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DOGE Track

Attacking the Civil Service

Probably DOGE’s biggest success so far has been their efforts to inflict “trauma” (as Russell Vought expressed this goal) on the federal workforce. From the first day, DOGE has staffed a large contingent at the OPM, with many of them coming from legal or human resources backgrounds with Musk’s various companies. The work against federal employees has included by specific legal and policy actions as well as data mining to identify groups that can be more easily fired.

This work has involved the following distinct strands:

  • Firing Probationary Workers: In the Federal government, employees who have been in a particular role for less than a year are called “probationary” and have fewer protections against dismissal. As Noah Peters has testified, DOGE identified early that this rule could be hacked as a way to quickly fire a large number of civil service employees. To this end, the OPM requested in the first week that DOGE should send lists of probationary employees for analysis and then pushed to have them all fired. Judges have not been as impressed by this trick, and several have ruled that OPM overstepped its bounds and had no legal basis to order these reductions.
  • The Fork in the Road: Copied directly from the playbook that Elon Musk used at Twitter, DOGE built an email system at OPM called the Government-Wide Email System (GWES) and used it to email every federal employee with an offer to take a deferred resignation offer by replying to an email with the word “resign.” This sparked widespread confusion, with many employees unsure if the offer was legal or would be honored by the administration. Ultimately, only 75,000 employees accepted the offer, below the administration’s goal of 5-10% of the federal workforce. Since then, the administration has brought back the offer at specific agencies, where staff have been more receptive after dealing with other insults and indignities in their agencies for months.
  • Reductions in Force: DOGE has also been an essential part of the administration’s efforts to force widespread layoffs (called Reductions In Force or RIFs), supporting those efforts in multiple ways. This includes crafting the policy and instructions at the OPM and approving “emergency” exemptions to let agencies bypass normal procedures. One of the DOGE engineers, Riccardo Biasini, has also been reportedly working on improving an AutoRIF package for automating the selection and processing of employees for layoffs. DOGE has employed RIFs regularly as a tactic to completely eliminate departments and entire agencies.
  • Five Things: After Elon Musk tweeted it on a Saturday, DOGE workers at OPM quickly launched another demand for federal workers: they would be required to send an email every week of five things they had done the prior week or be fired. Unfortunately, a management technique employed at a company of 2000 or so employees does not scale to a bureaucracy of 2+ million employees, some of whom are in remote locations or working on classified subjects. Cabinet agencies were caught completely off-guard and federal employees worried that the information would be ineptly used to map out agency org charts or make firing decisions. After several months of confusion, many agencies decided to no longer comply with the requirement and the whole process had become a joke before it was finally ended by OPM’s new director.

Despite many of these setbacks and haphazard roll-outs, attacking the bureaucracy has been one of DOGE’s most successful projects. It has directly reduced and traumatized the workforce and indirectly has damaged how government works, with ripple effects from understaffing becoming visible months after the damage has been done.

System Access

Name Description
SaaS
A system for controlling access to other systems within an agency
CFPB: Gavin Kliger (2/07/25-5/08/25)
CFPB: Luke Farritor (2/07/25-3/04/25)
SSP
Shared service for booking government travel
CFPB: Jordan Wick (2/07/25-3/28/25)
Provides information on CFPB reporting structure
Jordan Wick (2/07/25-3/28/25)
SaaS
A tool for managing access control to systems built on top of ActiveDirectory
DOL: Marko Elez (2/25)
DOL: Miles Collins (2/26)
HHS
This system is used at HHS for managing all aspects of human-capital related tasks, including staffing notes and performance plans.
Rachel Riley (2/03)
Luke Farritor (2/28, admin access)
Zach Terrell (3/07)
OPM
The Enterprise Human Resources Integration Data Warehouse (“EHRI”) collects human resources, payroll, and training data from several dozen sources outside of OPM, including other federal agencies.
Riccardo Biasini (1/28/25-7/30/25)
Nikhil Rajpal (2/05/25-7/21/25, admin access)
DOL
Used to control physical access to the DOL HQ and several other buildings. Could track when employees enter and leave
Marko Elez (2/25)
SSP
A shared service which processes payrolls for Interior, but also DOJ, Treasury, DHS, the Air Force, Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other agencies. Covers about half of federal personnel.
DOI: Stephanie Holmes (3/29, admin access)
DOI: Katrine Trampe (3/29, admin access)
OPM
A new system developed by DOGE for sending out email to all federal employees and collecting responses. It was most famously used for the Fork in The Road email.
Gavin Kliger (1/24/25-8/08/25, admin access)
Nikhil Rajpal (1/30/25-7/21/25, admin access)
SSP
HR system for tracking employee information
DOL: Miles Collins (2/19)
CFPB: Jordan Wick (2/07/25-3/28/25, read-write access)
SaaS
A centralized identity provider used to support single-sign-on (SSO) and centralize access control for agencies.
CFPB: Luke Farritor (2/07/25-3/04/25, admin access)
CFPB: Jordan Wick (2/09/25-3/05/25, admin access)
CFPB: Gavin Kliger (2/07/25-5/08/25)
NEH: Nate Cavanaugh (c.3/12, admin access)
NEH: Justin Fox (c.3/12, admin access)
SaaS
Microsoft Office 365 is used for agency email and knowledge management systems.
CISA: Edward Coristine (2/20, admin access)
DOE: Luke Farritor (2/05)
SSP
A business intelligence system that is one of the offerings of the National Finance Center, which handles payroll for 650,000 federal employees.
SBA: Donald Park (2/03)
SSP
The Reporting Center is a Web-based application page which allows managers, personnel specialists, and other employees of Federal Agencies serviced by NFC to generate Administrative Reports, Financial Reports, and Workforce Reports.
