widespread problems in California fire cleanups.

(Andri Tambunan / For The Times)

During the trial, Larson and other witnesses with direct knowledge of state fire contracts raised allegations of poor oversight and sloppy hiring and purchasing practices by CalRecycle, the state agency that oversaw multiple major cleanup contracts for CalOES; overcharging and poor record-keeping by contractors; toxic contamination being left behind on properties meant to have been cleared; and insufficient responses to those problems from both CalOES and FEMA officials.

The claims were buttressed at trial by the introduction into evidence of a previously unpublished audit of cleanup operations for several large fires in 2018. They were mostly rejected by attorneys for the state, who acknowledged some problems — which they said are common in fast-paced emergency responses operations. They broadly denied Larson’s allegations as baseless, saying he was an inexperienced and disgruntled former employee who was fired for poor performance.

The allegations were also dismissed by CalOES and by Burlingame-based Environmental Chemical Corp., which was the state’s lead contractor on the 2018 fires and is now the Army Corps of Engineer’s lead contractor on cleanup work for the Palisades and Eaton fires, which is nearing completion.

Anita Gore, a spokeswoman for CalOES, defended the agency’s work in a statement to The Times. While acknowledging some problems in the past, she said the agency is “committed to protecting the health and safety of all Californians, including in the aftermath of disasters, and is unwavering in its desire to maintain a safe and inclusive workplace where everyone can feel respected and thrive.”

In its own statement to The Times, ECC said it followed the directives and oversight of state and federal agencies at all times, and “is proud of its work helping communities recover from devastating disasters.”

“We approach each project with professionalism, transparency, and a commitment to delivering results under extraordinarily challenging conditions,” the company said.

Maria Bourn, one of Larson’s attorneys, told The Times that while her client lost at trial — which they are appealing — his case marked a “win for government accountability and the public at-large” by revealing “massive irregularities by wildfire debris removal contractors” who continue to work in the state.

“The state’s continued partnership with these companies when such widespread irregularities were identified by one of its own should alarm every taxpayer,” Bourn said.

A Malibu home lies in ruins after the Woolsey fire. Many questions were raised about the response.

(Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

Camp, Woolsey and Hill fires

The allegations centered in large part around the state-run cleanup efforts following the Camp fire in Northern California, which killed 85 people and all but erased the town of Paradise in November 2018, and the contemporaneous Woolsey and Hill fires in Southern California, which ripped through Malibu and other parts of Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

FEMA has reimbursed the state more than $1 billion for costs associated with those cleanup efforts.

In a July 28, 2019, email entered as evidence in the trial, Larson wrote to CalOES chief of internal audits Ralph Zavala that he wanted to talk to him about “potential fraud” by Camp fire contractors, including ECC.

“I cannot say for sure, but something sure smells fishy,” Larson wrote in the email. “Either their contract was not in fact the lowest bid or they are creating fraud in the way they collect debris.”

Larson wrote in the same email that ECC was “supposedly the lowest bidder” but was “costing more” than the lower bids, which he wrote “doesn’t make sense.” At trial, Larson and his attorneys repeatedly claimed that instead of properly investigating his claims, his supervisors turned against him.

Other current and former state officials testified that they had raised similar concerns.

Todd Thalhamer, a former Camp fire area commander and operations chief who still works for CalRecycle, testified during the trial that he’d told Larson he believed ECC had low-balled its bid to win the work, then overcharged the state by millions of dollars. He said he had “dug very deep into the tonnage cost that they were charging, how they were charging, how they were cleaning it up,” and believed that ECC had been able to “game the system” by reporting that it was hauling out more of the debris types for which it could charge the most.

ECC denied manipulating bids or overcharging the state, and said that “all debris types and volumes are 100% inspected by and determined by CalRecycle and its monitoring representatives and systems, not by ECC or its subcontractors.”

Thalhamer testified that he’d sent an “email blast” out to top CalOES and CalRecycle officials telling them of his findings. He said that led to internal discussions and some but not all issues being resolved.

Further concerns were raised in records obtained by Larson’s attorneys from the prominent accounting firm EY, formerly known as Ernst & Young, which the state paid nearly $4 million to audit the Camp, Woolsey and Hill fire cleanup work.

According to those records, which were cited at trial, EY found that CalRecycle was “unable to produce documentation that fully supports how the proposed costs were determined to be reasonable when evaluating contractor proposals,” and didn’t appear to have “appropriate controls or oversight over the contractor’s performance.”

EY flagged $457 million charged by the contractors through 89 separate “change orders” — or additional charges not contemplated in their initial bids. It said the state lacked an adequate approval process for determining whether to accept such orders, couldn’t substantiate them and risked FEMA rescinding its funding if it didn’t take “immediate corrective action.”

EY specifically flagged $181 million in change orders for the construction of two “base camps” near the burn areas, from which the contractors would operate. It said the state only had invoices for $91 million of that spending, and that even those invoices were not itemized. EY executive Jill Powell testified that the firm believed such large contract changes were likely to be flagged as questionable by FEMA.

ECC — one of two contractors EY noted as having made the base camp change orders — defended its work.

The company said change orders are a necessary part of any cleanup operation, where the final cost “depends on the final quantities of debris that the Government directs the Contractors to remove and how far the material has to be transported for recycling or disposal.”

Such quantities can change over the course of a contract, which leads to changes in cost, it said.

As for the base camps, ECC said the state had explicitly stated in its initial request for proposals that it would “develop the requirements” and negotiate their cost through change orders, because details about their likely location and size were still being worked out when the bids were being accepted.

“Bidders could not know at the time of bid, which area of Paradise they would be assigned, how many properties would be assigned to the bidder, and therefore the exact size of the workforce that the Government would want housed in a Base Camp,” ECC said.

ECC said it “submitted invoices with supporting documentation in the format requested” by CalRecycle for all expenditures, and was “not aware of any missing invoices.”

“We cannot speak to what EY was provided from the State’s files or how the State provided those materials for EY’s review,” the company said. “Any gap in what EY reviewed should not be interpreted as meaning ECC failed to submit documentation.”

ECC said state officials only ever complimented the company for its work on the 2018 fires. And it said it continues to work in Southern California “with the same professionalism and care we bring to every project.”

SPSG, the second contractor EY flagged as being involved in the base camp change orders, did not respond to a request for comment.

Attorney James F. Curran, who represented the state at trial, said in his closing arguments that the work was not “running perfect” but was coming in on schedule and under budget. He said state officials were not ignoring problems, just cataloging non-pressing issues in order to address them when the dust cleared, as is common in emergency operations.

Curran said many of Larson’s complaints were based on his unfamiliarity with such work and his refusal to trust more experienced colleagues. He said Larson was fired not for flagging concerns, but because of “misconduct, arrogance, communication style problems, and performance problems.”

Gore, the CalOES spokeswoman, said CalRecycle awarded the contracts “through an open, competitive procurement process with oversight from CalOES and FEMA,” and that CalOES worked to address problems with contractors before Larson ever voiced any concerns.

Gore said CalOES hired EY to identify any potential improvements in the contracting and reimbursement process, and changed its policy to pay contractors per parcel of land cleared rather than by volume of debris removed in part to address concerns about potential load manipulation.

She said the agency could not answer other, detailed questions from The Times about the debris removal process and concerns about mismanagement and alleged overcharging because the Larson case “remains pending and subject to appeal,” and because CalOES faces “other, active litigation” as well.

The EY audit also flagged issues with several other contractors, including Tetra Tech and Arcadis, according to draft records obtained from EY by Larson’s attorneys and submitted as evidence at trial.

The EY records said Tetra Tech filed time sheets for unapproved costs, without sufficient supporting information, with questionable or excessive hours, with digital alterations that increased hourly rates, and without proper supervisor approvals. It said it also charged for work without providing any supporting time sheets.

The EY records said the company also used inconsistent procedures for sampling soil and testing for asbestos, used billing rates that were inconsistent between its contract and its invoices, charged for “after hours” work without supporting documentation, filed questionable, per-hour lodging costs, appeared to have digitally edited change orders after they were signed and dated, and relied inappropriately on questionable digital signatures for approving change orders.

Tetra Tech did not respond to a request for comment.

The EY records said Arcadis filed change orders for costs that appeared to be part of the “normal course of business,” filed invoices for work that began before the company’s state contract was signed, and relied inappropriately on digital signatures.

