Honest government data and scientific integrity
A democracy needs honest information about itself: employment, inflation, public health, environmental conditions, agency performance, the state of the world its policies affect. Government statisticians and scientists do not work for whichever party holds office; they work for the public, and their job is to report what the data say, not what their political leadership wishes the data said. The integrity of public records and scientific output is what makes informed citizenship — and informed policy — possible at all.
The abuses tracked here include the suppression or delayed release of agency data on political grounds, the appointment of unqualified loyalists to scientific or statistical roles, retaliation against career scientists whose findings inconvenience leadership, the alteration of official records after publication, and the censorship of agency research. When government becomes the editor of its own performance, the public loses both accurate ground truth and the ability to hold anyone accountable for the gap between rhetoric and reality.
Further reading: Government Accountability Office — non-partisan oversight reports on agency performance and program integrity. Library of Congress Constitution Annotated.
Entries
2026
Reuters exclusive reveals White House suppressed ODNI voting machine vulnerability report for months ahead of 2026 midterms
White House officials delayed the release of an unclassified Office of the Director of National Intelligence report on voting machine vulnerabilities for months ahead of the November 2026 midterm elections. Reuters reported on June 19, 2026, citing three sources familiar with the matter, that officials internally debated shelving the report over concerns it could undermine Republican voter confidence — and separately that some objected the report did not go far enough in supporting Trump's false claims about the 2020 election. The ODNI assessment examined security gaps in voting machines and recommended remedial measures such as software updates; it did not conclude that any votes had been flipped.
Trump cancels Jay Clayton DNI confirmation hearing, demands Senate pass SAVE America Act
At approximately 4 a.m. ET on June 17, 2026, President Trump posted on Truth Social canceling Jay Clayton's Senate Intelligence Committee confirmation hearing for Director of National Intelligence, hours before it was scheduled to begin. Trump conditioned Clayton's confirmation on the Senate passing the SAVE America Act — a voter ID bill that had already failed — and also threatened to block reauthorization of FISA Section 702, a major intelligence surveillance authority, unless it was tied to that legislation. The move left Bill Pulte, Trump's acting DNI pick with no intelligence background, in the role for at least several additional weeks.
White House orders federal AI-testing unit CAISI to stop publishing model evaluations
Trump administration officials, including National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross, directed the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI) — the main U.S. government body that tests frontier AI models — to halt publication of its assessments pending implementation of President Trump's June 2, 2026 AI security executive order. The order shifts model evaluation from CAISI's public process toward a classified framework run by national-security agencies, after the agency had already published more than 40 model evaluations that served as a shared public baseline. Companies will still submit models for review, but results will largely remain behind closed doors.
Trump directs acting DNI Pulte to start firing intelligence community personnel
In a Wall Street Journal interview published June 5, 2026, President Trump said he has directed newly installed acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte to "start the process" of firing national-security personnel and to make the intelligence community smaller, framing the targets as career officials who served under the Biden and Obama administrations. Trump said Pulte's "acting" status leaves him "less shackled" to execute rapid cuts, and indicated he does not intend to formally nominate Pulte — who has no national-security background — for the permanent role.
ICE ends requirement to report deaths of newly released detainees
Acting ICE Director David Venturella issued an internal memo on June 4, 2026 ending the agency's requirement to report and investigate deaths that occur within 30 days of a detainee's release from custody, rescinding a transparency policy adopted in 2021. The change removes a congressional accountability data stream that oversight bodies had used to track deaths connected to detention conditions. Advocates and public health experts warned the rollback would obscure the human cost of immigration detention as in-custody deaths reach a two-decade high.
Trump names Bill Pulte acting Director of National Intelligence, replacing Tulsi Gabbard
On June 2, 2026, President Trump named Bill Pulte — director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, with no intelligence background — acting Director of National Intelligence, succeeding Tulsi Gabbard, who plans to resign effective June 30. The acting designation lets Pulte lead the 18-agency intelligence community without Senate confirmation while he keeps his FHFA post and his chairmanship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
DOJ scrubs Jan. 6 prosecution releases, erasing records of pleas and convictions
In late May 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice mass-deleted news releases from its website detailing federal prosecutions of Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol-attack defendants — including guilty pleas, jury verdicts, and prison-sentence announcements covering portions of the roughly 1,600 cases, with assaults on Capitol and D.C. Metropolitan Police officers and seditious-conspiracy convictions of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders among the purged set. The DOJ's rapid-response social-media account defended the takedown as removing "partisan propaganda" from the prior administration. The formerly accessible URLs now return "Page not found" errors.