SBA: Donald Park (2/03)
SaaS
CFPB: Jordan Wick (2/07/25-3/28/25)
Possibly a system for controlling and monitoring physical access to CFPB buildings
Gavin Kliger (2/07/25-5/08/25)
SSP
System tracking job performance of federal employees
OPM: Riccardo Biasini (1/28/25-7/30/25, admin access)
OPM: Akash Bobba (1/20/25-7/30/25, admin access)
OPM: Gavin Kliger (1/20/25-9/22/25, admin access)
OPM: Nikhil Rajpal (1/28/25-7/21/25, admin access)
OPM: Brian Bjelde (1/20)
OPM: OPM-09 (1/31)
OPM: Austin Raynor (2/07)
OPM: OPM-11 (2/07)
OPM: OPM-12 (2/07)
OPM: OPM-13 (1/31)
OPM: Chris Young (2/07)
OPM: OPM-15 (2/07)
OPM: Jacob Altik (1/31)
OPM: OPM-17 (1/31)
OPM: Greg Hogan (1/20/25-9/02/25)
SSP
A platform for federal agencies to recruit and onboard employees.
CFPB: Jordan Wick (2/07/25-3/28/25)
OPM: Amanda Scales (1/20/25-3/29/25, admin access)
OPM: Riccardo Biasini (1/28, admin access)
OPM: Gavin Kliger (1/20, admin access)
OPM: Nikhil Rajpal (1/28, admin access)
OPM: Brian Bjelde (1/20, admin access)
OPM: James Sullivan (2/03, admin access)
SSP
Shared service access provider system
DOL: Marko Elez (2/25)
HUD
System for authorizing access and setting permissions to talk to other systems at HUD
Michael Mirski (2/26, read-write access)
SSP
System for tracking timecards
CFPB: Jordan Wick (2/07)
SSP
The AutoRIF software tool was adapted by DOGE engineer Riccardo Biasini into a web service to help automate the process of identifying staff to be laid off and conducting the operation.
DOI: Stephanie Holmes (8/XX, read-write access)
DOI: Tyler Hassen (8/XX, read-write access)
An system for government employees to access their personnel files electronically. These are updated when staff receive changes in salary or duty station or title, or receive performance reviews.
Riccardo Biasini (1/28/25-2/06/25)
Akash Bobba (4/07/25-7/21/25)
Nikhil Rajpal (1/28/25-2/06/25)
Date Event
c.1/16/25
Source
According to his later sworn testimony, Noah Peters meets with Keenan Kmiec to outline his plan on how to use administrative leave to sideline federal employees from being able to do their work and counter or monitor DOGE’s activities at their agencies. (fuzz: Date is approximate in deposition)
c.1/16/25
Source
Noah Peters starts drafting two memos for OPM. One concerns temporary authorities for Schedule C and the other is on how to handle both probationary employees and admininstrative leave. These are to be issued on January 20th. (fuzz: Date is approximate in deposition)
1/20/25
Source
Acting OPM Director Charles Ezell replaces existing CIO Melvin Brown with DOGE ally Greg Hogan, who will serve as the Acting CIO.
1/20/25
Source
Multiple DOGE staff start working at OPM and are listed as part of the Office of the Director.
 Anthony Armstrong, Riccardo Biasini, Brian Bjelde, Akash Bobba, Gavin Kliger, Noah Peters, Amanda Scales, Joanna Wischer
1/20/25
Source
IT staff at OPM are pulled into a “911-esque call” requesting that “a political team” of 6 individuals must be given access to OPM systems. These include Charles Ezell, Greg Hogan, and Amanda Scales, as well as unidentified employees OPM-03 (Akash Bobba), OPM-05 (Gavin Kliger) and OPM-07 (Brian Bjelde). These DOGE staffers are granted administrative access to USAJOBS, USA Staffing, and USA Performance systems.
1/20/25
Source
In another executive order EO 14170, Trump declares a hiring freeze and that DOGE will work with OMB and OPM to submit a plan to reduce the size of the government within 90 days
1/21/25
Source
Nikhil Rajpal and Cole Killian start screening all preexisting USDS staff with short interviews, asking them their views of DOGE and to name who they think are underperformers that should be fired.
1/22/25
Source
The Department of Energy rescinds 394 pending job offers as part of Trump’s hiring freeze. It also removes almost all of its job advertisements.
1/23/25
Source
OPM sends out a first test email to all federal staff from its new Government-Wide Email System (GWES).
1/24/25
Source
Representing OPM, James Sullivan coordinates in an email to Department of Energy officials on several DOGE-led initiatives. One messages states “as discussed over the phone, when you compile the list of 69 DEI employees placed on admin leave, please share with Amanda and myself.” Energy officials also send a list of 1394 probationary employees to Amanda Scales, all of whom will be fired.
 Amanda Scales, James Sullivan
1/26/25
Source
OPM sends a second test email from its new Government-Wide Email System (GWES) to all government employees.
1/27/25
Source
A member of the OPM union posts a Reddit message reportedly from an OPM employee which states that the email server is a piece of outside equipment and the its goal is to generate lists of all govt employees in order to send massive firing notices later.
1/27/25
Source
After the arrival of DOGE in the agency, senior staff are summoned to a meeting with Gavin Kliger and Luke Farritor. The DOGE team then presented agency leadership with a list of 57 employees involved with payments to be placed on immediate administrative leave and locked out of system access. The list reportedly made little sense and involved many staff not involved with payments.
1/28/25
Source
CDC managers receive a directive from OPM to classify probationary hires as “mission critical”, working on “strategic priorities” or neither. When one of the CDC’s ten centres responded that all their staff were “mission critical”, higher-ups told set explicit target percentages for each category.
1/28/25
Source
OPM sends out the “Fork in the Road” email to all federal employees offering them a chance to resign, in exchange for six month of administrative leave and protection from termination.