Arcadis referred all questions to CalRecycle. CalRecycle provided a copy of its own “targeted” audit of Arcadis’ work, which found the company had complied with the requirements of its nearly $29-million contract with the state. CalRecycle otherwise referred The Times back to CalOES.

A recovery team searches for human remains after the Camp fire.

(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)

North Bay fires

Concerns about cleanup work following major fires in Sonoma, Santa Rosa and other North Bay counties in 2017 — under both CalOES and the Army Corps of Engineers — also arose at the trial.

Sean Smith, a former 20-year veteran of CalOES and a prominent figure in California debris removal operations to this day, alleged in an email submitted at trial that ECC and other contractors hired to clear contaminated debris and soil from those fires over-excavated sites in order “to boost loads to get more tonnage and money.”

ECC denied Smith’s claims, saying it “does not perform excessive soil removal” and that it followed “the detailed debris removal operations plan requirements” of the Army Corps of Engineers, which had its own quality assurance representatives monitoring the work.

In a deposition, Smith also testified that, in the midst of spending more than $50 million to repair that over-excavation, state officials identified lingering contamination at “what would be considered hazardous waste levels.”

“They hadn’t finished the cleanup in all spots, and we found it, and we recorded it,” he said.

Smith testified that those findings were presented to high-ranking CalOES and FEMA officials during a meeting in San Francisco in October 2018. At that meeting, CalOES regional manager Eric Lamoureux laid out all the state’s contamination findings in detail, “but nobody wanted to hear it,” Smith said.

During his deposition, Smith alleged that the “exact words” of one FEMA attorney in attendance were, “We have to find out how to debunk the state’s testing” — which he said he found surprising, given the testing was based on federal environmental standards.

“I don’t know how you’d debunk such a thing,” Smith said.

FEMA officials did not respond to requests for comment. CalOES also did not answer questions about the alleged meeting.

ECC said that Smith, who managed and signed its contracts with CalOES, gave ECC “a very positive performance review” when it completed the Sonoma and Santa Rosa work — describing its work as “exceptional.”

Smith said he quit his post working on those fires after the San Francisco meeting, though he continued working for the agency in other roles for a couple more years. Smith more recently formed his own debris removal consulting firm — which has been involved in soil testing for the state after other recent fires.

CalOES did not respond to questions about Smith’s claims or separation from the agency.

Marc Seawright took pride in his job at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, where he worked for more than eight years and most recently oversaw technology policy to support the agency’s mission of combating workplace harassment and discrimination.

But then President Trump began targeting transgender and nonbinary people within hours of returning to the White House by issuing a series of executive orders — including one declaring the existence of two unchangeable sexes. Seawright was ordered to develop technology to scrub any mention of LGBTQ+ identities from all EEOC outreach materials, which had been created to help employers understand their obligations under civil rights law.

Suddenly, his tech expertise “was being leveraged to perpetuate discrimination against people like me,” said Seawright, 41, who served as the EEOC’s director of information governance and strategy before he quit in June, citing a hostile work environment. “It became overwhelming. It felt insurmountable.”

A San Francisco-based Army veteran, Seawright is one of 10 transgender and gender nonconforming government employees across federal agencies who spoke with the Associated Press about their workplace experiences since Trump regained office, describing their fear, grief, frustration and distress working for an employer that rejects their identity — often with no clear path for recourse or support. Several requested anonymity for fear of retaliation; some, including Seawright, have filed formal discrimination complaints.

Since January, the Trump administration has reversed years of legal and policy gains for transgender Americans, including stripping government websites of “gender ideology” and reinstituting a ban on transgender service members in the military.

The White House and the EEOC declined to respond to allegations that the president’s policies created a hostile workplace for transgender federal employees. But his executive order, which defines sex as strictly male or female, states that its goal is to protect spaces designated for women and girls.

“Efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being,” the order says.

Independent Women, a nonprofit that advocates for legislation defining sex as male and female, supports Trump’s executive order.

“Women’s rights can get erased if men can just self-identify to women’s spaces,” said the organization’s senior legal advisor Beth Parlato.

Brad Sears, senior scholar at UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute, which researches policy impacting LGBTQ+ people, points to “a sweeping, government-wide initiative to really erase transgender people from public life,” including adults in the workplace.

“The federal workplace is increasingly an inhospitable place for the transgender employees who remain,” Sears said.

Compared with private sector workers, transgender federal employees are especially vulnerable because many ultimately answer to the president, said Olivia Hunt, director of federal policy at Advocates for Trans Equality, which seeks legal and political rights for transgender people in the United States.

“In the absence of an ability to impose their will directly on employers throughout the country, this administration is going to use the tools that they have to attack the trans people who are in close proximity to them, and that includes federal workers,” Hunt said.

After serving as the first openly transgender soldier in the Illinois National Guard, LeAnne Withrow retired from the military due to injury, and now works in a federal civilian role helping military families access resources.

Withrow visits armories across Illinois for her job, sometimes in remote areas. But Trump’s executive order directing agencies to take “appropriate action” to ensure that intimate spaces “are designated by sex and not identity” created a major hurdle for Withrow when her supervisors informed her that she was no longer allowed to use the women’s restroom at work.

“I don’t use men’s spaces because I don’t feel comfortable doing that,” the 34-year-old said.

At locations without single-occupancy options, a simple bathroom break can mean a 45-minute round trip to a nearby gas station or McDonald’s.

Represented by the ACLU, Withrow filed a class action complaint in May challenging the Trump administration’s policy on the basis of sex discrimination.

A spokesperson for the Illinois National Guard declined to comment on the pending lawsuit but said the agency is “committed to treating all of our employees with dignity and respect.” The Department of Defense also declined to comment, citing policy, but affirmed its commitment to enforcing relevant laws and implementing the gender executive order.

For Seawright at the EEOC, he feels like his skill set was being wielded against the agency’s mission, not to support it. Following Trump’s signing of his executive order, Acting EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas, a Republican, quickly began reshaping policy and, among other things, removed the agency’s “pronoun app,” which allowed employees to display their pronouns in their profiles. It was a tool that was created — then dismantled — by Seawright.

He had spent two years developing the app to support a nonbinary employee at the agency.

“For it to be just kind of yanked away summarily with none of the thoughtfulness and planning that went into implementing the tool … that became really frustrating,” Seawright said.

His mental health suffered, and he requested extended personal leave shortly after he completed the project scrubbing references to gender identity. When he returned in late February, the situation continued to deteriorate.

He hired lawyers at Katz Banks Kumin and filed a formal discrimination complaint. In June, Seawright resigned, citing “significant distress, anxiety, depression, sleeplessness, anger, and sadness” caused daily by Lucas’ “anti-transgender actions.”

Withrow, meanwhile, still works in her role while navigating similar challenges.

“I do feel as though there is at least an implied threat for trans folks in federal service,” she said. “We’ll just continue to meet the objectives and focus on the mission, and hope that that is enough proof that we belong.”

Savage writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — The agency that oversees Voice of America and other government-funded international broadcasters is eliminating more than 500 employees, the Trump administration has announced, a move that could ratchet up a months-long legal challenge over the news outlets’ fate.

Kari Lake, acting chief executive of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, VOA’s oversight agency, announced the latest round of job cuts late Friday, one day after a federal judge blocked her from removing Michael Abramowitz as VOA director.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth had ruled separately that the Trump administration had failed to show how it was complying with his orders to restore VOA’s operations. His order Monday gave the administration “one final opportunity, short of a contempt trial,” to demonstrate its compliance. He ordered Lake to sit for a deposition by lawyers for agency employees by Sept. 15.

On Thursday, Lamberth said Abramowitz could not be removed without the approval of the majority of the International Broadcasting Advisory Board. Firing Abramowitz would be “plainly contrary to law,” according to Lamberth, who was nominated to the bench by President Reagan.

Lake posted a statement on social media that said her agency had initiated a reduction in force, or RIF, eliminating 532 jobs for full-time government employees. She said the agency “will continue to fulfill its statutory mission after this RIF — and will likely improve its ability to function.”

“I look forward to taking additional steps in the coming months to improve the functioning of a very broken agency and make sure America’s voice is heard abroad where it matters most,” she wrote.

