ProPublica investigation found DOGE cuts left OPM FOIA office unable to fulfill records requests
A ProPublica investigation published August 11, 2026 found that the Office of Personnel Management's FOIA and Privacy Act office has become largely non-functional since the Department of Government Efficiency's early-2025 staffing cuts, which eliminated more than 600 government-information specialists across federal agencies, including 12 of OPM's own. OPM's FOIA backlog grew to over 1,600 requests by the end of fiscal 2025 — seven times the prior year's total — and average processing time doubled to more than 84 days, while a reporter attempting to file a routine request in July 2026 was bounced between broken web portals and abandoned email inboxes for weeks. OPM did not respond to a request for comment.
Actors
On August 11, 2026, ProPublica reported that the Office of Personnel Management's Freedom of Information Act office has become largely non-functional since the Department of Government Efficiency fired federal employees across agencies beginning in early 2025. According to OPM's own data, more than 600 government-information specialists — the staff who administer FOIA and Privacy Act requests — have resigned or been fired government-wide since the start of the second Trump administration; within OPM itself, 12 information specialists left, seven of them laid off, with only one new hire in the same period. A former OPM FOIA specialist, cut the day after describing the cuts to a reporter in February 2025, said the losses made the office "less efficient, less able to perform its function," and threatened the agency's ability to fulfill its statutory obligations.
The backlog that resulted is measurable: at the end of fiscal year 2025, more than 1,600 FOIA requests sat unanswered at OPM, seven times the backlog at the end of fiscal year 2024, and the average processing time for a simple request had slipped to more than 84 days, twice as long as the year before. A ProPublica reporter who routinely files FOIA requests for federal political-appointee data described attempting to submit a request in July 2026: the agency's web portal returned an error message, the email address for OPM's FOIA public liaison auto-replied that the position was vacant, and a subsequent complaint to the portal's outside contractor, Opexus, took 13 days to resolve.
OPM did not respond to ProPublica's request for comment on the reporting.
Why we recorded this
Federal agencies are legally required to respond to public-records requests within statutory deadlines so citizens and journalists can hold government accountable. The Department of Government Efficiency fired more than 600 government-information specialists across federal agencies since January 2025, including most of the Office of Personnel Management's Privacy Act staff, and OPM's own data shows its FOIA backlog grew sevenfold and average processing time doubled as a result. This archive records the loss of that statutorily grounded function because a government that cannot answer public-records requests cannot be checked by the public it serves.
Sources
- Is There Anyone Who Can Respond to My FOIA Requests? Anyone? — ProPublica primary accessed August 12, 2026
See also
- Intercept and ProPublica investigation reveals Pentagon under Hegseth gutted civilian protection unit and abandoned civilian harm-tracking database
- EEOC voted 2-1 to advance proposed rule rescinding 60-year employer demographic reporting requirement
- NIAID bars U.S. disease scientists from communicating with the WHO during active outbreaks
- Education Department withheld its 2023-24 Civil Rights Data Collection six months past its publication deadline
- Forest Service Chief Schultz falsely told Congress DOGE cuts had not harmed wildfire capacity; agency documents and officials contradicted the claim
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