1/29/25
Source
The Smithsonian Institution announces it is closing a diversity office and freezing all federal hiring. It is not a federal agency, but most of its funding comes from Congressional appropriaions and two-thirds of its staff are federal workers.
1/30/25
Source
DOGE presents their evidence that the employees should be placed on leave based on a single email analysis made by Luke Farritor and sent to other DOGE members. “I could be wrong. My numbers could be off.” he writes, but the conclusions are not questioned or checked.
1/31/25
Source
The Department of Energy consults with DOGE staff at OPM about return-to-office mandates. Clayton Cromer handles the exchange from OPM’s side.
 Clayton Cromer
February 2025
2/01/25
Source
Stephanie Holmes, the new head of HR at DOGE/USDS, is unable to answer questions from USDS staff about if the “Fork in the Road” retirement offer is legitimate.
2/01/25
Source
THe USAID Director of Security and their deputy are placed on administrative leave for reportedly trying to prevent DOGE from accessing personnel files and classified data
2/XX/25
Source
Unnamed engineers working for DOGE within OPM reportedly used Meta’s Llama AI model running locally on OPM servers to analyze responses to the “Fork in the Road” resignation offer.
2/03/25
Source
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is named the acting director of the CFPB and orders staff to immediately halt all work pending review.
2/03/25
Source
Brian Bjelde holds a meeting with senior staff at OPM, directing them to prepare plans to eliminate 70% of the agency’s workforce at some unspecified point in the future. They are also told to identify 30% of staff that could be eliminated in the near term.
2/03/25
Source
Email to SBA staff announces that Edward Coristine and Donald Park were granted access to all systems including HR, contract, and payment systems.
2/03/25
Source
Stephen Kucharski, director of the SBA’s Office of Performance Systems Management, emailed 19 colleagues with an urgent request: “Please help me and my OCIO colleagues as we mobilize to provide Edward Coristine and Donald Park Admin access to all SBA systems. This action has been cleared and we are on a very short time frame.” They were to be granted access to HR and procurement systems. He then follows up with the agency CIO.
2/03/25
Source
Within three hours of the request, Edward Coristine and Donald Park are granted “admin authority” to the mainframe and read-only access to the NFC Insight and Reporting Center applications. This gives them the ability to see sensitive information like salary, banking information and even debt for employees at the SBA (and possibly other agencies)
2/03/25
Source
Elias Hernandez, the associate administrator for the Office of Veterans Business Development at SBA, emails the director of the National Finance Center (NFC) asking for immediate admin access to the mainframe for “all SBA Personnel Office Identifiers (POIs)”. NFC is a shared service from USDA that handles payroll for roughly 150,000 federal employees across 170 agencies including the SBA.
2/07/25
Source
168 employees who worked on environmental justice at the EPA are placed on indefinite administrative leave.
2/10/25
Source
Unnamed DOGE staff using non-governmental Google accounts conduct dozens of “touch-base” interviews with dozens of US Digital Corps fellows, under the direction of Thomas Shedd.
2/11/25
Source
Approximately 85 probationary employees at the CFPB are fired without cause.
2/11/25
Source
Trump issues EO 14210 which grants DOGE teams in every agency final approval over any hiring decisions. It also creates a rule that an agency can hire 1 new person only if 4 people have left.
2/12/25
Source
Adam Martinez, CFPB COO, includes DOGE representatives Jordan Wick and Chris Young in emails hiring OPM for consulting on Reduction-in-Force (RIF) planning for the CFPB. CFPB agrees to pay OPM $171,925 for these services.
2/12/25
Source
GSA technical staff describe being subjected to 15-minute interviews where they felt they were asked to justify their jobs.
2/12/25
Source
Dozens of probationary workers within the Technology Transformation Service (TTS) are fired, with many of the cuts focused on the US Digital Corps and Presidential Innovation Fellows programs
2/13/25
Source
The CFPB RIF team, including Adam Martinez meets with Jordan Wick, Jeremy Lewin, and OPM officials on a video call. Jeremy Lewin and Jordan Wick talk off screen with Acting Director Russell Vought, and Wick tells the group that they want formal RIF notices to go out no later than February 14. The team receives a template from OPM for firing 1200 employees “at night on the 13th.”
2/13/25
Source
Representing DOGE and OPM, Noah Peters finalizes mass layoffs at the USDA just before Secretary Rollins is to be sworn in that evening. When asked later by Congress about the layoffs, she deflects and says it happened before she started.
 Noah Peters
2/14/25
Source
The judge, Amy Berman-Jackson grants a temporary restraining order against CFPB leadership until a hearing for a preliminary injunction to prevent them from shuttering the agency by eliminating staff and canceling all contracts. DOGE and CFPB leadership had been racing to eliminate 1175 positions before the restraining order was announced.
2/14/25
Source
Approximately 50 USDS staff are fired, with most of terminations focused on project managers and designers (removing approximately 1/3 of the USDS staff that predated DOGE).
2/14/25
Source
388 probationary employees are fired at the EPA.
2/15/25
Source
Roughly 750 probationary workers at the CDC receive termination notices sent directly from OPM, in possible violation of federal laws governing the civil service.
2/17/25
Source
The head of the medical device safety division at the FDA is fired amid mass layoffs
2/17/25
Source
The head of the FDA’s food safety division resigns because of 89 employees being indiscriminately fired in the division.
2/18/25
Source
DoD agencies are ordered to provide lists of probationary employees to DOGE. Previously, defense, security and intelligence agencies have been exempted from many of the executive orders that constrained staffing or contracting.
2/19/25
Source
According to one agency employee, DOGE workers are granted access access to contracts, partnerships, performance reviews, classified national-security information, and satellite data, among other materials. (fuzz: missing identifications for these systems and staffers)
2/21/25
Source
Katrine Trampe kicks off a series of meetings to discuss “workforce efficiency” for various bureaus at the Department of the Interior.