A group of agency employees who sued to block VOA’s elimination said Lake’s move would give their colleagues 30 days until their pay and benefits end.

“We find Lake’s continued attacks on our agency abhorrent,” they said in a statement. “We are looking forward to her deposition to hear whether her plan to dismantle VOA was done with the rigorous review process that Congress requires. So far we have not seen any evidence of that.”

In June, layoff notices were sent to more than 600 agency employees. Abramowitz was placed on administrative leave along with almost the entire VOA staff. He was told he would be fired effective Aug. 31.

The administration said in a court filing Thursday that it planned to send RIF notices to 486 employees of Voice of America and 46 other agency employees but intended to retain 158 agency employees and 108 VOA employees. The filing said the global media agency had 137 “active employees” and 62 other employees on administrative leave, while VOA had 86 active employees and 512 others on administrative leave.

Lake’s agency also oversees Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Middle East Broadcasting Networks and Radio Marti, which beams Spanish-language news into Cuba. The networks, which together reach an estimated 427 million people, date to the Cold War and are part of a network of government-funded organizations designed to extend U.S. influence and combat authoritarianism.

Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press.

NEW YORK — When the White House fired Susan Monarez as director of the premier U.S. public health agency, it was clear to two of the scientific leaders at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that the political meddling would not end and it was time to quit.

“We knew … if she leaves, we don’t have scientific leadership anymore,” one of the officials, Dr. Debra Houry, told the Associated Press on Thursday.

“We were going to see if she was able to weather the storm. And when she was not, we were done,” said Houry, one of at least four CDC leaders who resigned this week. She was the agency’s deputy director and chief medical officer.

The White House confirmed late Wednesday that Monarez was fired because she was not “aligned with” President Trump’s agenda and had refused to resign. She had been sworn in less than a month ago.

Trump’s health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., declined during an appearance on “Fox & Friends” to directly comment on the CDC shake-up. But he said he continues to have concerns about CDC officials hewing to the administration’s health policies.

“So we need to look at the priorities of the agency, if there’s really a deeply, deeply embedded, I would say, malaise at the agency,” Kennedy said. “And we need strong leadership that will go in there and that will be able to execute on President Trump’s broad ambitions.”

A lawyer for Monarez said the termination was not legal — and that she would not step down — because she was informed of her dismissal by staff in the presidential personnel office and that only Trump himself could fire her. Monarez has not commented.

Dr. Richard Besser, a former CDC acting director, said that when he spoke with Monarez on Wednesday, she vowed not to do anything that was illegal or that flew in the face of science. She had refused directives from the Department of Health and Human Services to fire her management team.

She also would not automatically sign off on any recommendations from a vaccines advisory committee handpicked by Kennedy, according to Besser, now president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which helps support the Associated Press Health and Science Department.

Houry and Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who resigned as head of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said Monarez had tried to make sure scientific safeguards were in place.

Some concerned the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a group of outside experts who make recommendations to the CDC director on how to use vaccines. The recommendations are then adopted by doctors, school systems, health insurers and others.

Kennedy is a longtime leader in the antivaccine movement, and in June, he abruptly dismissed the entire panel, accusing members of being too closely aligned with manufacturers. He replaced them with a group that included several vaccine skeptics and then he shut the door to several doctors organizations that had long helped form vaccine recommendations.

Recently, Monarez tried to replace the official who coordinated the panel’s meetings with someone who had more policy experience. Monarez also pushed to have slides and evidence reviews posted weeks before the committee’s meetings and have the sessions open to public comment, Houry said.

Department of Health officials nixed that and called her to a meeting in Washington on Monday, Houry said.

When it became clear that Monarez was out, other top CDC officials decided they had to leave, too, Houry and Daskalakis said.

“I came to the point personally where I think our science will be compromised, and that’s my line in the sand,” Daskalakis said.

Monarez’s lawyers, Mark Zaid and Abbe David Lowell, said in a statement that when she refused “to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda. For that, she has been targeted.”

Stobbe writes for the Associated Press.

Susan Monarez fired while four officials resign amid tensions over vaccine policies and public health directives.

The director of the United States’s top public health agency has been fired after less than one month in the job, and several top agency leaders have resigned.

Susan Monarez is not “aligned with” President Donald Trump’s agenda and refused to resign, so the White House terminated her, deputy press secretary Kush Desai said on Wednesday night.

The US Department of Health and Human Services had announced her departure in a brief social media post on Wednesday afternoon.

Her lawyers responded with a statement, saying Monarez had neither resigned nor been told she was fired.

“When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda. For that, she has been targeted,” lawyers Mark Zaid and Abbe David Lowell wrote in a statement.

“This is not about one official. It is about the systematic dismantling of public health institutions, the silencing of experts, and the dangerous politicization of science. The attack on Dr Monarez is a warning to every American: our evidence-based systems are being undermined from within,” they said.

Officials resign

Her departure coincided with the resignations this week of at least four top CDC officials.

The list includes Dr Debra Houry, the agency’s deputy director; Dr Daniel Jernigan, head of the agency’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; Dr Demetre Daskalakis, head of its National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases; and Dr Jennifer Layden, director of the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology.

In an email reported by The Associated Press, Houry lamented the effects on the agency from planned budget cuts, reorganisation and firings.

Monarez, 50, was the agency’s 21st director and the first to pass through Senate confirmation following a 2023 law. She was named acting director in January and then tapped as the nominee in March after Trump abruptly withdrew his first choice, David Weldon.

She was sworn in on July 31, less than a month ago, making her the shortest-serving CDC director in the history of the 79-year-old agency.

During her Senate confirmation process, Monarez told senators that she values vaccines, public health interventions and rigorous scientific evidence.

BRUNSWICK, Ga. — Immigration and Customs Enforcement is an agency inside the Department of Homeland Security that is integral to President Donald Trump’s vision of carrying out the mass deportations he promised during the campaign. Deportation officers within a unit called Enforcement and Removal Operations are the ones who are responsible for immigration enforcement. They find and remove people from the United States who aren’t American citizens and, for a variety of reasons, no longer can stay in the country.

Some might have gone through immigration court and a judge ordered them removed. Or they were arrested or convicted of certain crimes, or they’ve repeatedly entered the country illegally or overstayed a visa. ICE also manages a growing network of immigration detention facilities around the country where it holds people suspected of immigration violations.

Overall, its activities — and how it carries them out — have polarized many Americans in recent months.

After years when the number of deportation officers largely remained even, the agency is now rapidly hiring. Congress this summer passed legislation giving ICE $76.5 billion in new money to help speed up the pace of deportations. That’s nearly 10 times the agency’s current annual budget. Nearly $30 billion is for new staff.

Last week, The Associated Press got a chance to visit the base in southern Georgia where new ICE recruits are trained and to talk to the agency’s top leadership. Here are details about four things ICE is doing that came out of those conversations.

It’s surging hiring

ICE currently has about 6,500 deportation officers, and it is aggressively looking to beef up those numbers. Acting Director Todd Lyons says he wants to hire an additional 10,000 by year’s end.

The agency has launched a new recruiting website, offered hiring bonuses as high as $50,000, and is advertising at career expos. Lyons said the agency has already received 121,000 applications — many from former officers.

New recruits are trained at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Brunswick, Georgia. That’s a sprawling facility near the coast where federal law enforcement officers — not just ICE agents — from around the country live and train. ICE is looking to more than double the number of instructors who train deportation officers.

Caleb Vitello, who runs training for ICE, says it has cut Spanish-language requirements to reduce training by five weeks, and he’s been looking for ways to streamline the training and have recruits do more at the field offices where they’re assigned.

It’s preparing for conflict

As Trump’s effort to deport millions of people has intensified, violent episodes have unfolded as ICE seeks to arrest people. Critics have said ICE is being too heavy-handed in carrying out arrests while ICE says its people are the ones being attacked.

Vitello said the agency tracks every time officers use force as well as any time someone attacks its officers. According to the agency’s data, from Jan. 21 through Aug. 5 there were 121 reported assaults of ICE officers compared with 11 during the same period last year.

Lyons said that after recent operations in Los Angeles turned violent, ICE is making gas masks and helmets standard issue for new agents. “Right now we’re seeing and we’re having to adapt to all different scenarios that we were never trained for in the past,” he said.

