Check out Mini-memeorandum for simple mobiles or memeorandum Mobile for modern smartphones.
5:25 PM ET, February 5, 2025

memeorandum

 Top Items: 
New York Times:
C.I.A. Sends White House an Unclassified Email With Names of Some Employees  —  The list of partial names was provided in an effort to comply with an executive order to trim the federal work force.  —  The C.I.A. sent the White House an unclassified email listing all employees hired …
RELATED:
Daniel W. Drezner / Drezner's World:   The Story That Perfectly Encapsulates Trump 2.0's Foreign Policy Carnage
Wall Street Journal:
The CIA Is About to Get a Trump Makeover
Jamelle Bouie / New York Times:
There Is No Going Back  —  Even if anyone had elected Elon Musk to anything, the past week would still be one of the most serious examples of executive branch malfeasance in American history.  —  Musk has seized hold of critical levers of power and authority within the federal government …
RELATED:
Greg Sargent / New Republic:
Trump-Musk Purge Scandal at Treasury Takes Yet Another Unsettling Turn  —  In an effort to tamp down the outcry around Elon Musk's autocratic and illegal power grabs, the Treasury Department has sent a new letter to Congress that casts Musk's takeover of the agency in benign terms.
Ryan Cooper / American Prospect:
King Musk's Government Purge Hits a Snag  —  Before Elon Musk can exercise authoritarian power, he must purge the federal bureaucracy.  But federal workers aren't playing ball.  —  Protesters gather outside the United States Office of Personal Management (OPM) headquarters, February 4, 2025, in Washington.
Discussion: Fortune, PoliticusUSA and EsstN
Jason Koebler / 404 Media:
DOGE Employees Ordered to Stop Using Slack While Agency Transitions to a Records System Not Subject to FOIA  —  Employees working for the agency now known as DOGE have been ordered to stop using Slack while government lawyers attempt to transition the agency to one that is not subject …
RELATED:
Nicholas Wu / Politico:
New Democratic bill targets Elon Musk
Discussion: Fortune and TechCrunch
Dana Hull / Bloomberg:
White House Says Musk Will Police His Own Conflicts of Interest  —  The White House said Elon Musk, the billionaire leading President Donald Trump's government cost-cutting efforts, will determine if there are conflicts of interest between his work reviewing federal spending and his overlapping empire of six companies.
RELATED:
Mike Brock / Techdirt:
The 24-Hour Reality Check: Musk's Impossible Power Grab And America's Crisis  —  There are twenty-four hours in a day.  This isn't a matter of political opinion or technological disruption—it's as immutable as the fact that two plus two equals four.  No amount of genius, innovation …
David Corn / Mother Jones:
Trump White House Moves to Allow for a Musk Takeover of Government IT  —  The Office of Personnel Management is trying to make it easier to put ideologues and cronies in key tech roles.  —  It's a rather wonky position in the US government: chief information officer.  Most federal agencies and departments have one.
Charlie Savage / New York Times:
Trump Brazenly Defies Laws in Escalating Executive Power Grab  —  In the radical opening weeks of his second term, President Trump has appeared to feel little constraint by any need to show respect for the rule of law.  —  In his first term, President Trump seemed to relish ripping through …
Discussion: The Daily Caller
RELATED:
NBC News:
Lawsuits imminent over Trump's dismantling of USAID
New York Times:   List: Examples of Trump's Actions That Are Defying Legal Limits
Alexander Bolton / The Hill:
Musk shocks lawmakers, setting himself on collision course
Discussion: Mashable and IJR
Associated Press:
Trump's suggestion that US ‘take over’ the Gaza Strip is rejected by allies and adversaries alike  —  President Donald Trump's proposal that the United States “take over” the Gaza Strip and permanently resettle its Palestinian residents was swiftly rejected and denounced on Wednesday by American allies and adversaries alike.
RELATED:
NPR:
Trump says the U.S. will ‘take over’ Gaza and relocate its people. What does it mean?
New York Times:
Trump Proposes U.S. Takeover of Gaza and Says All Palestinians Should Leave
The Guardian:
Trump officials try to walk back president's comments on Gaza ‘takeover’ - live
Axios:
Behind the Curtain: Trump's wild Middle East vision
Wall Street Journal:
DOGE Aides Search Medicare Agency Payment Systems for Fraud  —  Elon Musk's allies have been on site at Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services offices this week  —  Representatives of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency have been working at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services …
Wired:
This DOGE Engineer Has Access to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration  —  Sources tell WIRED that NOAA employees were ordered to give an engineer from Elon Musk's DOGE task force access to all of the agency's Google sites by the end of business Wednesday.
Discussion: GovExec.com and E&E News
RELATED:
Morgan Lee / Associated Press:
Thousands protest Trump administration policies in cities across the US  —  A movement to protest the early actions of President Donald Trump's administration took off Wednesday, as thousands of demonstrators gathered outside a federal courthouse in Philadelphia and at state capitols in Michigan, Texas, Wisconsin and Indiana.
RELATED:
Axios:
DOGE targets government media subscriptions after MAGA attacks … - Right-wing personalities are using USAspending.gov to dig up more payments from the government to media organizations — like The New York Times, AP and Reuters — for products and subscriptions.
RELATED:
Jake Lahut / Wired:
Elon Musk's Takeover Is Causing Rifts in Donald Trump's Inner Circle  —  “He's getting too big for his britches,” says one Trump world source.  —  Elon Musk and President Donald Trump, publicly at least, are on good terms.  —  Yet when it comes to the staff in and around the new administration, it's a different story.
RELATED:
NBC News:
Elon Musk gets quiet White House reminders his power isn't unchecked
Discussion: Mediaite, Bloomberg and HuffPost
Reuters:
Top Trump prosecutor in DC dropped federal case against Capitol rioter he represented  —  As President Donald Trump moved last month to free the people who stormed the U.S. Capitol, his newly appointed top prosecutor in Washington put his name on a request that a judge drop charges …
RELATED:
Roger Parloff / Default:   Trump's Petty Purge of 15 Young Jan. 6 Prosecutors
Associated Press:
The House speaker defends Trump's Gaza plan, while other Republicans express doubts.  —  Amid global alarm, top administration officials sought to soften elements of President Trump's proposal to force Palestinians out of the territory and take it over.  Experts said the plan would violate international law.
April Rubin / Axios:
Trump-voting states have more to lose if Education Department dismantled … - States that voted for Trump last November, on average, use more federal funding in their education apportions than states that voted for former Vice President Harris.  — “That dependence is, in large part …
Brooke Singman / Fox News:
Bondi's DOJ Day 1 directives: Fight weaponization of justice, eliminate cartels, lift death penalty ban  —  Bondi ends moratorium on federal executions, warns prosecutors about working against DOJ mission  —  EXCLUSIVE: Attorney General Pam Bondi will issue several major directives …
RELATED:
Alexander Bolton / The Hill:
McConnell slips and falls outside Senate Chamber  —  Former Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) slipped and fell on the stairs leaving the Senate Chamber on Wednesday afternoon, prompting concerned aides to rush to help the 82-year-old lawmaker.  —  McConnell appeared to slip …
Emma Dumain / Politico:
Senate's top appropriator says Elon Musk has gone too far  —  The Senate's top appropriator thinks Elon Musk has gone too far.  Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, is raising alarms about the influence that billionaire Elon Musk is wielding inside the Trump administration and across federal agencies.
Discussion: Bangor Daily News
Sam Ogozalek / Politico:
Musk's cost-cutters to ‘plug in’ to air traffic control system, Trump's transportation chief says  —  Sean Duffy said that he'd spoken with Musk, calling him a “pretty remarkable guy” who has “access to the best technological people, the best engineers in the world.”
Discussion: New Republic
Benjamin Guggenheim / Politico:
Two Dem lawmakers barge into House speaker's office in backlash against Musk  —  Reps. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) and Gwen Moore (D-Wisc.) barged into House Speaker Mike Johnson's office unscheduled on Wednesday and challenged him about Elon Musk's team gaining access to a sensitive payment system at the Treasury Department.
Discussion: Axios and New Republic
David Edwards / Raw Story:
Watch: Nancy Mace repeatedly shouts LGBTQ+ slur as Dems object at hearing  —  Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) repeatedly shouted a slur for transgender people after a Democratic member of Congress cautioned her against it.  —  At a Wednesday House Oversight hearing on government efficiency …
Ben Fox / Politico:
‘Frankly Insane’: Trump's Plan to Ship Migrants to Guantanamo Could Quickly Collapse  —  A reality check from a top lawyer who knows Guantanamo.  —  President Donald Trump's plan to send up to 30,000 migrants to Guantanamo Bay has echoes of the past — but it's also unlike anything ever done before.
Discussion: Military.com, IJR, Breitbart and UPI
Apoorva Mandavilli / New York Times:
Foreign Aid Freeze Leaves Millions Without H.I.V. Treatment  —  President Trump's pause on aid, and the gutting of the primary aid agency, could jeopardize the health of more than 20 million people worldwide, including 500,000 children, experts say.  —  Two weeks into President Trump's sweeping freeze …
Brian Beutler / Off Message:
Watch The Credit-Ratings Agencies  —  If the illegal commandeering of the federal budget doesn't make the U.S. less creditworthy, then Wall Street is cowed and misleading investors.  —  ∙ Paid  —  In August 2011, after Republicans brought the country to the brink of default on the national debt …
 