2/21/25
Source
Ethan Shaotran and Nate Cavanaugh return to the IAF with Jacob Altik, who presented himself as representing the EOP. Altik confirms that DOGE plans to reduce IAF to what he considers the statutory minimum (a board and president, a location in DC, some grants) and DOGE will be conducting a Reduction in Force of all employees and terminating all grants. The demand approval from the board and threaten the board will be fired otherwise.
 Jacob Altik, Nate Cavanaugh, Ethan Shaotran
2/24/25
Source
  • PEER Report Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, 2025-04-15
Stephanie Holmes requests full admin access to the Federal Personnel Payroll System (FPPS) system to process actions for herself as well as DOGE members Katrine Trampe and Tyler Hassen. This is a shared service provided by DOI which handles payroll for approximately half of the federal government.
2/24/25
Source
Three DOGE staffers – Luke Farritor, Rachel Riley and Clark Minor – are listed as part of the NIH Business System Department. This would grant them access to NIH’s central electronic business system, which includes finance, budget, procurement, a property-management system, and a grant-tracking system
2/24/25
Source
After Elon Musk threatens on X that employees must complete a list of 5 accomplishments every week and send it to OPM or risk termination, OPM hastily sends out an email to all federal staff requesting that list (without the threat) to every government employee. Widespread confusion occurs at many agencies about the legality and wisdom of this exercise.
2/25/25
Source
The Chief Human Capital Office of the Department of Agriculture testifies to Congress that OPM ordered the firing of all probationary federal employees at the agency.
2/25/25
Source
Citing concerns that there is fraud in the federal payroll, the DOGE team at the Department of the Interior meets with the Interior Business Center Team to discuss their request to receive a log audit of all employee names, positions and hire dates as well as total pay for each pay period.
2/25/25
Source
DOGE engineer Ricardo Biasini is reported to be working on updating an “AutoRIF” software package sourced from the Department of Defense that can be used to automate Reduction-in-Force (RIF) processes at federal agencies.
c.2/26/25
Source
During a call of human capital officers led by OPM, a representative for the GSA announces they are working on a “new federal daily check-in tool.” A test email was sent out on the same day. They announce plans to debut the tool by the first week in March. (fuzz: Date is just given as “Late February”)
2/27/25
Source
  • PEER Report Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, 2025-04-15
Stephanie Holmes’ request for admin access to the FPPS system is approved Senior Advisor to the Secretary of the Interior, Jarrod Agen.
2/28/25
Source
After a federal judge overturns the mass firing of probationary workers, only 180 workers (out of 750) return to work at the CDC.
2/28/25
Source
OPM quietly amends the Privacy Impact Assessment for its Government-Wide Email System (GWES) to remove declarations that responses are voluntary. This is after it had to concede that federal staff did not have to reply to the Five Things email because of the PIA.
2/28/25
Source
Judge Alsup ruling in AFL-CIO vs. OPM (N.D. Cal.) issues a temporary restraining order that termination of probationary workers at 6 agencies was unlawful and that they should be restored to work immediately.
March 2025
3/01/25
Source
TTS administrator Thomas Shedd eliminates 90 members of 18F with a 1am firing email and locks them out of their machines
3/01/25
Source
All government employees receive a second email telling them they must list their accomplishments every Monday by 11:59pm. This does not contain a threat of termination, but it is also no longer reported as an optional exercise. Staff working on confidential or classified activities are supposed to reply to the email but redact their work.
3/03/25
Source
DOGE lawyer Joshua Hanley’s name appeared in PDF metadata of grant cancellations sent out by the NIH to two researchers working on LGBTQ+-related scientific work.
3/04/25
Source
In response to recent court rulings that determined that OPM exceeded its authority, OPM quietly revises its initial memo that required all federal agencies to send lists of probationary employees to the agency. It also downplays suggestions that the lists should be used for deciding staffing levels.
3/06/25
Source
TTS Commissioner Thomas Shedd says in a statement that he expects the Technology Transformation Service will be 50% smaller within weeks.
c.3/10/25
Source
DOGE staff meet with career officials at NIH and are adamant that 3000 positions should be terminated. The number does not appear to be derived from any analysis or consultation with NIH senior leadership for what a responsible staffing reduction might be.
3/11/25
Source
DOGE has fired more than a hundred employees at CISA, including many “red team” staffers who simulate real-world attacks as well as the Cyber Incident Response Team (CIRT).
3/12/25
Source
In an inventory of system access on March 12, SSA staff determined the following access had been granted before it was revoked on March 24th. Three DOGE team members had been granted access to a workforce system. Two were granted access to security systems to revoke employee access to systems and facilities. Six DOGE team members were granted access to a workspace to share data among each other. Two DOGE members had access to a data visualization tool which could provide PII. And two DOGE employees were given expanded access to the Enterprise Data Warehouse.
3/13/25
Source
Attorney General Pam Bondi announces she is forming a “JUST DOGE” team to look at restructuring the agency and its subsidiaries.
3/13/25
Source
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy sends a letter to Congress informing he has signed an agreement with GSA and DOGE to eliminate 10,000 jobs at the agency. He also explicitly authorized DOGE to only work with his agency on matters related to USPS retirement plans, workers compensation costs, congressional liaisoning regarding costs incurred by legislative mandates, reforms to its regulatory requirements, retail lease renewals, business opportunities with other federal agencies and counterfeit postage.
3/17/25
Source
Various USIP staff report receiving messages from DOGE staff asking them for employee lists and access to computer systems at the agency.
3/20/25
Source
President Trump issues an executive order that orders OPM to redefine regulations so that it would give them more power to directly terminate employees at other agencies.