Lyons says the agency is also starting to send out security teams to accompany agents making arrests: “We’re not gonna allow people to throw rocks anymore, because we’re going to have our own agents and officers there to protect the ones that are actually out there making that arrest.”

It’s beefing up specialized units for high-risk situations

About eight deportation officers dressed in military-style camouflage uniforms, helmets and carrying an assortment of weapons stand outside a house yelling “Police! We have a warrant!” before entering and clearing the house.

They are members of a Special Response Team taking part in a demonstration at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. These officers are like a SWAT team — deportation officers with special training to assist in difficult situations. They also accompany detainees the agency deems dangerous when they are deported.

“Everybody is trained to serve a warrant,” Vitello said. “These guys are trained to serve high-risk warrants.”

There are roughly 450 deportation officers with the special training to serve on these teams, and Lyons says they have been deployed to assist with immigration enforcement in Los Angeles, Portland, Oregon, and Washington.

He said he’d like to have more such units but wouldn’t put an exact number on how many. Vitello said they’re also in the process of getting more of the specially armored vehicles.

It’s teaching whom agents can arrest — and when

New recruits to ICE receive training on immigration law and the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unlawful searches. Longtime officers get regular refreshers on these topics.

In limited situations, ICE agents are allowed to enter someone’s home. Generally when they’re seeking someone they’re trying to remove from the country, they have an administrative warrant as opposed to a criminal warrant. That administrative warrant doesn’t allow them to enter the house without first getting permission.

Vitello says the new recruits are taught about the different warrants and how the rules differ. And they’re taught how those who allowed ICE to enter their house can change their mind.

“If somebody says ‘Get out,’ and you don’t have your target, you have to leave,” he said.

Multiple videos on social media have shown ICE officers breaking car windows to pull someone out of a vehicle and arrest that person.

The Fourth Amendment doesn’t extend to someone’s vehicle, so Vitello said deportation officers do have the authority to arrest someone in a car or truck. Vitello said in the rare case where a target was in a motor home, officers would talk to the agency’s lawyers first to figure out what protections apply.

Santana writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired a general whose agency’s initial intelligence assessment of U.S. damage to Iranian nuclear sites angered President Trump, according to two people familiar with the decision and a White House official.

Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse will no longer serve as head of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, according to the people, who spoke Friday on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.

Hegseth also fired Vice Adm. Nancy Lacore, chief of the Navy Reserve, and Rear Adm. Milton Sands, a Navy SEAL officer who oversees Naval Special Warfare Command, another U.S. official said.

No reasons were given for their firings, the latest in a series of steps targeting military leaders, intelligence officials and other perceived critics of Trump, who has demanded loyalty across the government. The administration also stripped security clearances this week from additional current and former national security officials.

Taken together, the moves could chill dissent and send a signal against reaching conclusions at odds with Trump’s interests.

Agency’s assessment contradicted Trump

Kruse’s firing comes two months after details of a preliminary assessment of U.S. airstrikes against Iran leaked to the media. It found that Iran’s nuclear program had been set back only a few months by the military bombardment, contradicting assertions from Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The president, who had pronounced the Iranian program “completely and fully obliterated,” rejected the report. His oft-repeated criticism of the DIA analysis built on his long-running distrust of intelligence assessments, including one published in 2017 that said Russia interfered on his behalf in the 2016 election.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence — which is responsible for coordinating the work of 18 intelligence agencies, including the DIA — has been declassifying years-old documents meant to cast doubt on those previous findings, which have been endorsed by bipartisan congressional committees.

After the June strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites, Hegseth lambasted the press for focusing on the preliminary assessment but did not offer any direct evidence of the destruction of the facilities.

“You want to call it destroyed, you want to call it defeated, you want to call it obliterated — choose your word. This was a historically successful attack,” Hegseth said at a news conference at the time.

Democrats raise concerns

While the Pentagon has offered no details on the firings, Democrats in Congress have raised alarm over the precedent that Kruse’s ouster sets for the intelligence community.

“The firing of yet another senior national security official underscores the Trump administration’s dangerous habit of treating intelligence as a loyalty test rather than a safeguard for our country,” said Sen. Mark R. Warner of Virginia, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called on the administration to show why Kruse was fired, or “otherwise, we can only assume that this is another politically motivated decision intended to create an atmosphere of fear” within the intelligence community.

Trump has a history of removing government officials whose data and analysis he disagrees with. Earlier this month, after a lousy jobs report, he fired the official in charge of the data. His administration also has stopped posting reports on climate change, canceled studies on vaccine access and removed data on gender identity from government sites.

Other military and intelligence changes

The new firings culminate a week of broad Trump administration changes to the intelligence community and new shake-ups to military leadership.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence announced this week that it would slash its staff and budget and revoked more security clearances, a tactic the administration uses against those it sees as foes. The Pentagon also said the Air Force’s top uniformed officer, Gen. David Allvin, planned to retire two years early.

Hegseth and Trump have been aggressive in dismissing top military officials, often without formal explanation.

The administration has fired Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr. as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as the Navy’s top officer, the Air Force’s second-highest-ranking officer and the top lawyers for three military service branches.

In April, Hegseth dismissed Gen. Tim Haugh as head of the National Security Agency and Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, who was a senior official at NATO.

No public explanations have been offered by the Pentagon for any of the firings, though some of the officers were believed by the administration to endorse diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Trump has demanded government agencies purge DEI efforts.

The ousters of Kruse, Lacore and Sands were reported earlier by the Washington Post.

Toropin, Jalonick and Price write for the Associated Press.

John McGing couldn’t reach a human. That might be business-as-usual in this economy, but it wasn’t business; he had called the Social Security Administration, where the questions often aren’t generic and the callers tend to be older, disabled, or otherwise vulnerable Americans.

McGing, calling on behalf of his son, had an in-the-weeds question: how to prevent overpayments that the federal government might later claw back. His call was intercepted by an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot.

No matter what he said, the bot parroted canned answers to generic questions, not McGing’s obscure query. “If you do a key press, it didn’t do anything,” he said. Eventually, the bot “glitched or whatever” and got him to an agent.

It was a small but revealing incident. Unbeknownst to McGing, a former Social Security employee in Maryland, he had encountered a technological tool recently introduced by the agency. Former officials and longtime observers of the agency say the Trump administration rolled out a product that was tested but deemed not yet ready during the Biden administration.

“With the new administration, they’re just kind of like, let’s go fast and fix it later, which I don’t agree with, because you are going to generate a lot of confusion,” said Marcela Escobar-Alava, who served as Social Security’s chief information officer under President Joe Biden.

Some 74 million people receive Social Security benefits; 11 million of those receive disability payments. In a survey conducted last fall, more than a third of recipients said they wouldn’t be able to afford such necessities as food, clothing, or housing without it. And yet the agency has been shedding the employees who serve them: Some 6,200 have left the agency, its commissioner told lawmakers in June, and critics in Congress and elsewhere say that’s led to worse customer service, despite the agency’s efforts to build up new technology.

Take the new phone bot. At least some beneficiaries don’t like it: Social Security’s Facebook page is, from time to time, pockmarked with negative reviews of the uncooperative bot, as the agency said in July that nearly 41% of calls are handled by the bot.

Lawmakers and former agency employees worry it foreshadows a less human Social Security, in which rushed-out AI takes the place of pushed-out, experienced employees.

Anxieties across party lines

Concern over the direction of the agency is bipartisan. In May, a group of House Republicans wrote to the Social Security Administration expressing support for government efficiency, but cautioning that their constituents had criticized the agency for “inadequate customer service” and suggesting that some measures may be “overly burdensome.”

The agency’s commissioner, Frank Bisignano, a former Wall Street executive, is a tech enthusiast. He has a laundry list of initiatives on which to spend the $600 million in new tech money in the Trump administration’s fiscal 2026 budget request. He’s gotten testy when asked whether his plans mean he’ll be replacing human staff with AI.

“You referred to SSA being on an all-time staffing low; it’s also at an all-time technological high,” he snapped at one Democrat in a House hearing in late June.

But former Social Security officials are more ambivalent. In interviews with KFF Health News, people who left the agency — some speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from the Trump administration and its supporters — said they believe the new administration simply rushed out technologies developed, but deemed not yet ready, by the Biden administration. They also said the agency’s firing of thousands of employees resulted in the loss of experienced technologists who are best equipped to roll out these initiatives and address their weaknesses.