 
 Archived Page Info: 
This is a snapshot of memeorandum at 5:25 PM ET, February 5, 2025.

View the current page or another snapshot:


 
 See Also: 
memeorandum: site main
memeorandum River: reverse chronological memeorandum
memeorandum Mobile: for phones
memeorandum Leaderboard: memeorandum's top sources
 
 Subscribe: 
memeorandum RSS feed
memeorandum on Mastodon
 
 
 More Items: 
David Dayen / American Prospect:
L.A. Times Owner Has Financial Motivations for Boosting RFK Jr.
Discussion: CBS News
Politico:
Trump to sign order that could bar trans women from US Olympic participation
Janus Rose / 404 Media:
You Can't Post Your Way Out of Fascism  —  If there's one thing I'd hoped people had learned …
Aaron Wiener / Washington Post:
Trump ordered workers back to the office. They ask, where, exactly?
Discussion: The Independent
Michelle Singletary / Washington Post:
Federal workers shouldn't sign OPM's sham resignation agreement
Discussion: Twitchy and The Verge
Dave Troy / America 2.0:
America Under Attack, Week 2: What We're Monitoring
 Earlier Items: 
CBS News:
Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper's security detail revoked
Discussion: New York Times and Forbes
Raw Story:
GOP lawmaker wants to repeal Arizona's ban on machine guns and pipe bombs
Discussion: KLAS
Politico:
Former DOD official who called Obama a ‘terrorist leader’ tapped as Pentagon personnel chief
Discussion: Blaze Media
ProPublica:
Washington Governor Orders Team to Study Data Centers' Impact on Energy Use, Job Creation and Tax Revenue
Discussion: governor.wa.gov
Jonathan V. Last / The Bulwark:
Elon Musk and the League of Shadows
Discussion: The Hill and Axios
Stephen Battaglio / Los Angeles Times:
CNN finds itself at a digital crossroads after years of turmoil
Discussion: Daily Mail
Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch:
Google removes pledge to not use AI for weapons from website