3/21/25
Source
Dorn Carranza, a HHS liasion for DOGE, sends an email at 11am asking for information ASAP on mission-critical systems at the FDA as well as regular status updates on the data collection. Because the FDA CIO was out of office at the time, her CISO hastily submitted a response with his own opinions. This seems to have been what guided RIF selection at FDA, without anybody at DOGE reviewing the information for accuracy.
3/27/25
Source
  • PEER Report Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, 2025-04-15
After being provided with access to FPPS, Stephanie Holmes raises concerns to DOI leadership that she has not yet been granted full admin access to FPPS. The agency CIO is concerned enough about the security implications that he will only allow it if the Secretary of the Interior signs off on a memo outlining the risks. Stephanie Holmes refuses to convey the message to Secretary Burgum.
3/27/25
Source
HHS announces a large reorganization, reducing HHS from 28 to 15 divisions and eliminating 20,000 jobs (or 25% of total). The URL slug of the press release includes the word “DOGE” in it.
3/28/25
Source
Michael Grimes conducts DOGE-style interviews with each member of the staff in the Chips Program Office. This group administers grants following the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 (signed by Biden) to encourage semiconductor manufacturing in the US.
3/28/25
Source
In a sweeping ruling, judge Amy Berman Jackson grants a preliminary injunction for the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) against Russell Vought, the acting CFPB director. In her ruling, she declares that it is plain that the administration intended to destroy the agency and she found significant parts of its testimony unreliable. In her injunction, she orders the admininistration must refrain from any firing any employee of the CFPB, restore any contracts that were in place before February 11th, reinstate all probationary employees that were fired, ensure that no agency data is deleted and rescind the stop-work order. It is immediately appealed by the administration.
3/28/25
Source
Tyler Hassen places the CIO and CISO at the Department of the Interior on admininstrative leave under investigation for raising alarm about DOGE’s access and delaying Stephanie Holmes from having admin access to the FPPS system.
3/28/25
Source
  • PEER Report Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, 2025-04-15
After the CIO and CISO are sidelined, Gavin Kliger joins a call with Katrine Trampe to pressure a senior advisor in human resources at DOI to direct them to the system owner for FPPS.
 Gavin Kliger, Katrine Trampe
3/28/25
Source
During an interview, the head of HHS Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. reports that DOGE created the new organizational chart for the agency ahead of mass firings. He also claims “we’re not cutting scientists.” (fact check: misleading)
3/29/25
Source
Federal staff at the DOD are sent an email offering them another chance for a deferred resignation if they enroll within the next week or so from the email.
3/29/25
Source
  • PEER Report Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, 2025-04-15
Stephanie Holmes and Katrine Trampe are given full admin access to the Federal Personnel Payroll System (FPPS) which handles the payroll processing for approximately half of the federal government.
3/31/25
Source
A group of DOGE representatives visit the FDA offices in Maryland. As one employee was leaving, a car pulled up with its window down and a young man in a suit shouted at her “This is DOGE and this is your Last Supper!” She received a RIF termination letter the next day.
3/31/25
Source
Politico reports that Brad Smith, who crafted the plan to layoff 10,000 staffers within HHS, is facing criticism from other DOGE staffers for attempting to shield CMS from the brunt of the layoffs. His aide, Rachel Riley is accused of being extraordinarily secretive with the plan.
April 2025
4/01/25
Source
HHS terminates a large number of staff at CDC in the name of cost savings and realignment, with the HHS director, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., reportedly wanting to focus only on infectious diseases
4/01/25
Source
Federal staff at the USDA are sent an email offering them another chance to do a deferred resignation if they enroll within the next week or so from this date.
4/01/25
Source
Employees at the Department of Energy are sent an email offering for them to enroll in a new separate deferred resignation plan.
4/01/25
Source
HHS terminates a large number of staff at FDA in the name of cost savings and realignment, the same day as the new head of FDA is sworn in to office.
4/01/25
Source
In a group chat within HHS system, Amy Gleason attempts to distance herself from the mass layoffs caused by DOGE by claiming she is just the USDS administrator only and has nothing to do with how the DOGE teams operate.
4/01/25
Source
HUD staff receive an email from HUD HR offering a new “Fork in the Road” offer for deferred resignation, open until April 11.
4/01/25
Source
HHS terminates a large number of staff at NIH in the name of cost savings and realignment. This coincides with the new head of NIH being sworn in to office.
4/01/25
Source
HHS issues Reduction-in-Force orders for 10,000 employees across many divisions (FDA, CDC, NIH, HHS) in the name of “bureaucratic realignment.” Despite RFK’s promises, the layoffs do include many scientists
4/03/25
Source
Multiple senior technological positions at the IRS are terminated. These include director of cybersecurity architecture and implementation, deputy chief information security officer, and acting director of security risk management.
4/03/25
Source
Social Security employees received an offer from the human resources department for voluntary reassignments to “mission-critical” front-line roles in call services and hearing offices to replace staff that were eliminated.
4/04/25
Source
Sara Aviel discovers that a team@iaf.gov created for the use of Ethan Shaotran and Nate Cavanaugh had deactivated the admin access for the remaining IAF employee the day before Aviel’s return by orders of a court as President of the agency.
4/04/25
Source
DOGE staffers at SSA declare the need for widespread Reductions-in-Force (RIFs) at the agency, despite a previous reduction in staffing of 7000 people and notable degradations in service. Among other cuts, they suggest removing 800 people from the IT department of 4000.
4/08/25
Source
Terminated employees at the CDC report enduring months of DOGE representatives walking around the building looking for nominal work violations (like going to the bathroom but leaving their secure PIV card on their desk) as a pretext to immediately fire people for “security violations.” (fuzz: this might be rumors though)
4/08/25
Source
Employees at the EPA report being told by Trump-appointed officials that DOGE was using AI to monitor communication tools (including Microsoft Teams) for anti-Trump or anti-Musk language.