“Social Security’s new AI phone tool is making it even harder for people to get help over the phone — and near impossible if someone needs an American Sign Language interpreter or translator,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told KFF Health News. “We should be making it as easy as possible for people to get the Social Security they’ve earned.”

Spokespeople for the agency did not reply to questions from KFF Health News.

Using AI to automate customer service is one of the buzziest businesses in Silicon Valley. In theory, the new breed of artificial intelligence technologies can smoothly respond, in a human-like voice, to just about any question. That’s not how the Social Security Administration’s bot seems to work, with users reporting canned, unrelated responses.

The Trump administration has eliminated some online statistics that obscure its true performance, said Kathleen Romig, a former agency official who is now director of Social Security and disability policy at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The old website showed that most callers waited two hours for an answer. Now, the website doesn’t show waiting times, either for phone inquiries (once callback wait time is accounted for) or appointment scheduling.

While statistics are being posted that show beneficiaries receive help — that is, using the AI bot or the agency’s website to accomplish tasks like getting a replacement card — Romig said she thinks it’s a “very distorted view” overall. Reviews of the AI bot are often poor, she said.

Agency leaders and employees who first worked on the AI product during the Biden administration anticipated those types of difficulties. Escobar-Alava said they had worked on such a bot, but wanted to clean up the policy and regulation data it was relying on first.

“We wanted to ensure the automation produced consistent and accurate answers, which was going to take more time,” she said. Instead, it seems the Trump administration opted to introduce the bot first and troubleshoot later, Escobar-Alava said.

Romig said one former executive told her that the agency had used canned FAQs without modifications or nuances to accommodate individual situations and was monitoring the technology to see how well it performed. Escobar-Alava said she has heard similarly.

Could automation help?

To Bisignano, automation and web services are the most efficient ways to assist the program’s beneficiaries. In a letter to Warren, he said that agency leaders “are transforming SSA into a digital-first agency that meets customers where they want to be met,” making changes that allow the vast majority of calls to be handled either in an automated fashion or by having a human return the customer’s call.

Using these methods also relieves burdens on otherwise beleaguered field offices, Bisignano wrote.

Altering the phone experience is not the end of Bisignano’s tech dreams. The agency asked Congress for some $600 million in additional funding for investments, which he intends to use for online scheduling, detecting fraud, and much more, according to a list submitted to the House in late June.

But outside experts and former employees said Bisignano overstated the novelty of the ideas he presented to Congress. The agency has been updating its technology for years, but that does not necessarily mean thousands of its workers are suddenly obsolete, Romig said. It’s not bad that the upgrades are continuing, she said, but progress has been more incremental than revolutionary.

Some changes focus on spiffing up the agency’s public face. Bisignano told House lawmakers that he oversaw a redesign of the agency’s performance-statistics page to emphasize the number of automated calls and deemphasize statistics about call wait times. He called the latter stats “discouraging” and suggested that displaying them online might dissuade beneficiaries from calling.

Warren said Bisignano has since told her privately that he would allow an “inspector general audit” of their customer-service quality data and pledged to make a list of performance information publicly available. The agency has since updated its performance statistics page.

Other changes would come at greater cost and effort. In April, the agency rolled out a security authentication program for direct deposit changes, requiring beneficiaries to verify their identity in person if what the agency described in regulatory documents as an “automated” analysis system detects anomalies.

According to documents accompanying the proposal, the agency estimated about 5.8 million beneficiaries would be affected — and that it would cost the federal government nearly $1.2 billion, mostly driven by staff time devoted to assisting claimants. The agency is asking for nearly $7.7 billion in the upcoming fiscal year for payroll overall.

Christopher Hensley, a financial adviser in Houston, said one of his clients called him in May after her bank changed its routing number and Social Security stopped paying her, forcing her to borrow money from her family.

It turned out that the agency had flagged her account for fraud. Hensley said she had to travel 30 minutes to the nearest Social Security office to verify her identity and correct the problem.

Tahir writes for KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism.

LONDON — British Foreign Secretary David Lammy went fishing with U.S. Vice President JD Vance earlier this month and the closest thing he came to catching was a whopping fine.

Lammy was given a written warning for fishing without a license, an Environment Agency spokesperson said Friday.

As far as breaking the law goes, it was pretty small fry but could have netted him a fine of up to 2,500 pounds ($3,380) for the offense.

Lammy, whose spokesperson described it all as an “administrative oversight,” purchased a license after-the-fact and reported himself to the agency.

Lammy hosted Vance and his family, who were vacationing in England, at his country estate south of London on Aug. 8. The two men smiled and laughed as Vance provided what Lammy called Kentucky-style fishing tips.

Apparently, the pointers didn’t help Lammy land a fish.

“The one strain on the special relationship is that all of my kids caught fish, but the foreign secretary did not,” Vance later said.

The Environment Agency would not comment on whether Vance had a license, citing data protection rules. The vice president’s spokesperson did not immediately reply to an email from the Associated Press seeking comment.

The agency said it confirmed that Lammy was given a warning because he had publicized it. In England and Wales, anyone over 13 needs a license for freshwater fishing, the agency said.

In most cases, inexperienced anglers caught without a permit are given warnings — so in that sense, Lammy apparently had some beginner’s luck.

WASHINGTON — A year after being lauded for its plan to replace thousands of aging, gas-powered mail trucks with a mostly electric fleet, the U.S. Postal Service is facing congressional attempts to strip billions in federal EV funding.

In June, the Senate parliamentarian blocked a Republican proposal in President Trump’s massive tax-and-spending bill to sell off the agency’s new electric vehicles and infrastructure and revoke remaining federal money. But efforts to halt the fleet’s shift to clean energy continue in the name of cost savings.

Donald Maston, president of the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Assn., said canceling the program now would have the opposite effect, squandering millions of dollars.

“I think it would be shortsighted for Congress to now suddenly decide they’re going to try to go backwards and take the money away for the EVs or stop that process, because that’s just going to be a bunch of money on infrastructure that’s been wasted,” he said.

Beyond that, many in the scientific community fear the government could pass on an opportunity to reduce carbon emissions that contribute to global warming when urgent action is needed.

Reducing emissions

A 2022 University of Michigan study found the new electric postal vehicles could cut total greenhouse gas emissions by up to 20 million tons over the predicted, cumulative 20-year lifetime of the trucks. That’s a fraction of the more than 6 billion metric tons emitted annually in the United States, said Professor Gregory A. Keoleian, co-director of the university’s Center for Sustainable Systems. But he said the push toward electric vehicles is critical and needs to accelerate, given the intensifying effects of climate change.

“We’re already falling short of goals for reducing emissions,” Keoleian said. “We’ve been making progress, but the actions being taken or proposed will really reverse decarbonization progress that has been made to date.”

Many GOP lawmakers share Trump’s criticism of the Biden-era green energy push and say the Postal Service spending should focus only on delivering mail.

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said that “it didn’t make sense for the Postal Service to invest so heavily in an all-electric force.” She said she will pursue legislation to rescind what is left of the $3 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act allocated to help cover the $10-billion cost of new postal vehicles.

Ernst has called the EV initiative a “boondoggle” and “a textbook example of waste,” citing delays, high costs and concerns over cold-weather performance.

“You always evaluate the programs, see if they are working. But the rate at which the company that’s providing those vehicles is able to produce them, they are so far behind schedule, they will never be able to fulfill that contract,” Ernst said during a recent appearance at the Iowa State Fair, referring to Wisconsin-based Oshkosh Defense.

“For now,” she added, “gas-powered vehicles — use some ethanol in them — I think is wonderful.”

Corn-based ethanol is a boon to Iowa’s farmers, but the effort to reverse course has other Republican support.

Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas), a co-sponsor of the rollback effort, has said the EV order should be canceled because the project “has delivered nothing but delays, defective trucks and skyrocketing costs.”

The Postal Service maintains that the production delay of the Next Generation Delivery Vehicles was “very modest” and not unexpected.

“The production quantity ramp-up was planned for and intended to be very gradual in the early months to allow time for potential modest production or supplier issues to be successfully resolved,” spokesperson Kim Frum said.