NIAID bars U.S. disease scientists from communicating with the WHO during active outbreaks
A May 18, 2026 internal directive from a senior National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases official, obtained by CNN, restricted U.S. infectious-disease researchers to attending World Health Organization meetings only in groups of three or fewer and only in a "listening capacity," with any research questions or countermeasure ideas routed through HHS's chain of command. The limits were imposed during active Ebola and Hantavirus responses; current and former officials called barring direct scientist-to-scientist coordination during an emerging public-health emergency unprecedented.
CDC blocks publication of cleared MMWR study showing COVID vaccine effectiveness
A CDC scientific report finding that the 2025–2026 COVID-19 vaccine roughly halved healthy adults' risk of emergency-department visits and hospitalizations was scheduled to run in the agency's flagship Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report on March 19, 2026, after clearing internal scientific review. Acting CDC Director Jay Bhattacharya blocked its publication, objecting to the study's test-negative design — a methodology the CDC has long used to measure vaccine effectiveness and that appeared in an MMWR flu-vaccine study the prior month. A former CDC immunization director called blocking an already-cleared, scheduled MMWR report unprecedented.
Gabbard's 2026 threat assessment drops climate and foreign election-interference analysis
On March 18, 2026, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released the Intelligence Community's 2026 Annual Threat Assessment and testified to the Senate and House intelligence committees. The assessment omitted the climate-and-environment analysis prior editions had carried — after Gabbard gutted the National Intelligence Council office covering those issues — and Gabbard told lawmakers the IC found no evidence of foreign threats to the November 2026 midterms, a departure from the community's prior findings on Russian and other election interference. Critics charged that the IC's flagship analytic product was being shaped to fit White House messaging.
Interior/NPS database flags hundreds of park signs on slavery, civil rights, climate for removal
An internal Department of the Interior and National Park Service database, authenticated by The Washington Post with current federal employees, flags several hundred signs, exhibits, films, and books across national park sites for removal or revision under President Trump's order to scrub "partisan ideology" and content that "disparages" Americans. Flagged materials include exhibits on slavery, the civil rights movement, Japanese-American internment, racial violence, and climate science — among them at least 30 signs at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. Some materials had already been removed when the database was reported on March 2, 2026, while the department said final decisions on others had not been made.
DOJ withheld and removed Epstein-file records tied to a Trump sexual-abuse allegation
An NPR investigation published February 24, 2026 found that the Justice Department's public Epstein-files database was missing dozens of pages of FBI records connected to a woman's allegation that Donald Trump sexually abused her as a minor in the early 1980s. NPR reported that roughly 53 pages of interview notes were withheld or removed — some briefly taken offline and not fully restored — while other Epstein materials remained public. The DOJ said unpublished records were privileged, duplicative, or under review, and House Democrats and the Republican committee chair each announced investigations into the omissions.
State Department orders all pre-2025 official X posts removed, accessible only via FOIA
The State Department directed all of its official accounts on X — including those of U.S. embassies and missions, ambassadors, and department bureaus and programs — to remove every post made before President Trump returned to office on January 20, 2025, spanning the Obama, first Trump, and Biden administrations. The posts will be internally archived but taken off public view, with anyone seeking them required to file a Freedom of Information Act request, a break from the usual practice of leaving prior administrations' agency posts publicly visible. A department spokesperson said the goal was to "limit confusion" and to "speak with one voice."
CIA shuts down its World Factbook after more than 60 years, with no warning
On or about February 4, 2026, the CIA abruptly took its World Factbook — the authoritative public reference on the world's countries, published since 1962 and online since 1997 — offline, replacing it with a webpage declaring the publication had "sunset." The agency gave no advance notice and no explanation, declined to comment on the record, and set up redirects that led away from the data while removing the Factbook's historical archives, breaking millions of links used by schools, researchers, and news organizations.
2025
Interior Department issued memo barring all bureaus from confirming deaths or injuries on public lands
In December 2025, the Department of the Interior issued an internal memo directing all bureaus and offices — including the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — not to confirm deaths, serious injuries, or "emotionally sensitive incidents" on federal public lands. The memo, obtained by The Washington Post and reported June 24, 2026, states "Interior shall not confirm a death" and routes all fatality information through the department's Office of Communications. Former NPS officials said the change reversed longstanding practice of quickly informing the public about fatal incidents to prevent further harm.