4/10/25
Source
A leaked OMB budget proposal memorandum propose major changes to the discretionary budget for the Department of Health and Human Services. Specifically, it includes cutting that budget by a third and also consolidating various health and safety-related agencies into a new Administration for a Healthy America (AHA) overseen by the HHS Secretary.
4/10/25
Source
AmeriCorps’ acting director submits a plan to the OPM and OMB proposing a 50% cut in the agency workforce.
4/11/25
Source
A three-judge appeal panel for the DC Circuit issues a ruling on the appeal for Judge Amy Berman Jackson’s preliminary injunction in NTEU v. Vought. The appeals court stays a measure that prevent CFPB leadership from enforcing work stoppages for non-statutory work. It also allows CFPB leadership to perform a reduction-in-force, provided that they conduct a “particularized assessment” for the process.
4/12/25
Source
CFPB leadership under Russell Vought uses the opening granted by the appeals court to attempt another massive RIF. Emailing from his USAID email account, Jeremy Lewin kicks off the process by providing Gavin Kliger and Adam Martinez with a letter to use for RIFs at the CFPB.
 Gavin Kliger, Jeremy Lewin
4/12/25
Source
Gavin Kliger begins working with Adam Martinez of CFPB and Jeremy Lewin at USAID on the infrastructure to automate a massive RIF at the CFPB. This includes scripts to send termination letters to each employee.
 Gavin Kliger, Jeremy Lewin
4/13/25
Source
Jeremy Lewin has a followup Teams call with CFPB chief legal counsel Mark Paoletta to plan for the upcoming massive RIF at the CFPB
 Jeremy Lewin
4/15/25
Source
Reports that SEC leadership has pushed back on DOGE requests to get admin access for staff emails, personnel data, contracts, and payments systems.
4/16/25
Source
Agency staff at AmeriCorps are placed on immediate administrative leave and banned from accessing agency systems.
4/16/25
Source
Noah Peters at OPM denies the CFPB request made by Adam Martinez as well as Jeremy Lewin and Gavin Kliger to conduct an “emergency” RIF at the CFPB which would only give employees 30 days before their termination.
 Gavin Kliger, Jeremy Lewin, Noah Peters
4/17/25
Source
CFPB conducts a massive Reduction-in-Force, eliminating 1483 positions and retaining only 207 people to perform its duties. This is larger than the planned RIF in February that was blocked by Judge Amy Berman-Jackson. It is immediately appealed.
4/17/25
Source
The Secretary of the Interior formally designates that Tyler Hassen is in charge of implementing cuts to the agency and reorganizing its offices and areas of responsibility.
4/17/25
Source
In his new role as CIO for the Department of Labor, Thomas Shedd announces goals to reduce the department by 30% through resignations and layoffs. He also claims that DOGE is not “tracking” staff at the agency, and that all changes will be determined by focusing on results.
4/21/25
Source
IT staff at FSA report they were heavily targeted for layoffs despite complying with requests to provide information about critical systems, meaning much more of the FDA infrastructure is at risk of failure
4/21/25
Source
OMB issues a new memo mandating that agencies must collect daily occupancy data on all workers by May 4th. To support this effort, GSA unveils a website outlining methods to track federal workers, including mandatory daily surveys, monitoring badge usage or even video surveillance.
4/22/25
Source
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announces plans for a major reorganization of the State Department that would eliminate 132 offices and terminate roughly 700 positions in DC. It also would reduce monitoring of war crimes and global conflicts.
4/28/25
Source
The head of a Peace Corps alumni group reports he had been told the agency is expecting large cuts in US staffing, as ordered by DOGE.
4/30/25
Source
FEC staffers receive an email stating they will be required to send daily updates of their location as part of a new Daily Occupancy Tool that will possibly be rolled out later across the entire government by the GSA.
May 2025
5/XX/25
Source
An internal survey reveals that over a fifth of Census Bureau leadership roles are vacant in the wake of DOGE’s efforts to reduce federal staffing.
5/05/25
Source
USDA reports to Congress that 15,000 of its employees (15% of its workforce) have taken one of the two deferred resignation programs
5/07/25
Source
After two months of DOGE-directed cuts, IRS has lost 3600 (31% of that workforce) of the workers who perform audits at the agency. This will drastically reduce the ability of the IRS to detect tax cheating and fraud.
5/08/25
Source
IRS Input Correction Operation employees working at the Kansas City office receive notifications they must work on Saturdays for 2 weekends in May to handle the growing backlog of tax returns due to an overall reduction in IRS staff.
5/09/25
Source
OPM is reportedly poised to launch a rebranded version of the formerly-named AutoRIF software for automating the process of designating staff for mass layoffs. It was modernized and given a web interface by DOGE engineer Riccardo Biasini.
5/09/25
Source
DOGE staff reportedly met with Peace Corps leadership to discuss staffing cuts and expected resignations.
5/13/25
Source
Ruling in Rhode Island v. Trump et al, Judge John McConnell Jr. ordered a preliminary injunction declaring that IMLS grants must be processed and staff brought back.
5/14/25
Source
After rescinding 300 past layoffs, the head of human resources at CDC emails Rachel Riley to share that the plan going forward will be to fire one person for every singer person who returns to the agency.
5/16/25
Source
GOP proposals that would cut student loans and increase debt collection would require new technical capacity and policy that the Department of Education is unlikely to accomplish after many recent cuts and the elimination of technical staff by DOGE.
5/16/25
Source
Because of DOGE-directed cuts, a National Weather Service office in Jackson, KY did not have an overnight forecaster who is able to track and forecast tornado watches for a storm sweeping across the state.
5/19/25
Source
Although IMLS staff are returned to their positions by court order, employees complain that the email “reinforced attempts to eliminate staff through trauma, force, and malicious compliance.”