Modernization efforts

The independent, self-funded federal agency, which is paid for mostly by postage and product sales, is in the middle of a $40-billion, 10-year modernization and financial stabilization plan. The EV effort had the full backing of Democratic President Biden, who pledged to move toward an all-electric federal fleet of car and trucks.

The “Deliver for America” plan calls for modernizing the ground fleet, notably the Grumman Long Life Vehicle, which dates to 1987 and is very fuel-inefficient, at 9 mpg. The vehicles are well past their projected 24-year lifespan and are prone to breakdowns and even fires.

“Our mechanics are miracle workers,” said Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union. “The parts are not available. They fabricate them. They do the best they can.”

The Postal Service announced in 2022 it would deploy at least 66,000 electric vehicles by 2028, including commercial off-the-shelf models, after years of deliberation and criticism it was moving too slowly to reduce emissions. By 2024, the agency was awarded a Presidential Sustainability Award for its efforts to electrify the largest fleet in the federal government.

Building new postal trucks

In 2021, Oshkosh Defense was awarded a contract for up to 165,000 battery electric and internal combustion engine Next Generation vehicles over 10 years.

The first of the odd-looking trucks, with hoods resembling a duck’s bill, began service in Georgia last year. Designed for greater package capacity, the trucks are equipped with airbags, blind-spot monitoring, collision sensors, 360-degree cameras and antilock brakes.

There’s also a new creature comfort: air-conditioning.

Douglas Lape, special assistant to the president of the National Assn. of Letter Carriers and a former carrier, is among numerous postal employees who have had a say in the new design. He marvels at how Oshkosh designed and built a new vehicle, transforming an old North Carolina warehouse into a factory along the way.

“I was in that building when it was nothing but shelving,” he said. “And now, being a completely functioning plant where everything is built in-house — they press the bodies in there, they do all of the assembly — it’s really amazing, in my opinion.”

Where things stand now

The agency has so far ordered 51,500 New Generation vehicles, including 35,000 battery-powered vehicles. To date, it has received 300 battery vehicles and 1,000 gas-powered ones.

Then-Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said in 2022 the agency expected to purchase chiefly zero-emissions delivery vehicles by 2026. It still needs some internal combustion engine vehicles that travel longer distances.

Frum, the Postal Service spokesperson, said the planned electric vehicle purchases were “carefully considered from a business perspective” and are being deployed to routes and facilities where they will save money.

The agency has also received more than 8,200 of 9,250 Ford E-Transit electric vehicles it has ordered, she said.

Ernst said it’s fine for the Postal Service to use EVs already purchased.

“But you know what? We need to be smart about the way we are providing services through the federal government,” she said. “And that was not a smart move.”

Maxwell Woody, lead author of the University of Michigan study, made the opposite case.

Postal vehicles, he said, have low average speeds and a high number of stops and starts that enable regenerative braking. Routes average under 30 miles and are known in advance, making planning easier.

“It’s the perfect application for an electric vehicle,” he said, “and it’s a particularly inefficient application for an internal combustion engine vehicle.”

Haigh writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — The director of the agency that produces the nation’s jobs and inflation data is typically a mild-mannered technocrat, often with extensive experience in statistical agencies, with little public profile.

But like so much in President Trump’s second administration, this time is different.

Trump has selected E.J. Antoni, chief economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, to be the next commissioner at the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. Antoni’s nomination was quickly met with a cascade of criticism from other economists, from across the political spectrum.

His selection threatens to bring a new level of politicization to what for decades has been a nonpartisan agency widely accepted as a producer of reliable measures of the nation’s economic health. Although many former Labor Department officials say it is unlikely Antoni will be able to distort or alter the data, particularly in the short run, he could change the currently dry-as-dust way it is presented.

Antoni was nominated by Trump after the BLS released a jobs report Aug. 1 that showed that hiring had weakened in July and was much lower in May and June than the agency had previously reported. Trump, without evidence, charged that the data had been “rigged” for political reasons and fired the then-BLS chair, Erika McEntarfer, much to the dismay of many within the agency.

Antoni has been a vocal critic of the government’s jobs data in frequent appearances on podcasts and cable TV. His partisan commentary is unusual for someone who may end up leading the BLS.

For instance, on Aug. 4 — a week before he was nominated — Antoni said in an interview on Fox News Digital that the Labor Department should stop publishing the monthly jobs reports until its data collection processes improve, and rely on quarterly data based on actual employment filings with state unemployment offices.

The monthly employment reports are probably the closest-watched economic data on Wall Street, and can frequently cause swings in stock prices.

When asked at Tuesday’s White House briefing whether the jobs report would continue to be released, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration hoped it would be.

“I believe that is the plan and that’s the hope,” Leavitt said.

Leavitt also defended Antoni’s nomination, calling him an “economic expert” who has testified before Congress and adding that “the president trusts him to lead this important department.”

Yet Antoni’s TV and podcast appearances have created more of a portrait of a conservative ideologue than a careful economist who considers trade-offs and prioritizes getting the math correct.

“There’s just nothing in his writing or his resume to suggest that he’s qualified for the position, besides that he is always manipulating the data to favor Trump in some way,” said Brian Albrecht, chief economist at the International Center for Law and Economics.

Antoni wrongly claimed in the last year of Biden’s presidency that the economy had been in recession since 2022; called on the entire Federal Reserve board to be fired for not earning a profit on its Treasury securities holdings; and posted a chart on social media that conflated timelines to suggest inflation was headed to 15%.

His argument that the U.S. was in a recession rested on a vastly exaggerated measure of housing inflation, based on newly purchased home prices, to artificially make the nation’s gross domestic product appear smaller than it was.

“This is actually maybe the worst Antoni content I’ve seen yet,” Alan Cole of the center-right Tax Foundation said on social media, referring to his recession claim.

On a 2024 podcast, Antoni wanted to sunset Social Security payments for workers paying into the system, saying that “you’ll need a generation of people who pay Social Security taxes but never actually receive any of those benefits.” As head of the BLS, Antoni would oversee the release of the consumer price index by which Social Security payments are adjusted for inflation.

Many economists share, to some degree, Antoni’s concerns that the government’s jobs data have flaws and are threatened by trends such as declining response rates to its surveys. The drop has made the jobs figures more volatile, though not necessarily less accurate over time.

“The stock market moves clearly based on these job numbers, and so people with skin in the game think it’s telling them something about the future of their investments,” Albrecht said. “Could it be improved? Absolutely.”

Katharine Abraham, an economist at the University of Maryland who was BLS commissioner under President Clinton, said updating the jobs report’s methods would require at least some initial investment.

The government could use more modern data sources, she said, such as figures from payroll processing companies, and fill in gaps with surveys.

“There’s an inconsistency between saying you want higher response rates and you want to spend less money,” she said, referring to the administration’s proposals to cut BLS funding.

Still, Abraham and other former BLS commissioners don’t think Antoni, if confirmed, would be able to alter the figures. But he could push for changes in the monthly news release and seek to portray the numbers in a more positive light.

William Beach, who was appointed BLS commissioner by Trump in his first term and also served under Biden, said he is confident that BLS procedures are strong enough to prevent political meddling. He said he didn’t see the figures himself until two days before publication when he served as commissioner.

“The commissioner does not affect the numbers,’’ Beach said. “They don’t collect the data. They don’t massage the data. They don’t organize it.”

Regarding the odds of rigging the numbers, Beach said, “I wouldn’t put it at complete zero, but I’d put it pretty close to zero.’’

It took about six months after McEntarfer was nominated in July 2023 for her to be approved. Antoni will probably face stiff opposition from Democrats, but that may not be enough to derail his appointment.

Sen. Patty Murray, a senior Democrat from Washington, on Tuesday slammed Antoni as “an unqualified right-wing extremist” and demanded that the Republican chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, hold a confirmation hearing for him.

Rugaber and Boak write for the Associated Press. AP writers Paul Wiseman and Stephen Groves contributed to this report.

EJ Antoni, United States President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the agency that produces the nation’s jobs and inflation data, has been embroiled in criticism from economists.

Antoni was chief economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation and an author of Project 2025, the far-right wish list the think tank created for then-candidate Trump – or the next Republican president.

His selection threatens to bring a new level of politicisation to a producer of measurements of the nation’s economic health that has, for decades, been widely regarded as a nonpartisan and reliable agency.