E&E News investigation reveals Energy Department banned 'climate change,' 'decarbonization,' and other terms from EERE work products
The Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy directed employees to avoid approximately a dozen scientific and policy terms — including "climate change," "decarbonization," "clean energy," and "energy transition" — in all work products, including the agency website, internal reports, and federal funding opportunity descriptions. E\&E News first reported the directive on September 29; NPR independently obtained an internal email confirming it, contradicting DOE\'s public denial that any such ban applied to those terms. EERE is the federal government's largest funder of clean energy technology, with a $3.46 billion annual budget and a statutory mission under the Energy Policy Act to advance energy efficiency and renewable energy research.
USDA cancelled 30-year Household Food Security Report; placed ERS researchers on leave for disclosing decision
The U.S. Department of Agriculture cancelled its annual Household Food Security Report — the federal government's primary 30-year measure of hunger and food insecurity — on September 22, 2025, and then placed approximately a dozen Economic Research Service economists, researchers, supervisors, and administrators on indefinite paid administrative leave, citing an "unauthorized disclosure." The employees placed on leave were among those present at meetings where the decision to cancel the report was discussed. The report had been used annually since 1995 by policymakers, academics, and advocates to evaluate federal nutrition programs including SNAP, WIC, and school meals.
RFK Jr.-appointed ACIP panel voted 8-3 to delay routine MMRV childhood vaccine, first change to immunization schedule
On September 18, 2025, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices — its entire prior membership of 17 independent scientific experts having been dismissed and replaced by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — voted 8-3 to delay routine administration of the MMRV combination vaccine (measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella) from the standard 12–15 months to age 4. It was the first change to the childhood immunization schedule under Kennedy's HHS and the first ACIP meeting of his hand-picked panel, which observers and STAT News described as "rocky" amid procedural irregularities, complaints about insufficient review time, and a postponed hepatitis B vote.
Trump signed EO 14332, placing political appointees as sole gatekeepers over all federal discretionary grants
On August 7, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14332, requiring all federal agencies to appoint senior political appointees as sole gatekeepers with approval authority over every new discretionary grant announcement, reducing peer review panels to advisory status. The order prohibits federal funding for programs using racial preferences, rejecting binary sex classifications, supporting immigration assistance, or promoting undefined "anti-American values." A "termination for convenience" provision permits agencies to retroactively cancel any existing grant that no longer aligns with "agency priorities."
Trump fired BLS Commissioner McEntarfer hours after weak jobs report, accusing her without evidence of rigging data
On August 1, 2025, President Trump fired Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer via Truth Social hours after BLS released a jobs report showing only 73,000 nonfarm jobs added in July, below market expectations. Trump publicly accused McEntarfer of manipulating the data "to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad," despite the fact that commissioners do not produce employment estimates and McEntarfer did not see the report until shortly before its public release. McEntarfer had been confirmed 86-0 by the Senate, including then-Senator JD Vance, and was serving a statutory four-year term.
EPA eliminated Office of Research and Development, laid off up to 1,155 scientists in 23% workforce cut
On July 18, 2025, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the elimination of the agency's Office of Research and Development — the scientific foundation underlying every federal air, water, and chemical safety standard for 55 years — and a reduction of more than 3,700 total EPA positions (nearly 23%). As many as 1,155 chemists, biologists, and toxicologists received reduction-in-force notices. The administration said it would replace ORD with an "Office of Applied Science and Environmental Solutions" subordinated to deregulatory program offices.
HHS Secretary Kennedy dismissed all 17 ACIP members and replaced them with political selections
On June 9, 2025, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dismissed all 17 sitting members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices via a press release and a simultaneous Wall Street Journal op-ed, characterizing them as conflicted and as last-minute Biden appointees. ACIP is the independent federal advisory body whose vaccine recommendations are adopted by the CDC and followed by pediatricians and public health agencies nationwide. Kennedy announced eight replacement members on June 11, 2025; the replacement panel, described by observers as less credentialed than its predecessor, voted 8-3 at its inaugural September 2025 meeting to delay routine administration of the MMRV childhood vaccine — the first change to the immunization schedule under Kennedy's HHS.
HHS directed NIAID to terminate Consortia for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Development funding, ending $258M federal HIV vaccine program
On May 30, 2025, NIAID verbally notified researchers at Scripps Research and Duke University that the Trump administration was terminating the Consortia for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Development (CHAVD), a $258 million, seven-year NIH-funded program representing the largest single federal investment in HIV vaccine research. NIAID also ended funding for three monkey-model vaccine research groups. The termination came as CHAVD researchers were preparing to begin clinical trials on a broadly neutralizing antibody approach that scientists described as the most promising HIV vaccine lead in decades. An HHS spokesperson cited "complex and duplicative health programs" as justification.