5/23/25
Source
Reuters reports that DOGE staffers Kyle Schutt and Edward Coristine have attempted to gain access to DHS employee emails in recent months and ordered staff to train AI to identify communications suggesting an employee is not “loyal” to Trump’s political agenda. Given earlier reports, the AI in question is like xAi’s “Grok” AI system.
5/23/25
Source
President Trump issues EO 14300, which orders the NRC to relax its regulatory oversight over the nuclear industry. It also demands that the agency must plan for a Reduction-in-Force (RIF) and realign its organizational priorities. Following the model used by the Trump Administration for other independent agencies, this is probably the prelude for DOGE to arrive at the agency.
5/27/25
Source
Pentagon staff are told they now no longer have to submit the Five Things email, but they are now tasked with a mandatory exercise to submit one thing that improves efficiency or reduces waste.
June 2025
6/03/25
Source
HHS employees from multiple agencies who were fired in the recent Reduction-in-Force at the agency file a class action lawsuit claiming that the data used for the retention register was fatally flawed and DOGE practiced no due diligence in correcting for that.
6/16/25
Source
Citing “heavy workload and limited resources,” the FDA informs a drug manufacturer that it will be unable to meet a deadline to approve a new drug to treat a life-threatening hereditary condition. This is a first-time event for the agency, and some suggest it’s a direct result of DOGE-directed staff reductions at the FDA.
6/25/25
Source
Democratic Congressman Mark Takano sends an angry letter to Secretary Collins of the VA demanding answers about DOGE activities including if they have installed spyware on agency machines, if they have been piloting AI, and if they have accessed medical records. He also asks for detailed information on DOGE staff at the agency.
6/30/25
Source
Due to staffing cuts, there is now an average of 1 SSA worker per 1480 benficiaries, or almost triple the ratio in 1967. This is a direct result of DOGE-driven cuts reducing agency staffing by 7000 since January
July 2025
7/02/25
Source
An analysis by a news organization finds that wait times on calls to Social Security routinely exceed 3 hours, with the system also frequently hanging up on people after 2 hours and promising a callback that never arrives. The Social Security website misleadingly reports the average wait time as 18 minutes.
7/03/25
Source
The Environmental Protection Agency places 144 employees on administrative leave and threatens to open an investigation over them signing an open letter criticizing the agency’s actions.
7/06/25
Source
The head of HHS, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., sends a “DEI Whistle-blower Questionnaire” to all staff which is really just a thinly-veiled invitation for federal coworkers to snitch on their colleagues.
7/09/25
Source
At least 2,145 senior (GS-13 to GS-15) employees at NASA are leaving the agency, due to DOGE’s anti-personnel efforts and a proposed budget that would cut the agency budget by 5000 people and 25% of its operating budget. It is unclear if NASA will be able to meet its promise to return astronauts to the moon in 2027 or later send people to Mars with such a reduction in experienced high-level personnel.
7/14/25
Source
Declaring that a Supreme Court shadown docket ruling on July 8th gave them the go-ahead, HHS declares a Reduction-in-Force that was initiated on April 1st is still in effect by sending affected employees a messages stating “You are hereby notified that you are officially separated from HHS at the close of business on July 14, 2025. Thank you for your service to the American people.” The number of affected employees is in the thousands, but some of the 10,000 fired in the original RIF are still protected by another case New York v. Kennedy.
7/17/25
Source
Despite claims by USDA leadership that they had met 99% of their hiring goals, more than 4500 (approximately 27%) firefighting jobs in the US Forest Service are unfulled, according to an internal staffing tool at the agency. This rough assessment is supported by anecdotal accounts of firefighting offices in states facing a challenging year for forest fires.
7/21/25
Source
Scott Kupor states that he expects to eliminate roughly 1000 positions at OPM (or about a third of its staff) by the end of the year.
7/22/25
Source
Over 140 NSF employees sign a public letter condemning Trump’s destructive acts towards the agency. These include the surprise announcement that the agency HQ will be taken over by HUD, the termination of 10% of the agency workforce and DOGE’s cancellation of more than 1600 active grants.
August 2025
8/01/25
Source
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting issues a press release announcing that it has commenced an orderly wind-down due to the elimination of funding from both the recissions package as well as the budget for next year. A majority of staff will be let go on the September 30, 2026 with a small team retained for final closedown in January 2026. This is frankly a heartbreaking outcome for an agency that has served America for almost 60 years.
8/05/25
Source
The National Weather Center announces it has approval to hire 450 meteorologists, hydrologists and radar technicians back to the department. This includes 126 new positions beyond what was cut by DOGE. Despite being a step towards restoration, this action will likely not put people in place until after the current dangerous hurricane season is over and it might be a pretext to hire more politically-aligned staff in positions with flimsier job security.
8/06/25
Source
OPM announces the end of the requirement that all federal workers must send in a weekly “Five Things” email describing their work the prior work. OPM director Scott Kupor announced the change in a meeting with all human capital officials across the government.
8/12/25
Source
Citing a Supreme Court shadow docket ruling as precedent, a DC Appeals Court overturned a stay from February and ordered that DOGE should be allowed to access sensitive data at the Treasury Department, OPM and Department of Education.
8/28/25
Source
As a direct result of DOGE-driven cuts, the Department of Energy announces that it has to delay a regular report tracking shipments of uranium fuel and completely suspend a report on photovoltaic panels. The department that tracks such reports lost more than 100 people out of its 350-person workforce this year. These reports are not as critical as other Energy reports, but the damage to data collection and reporting is making energy traders nervous.
September 2025
9/02/25
Source
A new report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration determined that only 43 out of 7,315 probationary employees fired at the IRS had any documented performance issues. The termination letters to staff were provided by OPM with no changes allowed. Agency staff balked at language in the letter that falsely declared “performance reasons and current mission needs” were the reason for terminations, and the head of IRS’s Human Capital was placed on administrative leave for her refusal to sign the letter.