“Trump has nominated a sycophant to tell him exactly what he wants to hear. Make no mistake: This selection is a clear assault on independent analysis that will have far-reaching implications for the reliability of US  economic data,” Alex Jaquez, a member of the White House National Economic Council under former President Joe Biden, said in a statement provided to Al Jazeera.

Many former Labor Department officials say that while it is unlikely Antoni will be able to distort or alter the data, particularly in the short run, he could change the currently dry-as-dust way it is presented.

Antoni was nominated by Trump after the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released a jobs report on August 1 that showed that hiring had weakened in July and was much lower in May and June than the agency had previously reported. Trump, without evidence, charged that the data had been “rigged” for political reasons and fired the then-BLS chair, Erika McEntarfer, much to the dismay of many within the agency and the broad condemnation of experts.

“Firing officials for reporting accurate data unflattering to the regime is straight out of the authoritarian playbook. It is an attempt to mislead the American people, to avoid being held to account for their failures, and to rewrite history,” Vanessa Williamson, senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, said in a statement provided to Al Jazeera.

Antoni’s nomination comes as Trump continues to spin fabrications throughout the US economic data, including claiming gas prices are lower than they are and that egg prices have fallen 400 percent – a mathematically impossible figure.

Government data critic

Antoni has been a vocal critic of the government’s jobs data in frequent appearances on podcasts and cable TV. His partisan commentary is unusual for someone who may end up leading the BLS.

On August 4, a week before he was nominated, Antoni said in an interview on Fox News Digital that the Labor Department should stop publishing the monthly jobs reports until its data collection processes improve, and rely on quarterly data based on actual employment filings with state unemployment offices.

The monthly employment reports are probably the most closely watched economic data on Wall Street, and can frequently cause swings in stock prices.

When asked at Tuesday’s White House briefing whether the jobs report would continue to be released, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration hoped it would be.

“I believe that is the plan and that’s the hope,” Leavitt said.

Leavitt also defended Antoni’s nomination, calling him an “economic expert” who has testified before Congress and adding that, “the president trusts him to lead this important department.”

Yet Antoni’s TV and podcast appearances have created more of a portrait of a conservative ideologue, instead of a careful economist who considers tradeoffs and prioritises getting the math correct.

“There’s just nothing in his writing or his resume to suggest that he’s qualified for the position, besides that he is always manipulating the data to favour Trump in some way,” said Brian Albrecht, chief economist at the International Center for Law and Economics, told The Associated Press.

Antoni wrongly claimed in the last year of Biden’s presidency that the economy had been in recession since 2022; he called on the entire Federal Reserve board to be fired for not earning a profit on its Treasury securities holdings; and posted a chart on social media that conflated timelines to suggest inflation was headed to 15 percent.

His argument that the US was in a recession rested on a vastly exaggerated measure of housing inflation, based on newly purchased home prices, to artificially make the nation’s gross domestic product appear smaller than it was.

“This is actually maybe the worst Antoni content I’ve seen yet,” Alan Cole of the centre-right Tax Foundation said on social media, referring to his recession claim.

On a 2024 podcast, Antoni wanted to sunset Social Security payments for workers paying into the system, saying that “you’ll need a generation of people who pay Social Security taxes but never actually receive any of those benefits.” As head of the BLS, Antoni would oversee the release of the consumer price index by which Social Security payments are adjusted for inflation.

Flawed data

Many economists share, to some degree, Antoni’s concerns that the government’s jobs data has flaws and is threatened by trends such as declining response rates to its surveys. The drop has made the jobs figures more volatile, though not necessarily less accurate over time.

“The stock market moves clearly based on these job numbers, and so people with skin in the game think it’s telling them something about the future of their investments,” Albrecht said. “Could it be improved? Absolutely.”

Katharine Abraham, an economist at the University of Maryland who was BLS commissioner under President Bill Clinton, said updating the jobs report’s methods would require at least some initial investment.

The government could use more modern data sources, she said, such as figures from payroll processing companies, and fill in gaps with surveys.

“There’s an inconsistency between saying you want higher response rates and you want to spend less money,” she said, referring to the administration’s proposals to cut BLS funding.

Still, Abraham and other former BLS commissioners do not think Antoni, if confirmed, would be able to alter the figures. He could push for changes in the monthly press release and seek to portray the numbers in a more positive light.

William Beach, who was appointed BLS commissioner by Trump in his first term and also served under Biden, said he is confident that BLS procedures are strong enough to prevent political meddling. He said he did not see the figures until two days before publication when he served as commissioner.

“The commissioner does not affect the numbers,’’ Beach said. “They don’t collect the data. They don’t massage the data. They don’t organise it.”

Regarding the odds of rigging the numbers, Beach said, “I wouldn’t put it at complete zero, but I’d put it pretty close to zero.’’

It took about six months after McEntarfer was nominated in July 2023 for her to be approved. Antoni will likely face stiff opposition from Democrats, but that may not be enough to derail his appointment.

Senator Patty Murray, a senior Democrat from Washington, on Tuesday slammed Antoni as “an unqualified right-wing extremist” and demanded that the GOP chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, hold a confirmation hearing for him.

US president’s nomination comes after firing of agency head raised concerns about integrity of US government statistics.

United States President Donald Trump has tapped an economist from a conservative think tank to lead a key statistics agency after firing its previous head over her role in the release of weak employment figures.

Trump said on Monday that he had nominated EJ Antoni, the chief economist at the Heritage Foundation, to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

“Our Economy is booming, and E.J. will ensure that the Numbers released are HONEST and ACCURATE. I know E.J. Antoni will do an incredible job in this new role. Congratulations E.J.!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Trump’s nomination of Antoni, who requires confirmation by the US Senate, comes after his firing of Erika McEntarfer earlier this month raised concerns about US government statistics remaining credible and free of political influence.

Trump justified McEntarfer’s dismissal by claiming, without evidence, that the latest jobs report, which showed sharply slower jobs growth for May and June than previously estimated, had been “rigged” to make him look bad.

At the Heritage Foundation, Antoni, who had called for McEntarfer’s removal shortly before she was fired, has consistently showered Trump with praise.

After Trump’s announcement of a trade deal with Japan last month, Antoni described the agreement as “darn close” to perfect and the US president and his Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, as “artistic masters”.

Last week, Antoni said in a social media post that there were “better ways to collect, process, and disseminate” economic data, and that the next head of the BLS would need to deliver “accurate data in a timely manner” to rebuild trust in the agency.

Antoni and the Heritage Foundation did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Antoni’s nomination swiftly drew criticism from economists, who raised concerns about his qualifications and partisan leanings.

Jason Furman, an economist at Harvard Kennedy School who served as an adviser to former US President Barack Obama, called Antoni “completely unqualified”.

“He is an extreme partisan and does not have any relevant expertise. He would be a break from decades of nonpartisan technocrats,” Furman said in a post on X.

Erica Groshen, who led the BLS under Obama, voiced similar concerns.

“So far, what worries me is that the nominee and his work are not well known in the business, academic or public service communities,” Groshen told Al Jazeera.

Aug. 11 (UPI) — President Donald Trump on Monday nominated economist E.J. Antoni as commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a non-partisan agency he has criticized.

If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, the chief economist with the conservative Heritage Foundation would replace Erika McEntarfer, who was fired by Trump on Aug. 1, alleging that she had manipulated the jobs reports for three months.

“I am pleased to announce that I am nominating Highly Respected Economist, Dr. E.J. Antoni, as the next Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Our Economy is booming, and E.J. will ensure that the Numbers released are HONEST and ACCURATE. I know E.J. Antoni will do an incredible job in this new role. Congratulations E.J.!”

Before the Heritage Foundation, he worked for the Texas Public Policy Commission. He holds master’s and doctorate degrees in economics from Northern Illinois University.

Last week, Antoni posted on X: “There are better ways to collect, process, and disseminate data — that is the task for the next BLS commissioner, and only consistent delivery of accurate data in a timely manner will rebuild the trust that has been lost over the last several years.”

On Nov. 13, one week after Trump was elected again, he wrote on X: “DOGE needs to take a chainsaw to the BLS.”

Antoni had called for the firing of McEntarfer on Steve Bannon‘s podcast after the July jobs report was released. Later that day, she lost her job.

“Last weeks Job’s Report was RIGGED,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, three days after the report came out. “Those big adjustments were made to cover up, and level out, the FAKE political numbers that were CONCOCTED in order to make a great Republican Success look less stellar!!!”

Bannon, who was Trump’s chief strategist for a portion of his first term, had advocated for hiring Antoni, who interviewed for the post, The Wall Street Journal on Sunday reported.

Senate Republicans hold a 53-47 advantage and confirmation only requires 50 votes. In January 2024, McEntarfer was confirmed 86-8.

“I don’t think there’s any grounds at all for this, for this firing, and it really hurts the statistical system,” William Beach, who was nominated by Trump during his first term, said on CNN earlier this month. “Suppose that they get a new commissioner … And they do a bad number. Well, everybody’s going to think, ‘well, it’s not as bad as it probably really is,’ because they’re going to suspect political influence. So, this is damaging.”

The BLS distributes data that is used by agencies, including the Federal Reserve, and companies. Besides monthly jobs reports, BLS also provides data on occupations, including wages and job outlook. Consumer spending is also analyzed.

The report showed 73,000 new jobs in July and unemployment rose to 4.2% from 4.1%, which was predicted and still historically low.

But the previous two months were adjusted downward. May was revised from 144,000 jobs added to 19,000 jobs added, and June’s revision went from 147,000 jobs added to 14,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Employment Situation Summary.

The BLS said that monthly revisions “result from additional reports received from businesses and government agencies since the last published estimates and from the recalculation of seasonal factors.”

Reporting from Sacramento — The state ethics agency cited the serious illness and death of key witnesses in its decision to drop charges that political contributions were laundered to the 2010 campaign of Assemblyman Roger Hernandez (D-West Covina).

Ending a protracted legal battle that began three years ago, the state Fair Political Practices Commission has also notified Hernandez’s attorney that it will not pursue allegations that the candidate failed to report spending on a mass mailing on the West Covina City Council elections.

“After a full investigation, the Enforcement Division did not find sufficient, reliable evidence to conclude that your client violated the [Political Reform] Act in this instance and is closing the file on this matter,” wrote Zachary W. Norton, an attorney for the FPPC, to Hernandez’s lawyer.

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The state agency launched the probe after receiving a citizen complaint questioning loans of $100,000 that Hernandez made to his campaign in 2009 and 2010.

The commission issued a finding of probable cause in January. At that time, an attorney for the state agency alleged Hernandez’s committee filed “an inaccurate semi-annual campaign statement with the Secretary of State, falsely reporting information regarding the true sources of contributions received.”

Hernandez challenged the allegations, and in preparing for an administrative hearing, commission attorneys found “inconsistencies in previous witness testimony” and that key witnesses were not available, Norton said.

“Specifically, one key witness has serious medical issues that would prevent him from testifying and another has passed away,” Norton wrote in the case-closing letter. “The standard for proving a violation of the Act administratively is based on the preponderance of the evidence and, at this point, the evidence is not sufficient to meet that standard.”

The allegation involving failure to report a mass mailer was dropped after Hernandez’s campaign provided information that the campaign staffer who approved it was not authorized to do so, Norton said.

Jimmy Gutierrez, an attorney for the Assemblyman, said the letter provides false excuses for why the case was dropped.

“They had issued probable cause findings with no facts whatsoever and they know it,” Gutierrez said. “There was absolutely no merit to it whatsoever.”

WASHINGTON — Around 2 a.m., noisy revelers emerging from clubs and bars packed the sidewalks of U Street in Washington, many of them seeking a late-night slice or falafel. A robust but not unusual contingent of city police cruisers lingered around the edges of the crowds. At other late-night hot spots, nearly identical scenes unfolded.

What wasn’t apparent in Friday’s earliest hours: any sort of security lockdown by a multiagency flood of uniformed federal law enforcement officers. That’s what President Trump had promised Thursday, starting at midnight, in the administration’s latest move to impose its will on the nation’s capital.

In short, that law enforcement surge to take control of the District of Columbia’s streets did not appear to unfold on schedule. A two-hour city tour, starting around 1 a.m. Friday, revealed no overt or visible law enforcement presence other than members of the Metropolitan Police Department, the city’s police force.

That might change in the coming evenings as Trump puts into action his long-standing plans to “take over” a capital city he has repeatedly slammed as unsafe, filthy and badly run. According to his declaration last week, the security lockdown will run for seven days, “with the option to extend as needed.” In an online post Saturday, the Republican president said the Democratic-led city would soon be one of the country’s safest and he announced a White House news conference for Monday, though he offered no details.

On Friday night, a White House official said Thursday night’s operations included arrests for possession of two stolen firearms, suspected fentanyl and marijuana. The official was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The official said more than 120 members of various federal agencies — the Secret Service, the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service — were to be on duty Friday night, upping the complement of federal officers involved.

“This is the first step in stopping the violent crime that has been plaguing the streets of Washington, D.C.,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

Mayor Muriel Bowser, who publicly faced off against Trump in 2020 when he called in a massive federal law enforcement response to disperse crowds of protesters denouncing police brutality and racial profiling, has not said a public word since Trump’s declaration. The Metropolitan Police Department has gone similarly silent.

A crackdown came after an assault

The catalyst for this latest round of takeover drama was an assault Aug. 3 during an attempted carjacking on a high-profile member of the White House’s government-slashing team known as the Department of Government Efficiency, formerly headed by Elon Musk.

Police arrested two 15-year-olds and were seeking others. Trump quickly renewed his calls for the federal government to seize control.

“If D.C. doesn’t get its act together, and quickly, we will have no choice but to take Federal control of the City, and run this City how it should be run, and put criminals on notice that they’re not going to get away with it anymore,” Trump wrote in a post on his social media site.

He later told reporters he was considering a range of alternatives, including repealing Washington’s limited “home rule” autonomy and “bringing in the National Guard, maybe very quickly,” as he did in Los Angeles in response to protests over his administration’s immigration crackdown.

The threats come at a time when Bowser’s government can tout a reduction in the number of homicides and carjackings, both of which surged in 2023. The number of carjackings overall dropped significantly in 2024, from 957 to just under 500, and is on track to decline again this year, with fewer than 200 recorded so far.

The proportion of juveniles arrested on suspicion of carjacking, though, has remained above 50%, and Bowser’s government has taken steps to rein in a recent phenomenon of rowdy teenagers causing disarray and disturbances in public spaces.

Emergency legislation passed by the D.C. Council this summer imposed tighter youth curfew restrictions and empowered Police Chief Pamela Smith to declare temporary juvenile curfew zones for four days at a time. In those areas, a gathering of nine or more people younger than 18 is unlawful after 8 p.m.

Within presidential authority

Trump is within his powers in deploying federal law enforcement assets on D.C. streets. He could deploy the National Guard, although that is not one of the dozen participating agencies listed in his declaration. The first Trump administration called in the National Guard during Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 and again on Jan. 6, 2021, when his supporters overran the Capitol in a failed attempt to overturn his election defeat.

Further steps, including taking over the Police Department, would require a declaration of emergency. Legal experts believe that would most likely be challenged in court. Such an approach would fit the general pattern of Trump’s second term in office, when he has declared states of emergency on issues ranging from border protection to economic tariffs. In many cases, he moved forward while the courts sorted it out.

Imposing a full federal takeover of Washington would require a congressional repeal of the Home Rule Act of 1973. It’s a step that Trump said his administration’s lawyers are examining.

That law was specific to Washington, not other communities in the United States that have their own home rule powers but generally retain representation in their state legislatures, said Monica Hopkins, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of the District of Columbia.

Signed into law by President Nixon, the measure allowed D.C. residents to elect their own mayor, council and local commissioners. The district had been previously run by federally appointed commissioners and members of Congress, some of whom balked at having to deal with potholes and other details of running a city of 700,000 residents.

So far, Trump’s criticisms of Washington can be felt most directly in the actions of the National Park Service, which controls large pieces of land throughout the capital. In Trump’s current administration, the agency has stepped up its clearing of homeless encampments on Park Service land and recently carried out a series of arrests of people smoking marijuana in public parks.

The agency said last week that a statue of a Confederate military leader that was toppled by protesters in 2020 would be restored and replaced, in line with an executive order.

Khalil and Whitehurst write for the Associated Press. AP writers Mike Pesoli, Michael Kunzelman and Michelle L. Price contributed to this report.