9/12/25
Source
Ruling in AFGE, AFL-CIO v. OPM, Judge William Alsup finds that OPM’s mass firing of probationary employees was illegal. However, he does not order that fired employees should be reinstated to their positions, since it has been months since the action and the Supreme Court would be likely to overrule. Instead, he has enjoined OPM from conducting similar actions in the future and ordered them to amend the records to note that employees were not terminated due to performance reasons (as the government falsely claimed in many dismissal letters).
9/19/25
Source
A GSA-created “ICE surge team” that was formed to rapidly lease office space for ICE to operate in various cities is reportedly struggling due to the effects of DOGE cuts – despite overwhelming work, the team is only half the size it should be due to DOGE staffing cuts and is often forced to rent back space at elevated rates from landlords who were harmed by DOGE’s lease-cancellation efforts.
9/23/25
Source
GSA sends out an offer of reinstatement to hundreds of employees who managed government offices and leases and were fired by DOGE. The employees are only given until the end of the week to make their decision. This underscores recent reports that the agency is critically understaffed and unable to handle rising demand for government office space due to ICE’s expansion.
9/24/25
Source
The Department of Interior is reportedly planning another round of layoffs for mid-October. This follows the loss of 7500 employees (nearly 11% of its workforce) already. The agency is reported to be using the AutoRIF software developed at OPM to run the process, and it is being run by Stephanie Holmes and Tyler Hassen, who did not leave the agency in August as previously reported.
9/24/25
Source
The New York Times reports on how the DOGE-led staffing cuts and technology changes have led to poor service, low morale and increased wait times for the public. In many field offices, the average wait for an appointment is now six weeks.
9/27/25
Source
The head of the union that represents employees at the National Weather Service reports that the agency is at a breaking point, with many employees working double shifts or seeking help from neighboring offices. Two offices – in California’s Central Valley and western Kansas – lack enough staff to operate 24 hours a day.
9/30/25
Sources
The day before the beginning of the 2025 federal government shutdown, HHS proposes eliminating 8,000 jobs at the suggestion of Russell Vought, who wants to use the shutdown to inflict pain. HHS eventually lays off 1760 positions on October 10th, but was later revised to 954 after HHS blamed a coding error for firing too many people. Initially, HHS refuses to identify the creator for the layoff proposal within HHS, but it’s eventually revealed to be Rachel Riley.
October 2025
10/14/25
Source
Another round of terminations results in the CDC having lost a quarter of its staff – around 3000 people – since the beginning of the Trump administration. The latest firings targeted the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, the National Center for Health Statistics as well as other supporting functions within the agency like human resources, building security and the library.
November 2025
11/03/25
Source
An advocacy group, Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, releases a report that notes the US Forest Service is 38% behind its usual pace in forest-thinning and other preventative measures. The group directly blames DOGE for all of its staff-reduction and cost-cutting efforts.
11/04/25
Source
In a court filing, the Department of Interior reveals that it has frozen its plans to imminently layoff more employees.
11/14/25
Source
Months after DOGE first illegally fired probationary employees, the National Forest Service continues to endure poor morale and disruptions to service due to low staffing numbers
c.11/15/25
Source
Under the direction of Sam Corcos, the IRS has rolled out coding tests hosted on the site HackerRack to its technical staff to assess their “technical proficiency.” This is likely the precursor to restructuring and layoffs within the agency’s 8500-person IT division. When asked about the purpose of the tests in an all-hands meeting, IRS leadership refused to answer.
11/24/25
Source
Revising earlier dire estimates even higher, OPM head Scott Kupor reports that the US government will eliminate 317,000 jobs in 2025. He also reports that it will hire 68,000 new employees this year.
December 2025
12/10/25
Source
The head of OPM, Scott Kupor, reports that 317,000 federal workers have left their jobs this year as a result of DOGE’s actions and Trump administration policies. He asserts that the vast majority of departures were voluntary.
c.12/31/25
Source
In an end of year memo, the Defense Information Systems Agency reports that disruptions due to DOGE’s direct targeting and pushing of the deferred resignation program resulted in a critical loss of staff that affected the ability of the department to conduct operations and obtain software. In one example, a senior contracting officer’s departure even led to a lapse in an important cloud-computing contract.
1/05/26
Source
The board of directors votes to formally dissolve the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, ending its 58 year history of providing funding for PBS, NPR and local TV and radio stations. This was the inevitable outcome after Congress codified the elimination of funding for the agency.
1/14/26
Source
All employees that were laid off from the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health as part of the massive HHS reduction in force have reportedly received notices that their RIF notices are revoked and remain employed. The RIF is being contested in court, but it’s unclear what led to this specific reversal.
1/28/26
Source
In a post on LinkedIn, Amanda Scales announces she has returned to a role at OPM, overseeing the recruitment and hiring for the new Tech Force initiative to bring in technical staff from Silicon Valley companies into federal service for 2-year terms.
February 2026
2/06/26
Source
After pausing its actions because of a major winter storm, FEMA plans to resume an ongoing staffing reduction for Cadre of On-Call Response/Recovery (CORE) employees, who typically work in term-limited roles. Much like the Trump administration’s mass firing of probationary employees last year, this reduction is targeting an entire class of federal employees for termination regardless of how good they are at their job. Up to half of FEMA’s workforce are CORE employees, and it’s unclear if these reductions are being driven by FEMA or DHS leadership.
2/18/26
Source
Speaking at an industry conference, the CIO for the IRS reported that the agency has lost nearly 40% of its IT staff and nearly 80% of its IT executives as a result of DOGE’s various actions to target staffing in the federal government.
DEI
Deregulation