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3:55 PM ET, February 6, 2025

memeorandum

 Top Items: 
CNN:
Musk associates sought to use critical Treasury payment system to shut down USAID spending, emails show  —  Four days after Donald Trump's inauguration, Elon Musk's top lieutenants at the Treasury Department asked its acting secretary, a career civil servant, to immediately shut off …
RELATED:
New York Times:
Treasury Sought to Freeze Foreign Aid Payments, Emails Show  —  Trump administration appointees and allies of Elon Musk wanted to use the Treasury's sensitive payment system to block payments.  —  In the days after President Trump took office, as Elon Musk's team began pressing for access …
Discussion: Talking Points Memo and Bloomberg
Reuters:
Musk's DOGE granted access to US Medicare and Medicaid systems
NBC News:
Trump administration agrees to restrict DOGE access to Treasury Department payment systems
Bloomberg:
Musk's Brazen Cost-Cutting Campaign Is Annoying GOP Senators, Treasury Staff
Discussion: Raw Story, HuffPost and Forbes
Bloomberg Law:
Musk's Treasury Incursion Puts Entire Financial System at Risk
Discussion: Washington Examiner and Roll Call
Washington Post:
Elon Musk's DOGE is feeding sensitive federal data into AI to target cuts  —  At the Department of Education, the tech billionaire's team has turned to artificial intelligence to hunt for potential spending cuts —  part of a broader plan to deploy the technology across the federal government.
RELATED:
Washington Post:
Musk's DOGE agents access sensitive personnel data, alarming security officials  —  The highly restricted data includes personally identifiable information for millions of federal employees maintained by the Office of Personnel Management.
Discussion: Raw Story, Business Insider and Reuters
Joey McFadden / The Daily Beast:   Musk's DOGE Youngins Are Terrorizing Senior Gov Staffers
Melissa Quinn / CBS News:
Deadline for Trump's federal worker buyout proposal temporarily blocked by judge  —  Washington — A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked the Office of Personnel Management's deadline for federal employees to accept the Trump administration's “deferred resignation” offer.
RELATED:
Holly Otterbein / Politico:
Musk aims to hobble federal workers ahead of ‘buyout’ deadline  —  Countless staffers in the government are now grappling with what to do.  —  Elon Musk has declared war on the bureaucracy.  And as a Thursday deadline nears for federal employees to take a “buyout,” he is looking to demoralize and wear down his enemy.
Associated Press:
Federal workers debate the legitimacy of financial incentives to quit as the deadline nears
Garrett Haake / NBC News:
Trump to sign an executive order sanctioning the International Criminal Court  —  The order will include financial sanctions and visa restrictions against ICC officials found to have assisted in ICC investigations of U.S. citizens or allies.  —  WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Thursday …
RELATED:
Zach Schonfeld / The Hill:
Judge rails against Trump in blocking birthright executive order for second time  —  A second federal judge blocked President Trump's executive order that would restrict birthright citizenship, harshly condemning the administration for attempting to do so at a Thursday hearing.
Discussion: BBC, Townhall, NewsNation and SCOTUSblog
David Gutman / The Seattle Times:
Judge in Seattle accuses Trump of trying to change the Constitution  —  A federal judge in Seattle has once again blocked the Trump administration's attempt to rescind birthright citizenship — the guarantee embedded in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution that every person born in the U.S. is an American citizen.
Daily Kos:
Trump taps televangelist kook to run new White House ‘faith’ office  —  Christian nationalism is in full swing after Donald Trump's Thursday announcement of a task force to “eradicate anti-Christian bias,” as well as a new White House Faith Office led by right-...
Discussion: Blaze Media and Washington Post
RELATED:
Noah Berlatsky / Public Notice:
Trump goes full colonialist
ABC News:
Rubio acting director of the National Archives  —  In addition to being the Secretary of State and the acting director of USAID, Marco Rubio is also the acting archivist of the United States, according to a high-level official.  —  Per the official, Rubio has been the acting archivist since shortly …
Discussion: Washington Examiner
RELATED:
Jason Koebler / 404 Media:
National Archives Workers Unsure If Marco Rubio Has Secretly Been Their Boss for Weeks  —  Wednesday night, ABC News reported that Secretary of State Marco Rubio “has been the acting archivist” at the National Archives and Records Administration “since shortly after President Trump's inauguration.”
Rohan Goswami / Semafor:
Trump team considers housing detained migrants in container offices  —  The Scoop  —  The Trump administration is in talks with a private shipping-container company to provide temporary space to house and process thousands of migrants slated for deportation, according to people familiar with the matter.
RELATED:
Washington Post:
Justice Department sues Illinois and Chicago over immigration enforcement  —  It appears to be the first Justice Department lawsuit against local officials for allegedly interfering with the Trump administration's immigration crackdown.  —  The Justice Department sued the state of Illinois …
RELATED:
Akayla Gardner / Bloomberg:
Trump Will Seek to End Carried Interest, Expand SALT in Tax Bill
Discussion: CNBC and Washington Examiner
Daniel Wu / Washington Post:
Gutting USAID threatens billions of dollars for U.S. farms, businesses  —  U.S. businesses that sold goods and services to USAID are in limbo, including American farms dealing in rice, wheat and soybeans purchased as food aid.
Chris Geidner / Law Dork:
A.G. Pam Bondi says Trump sets DOJ policy, all DOJ lawyers are “his lawyers”  —  Shortly after being sworn into office on Wednesday, Attorney General Pam Bondi went from the Oval Office to the Justice Department to do President Donald Trump's bidding.  —  Immediately issuing a series of orders …
RELATED:
Wired:
DOGE Teen Owns ‘Tesla.Sexy LLC’ and Worked at Startup That Has Hired Convicted Hackers  —  Experts question whether Edward Coristine, a DOGE staffer who has gone by “Big Balls” online, would pass the background check typically required for access to sensitive US government systems.
Sigal Samuel / Vox:
JD Vance accidentally directed us to a crucial moral question  —  Theology isn't usually part of the job description for America's vice president, but that's not stopping JD Vance from giving it a try just a couple of weeks into his new position.  —  In a Fox News segment on immigration …
RELATED:
Associated Press:   What is ‘ordo amoris?’ Vice President JD Vance invokes this medieval Catholic concept
Wall Street Journal:
White House Preparing Order to Cut Thousands of Federal Health Workers  —  The executive order could come as soon as next week, if the Trump administration goes ahead with plans  —  The White House is working on an executive order to fire thousands of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services workers …
Discussion: Baltimore Sun
Liam Reilly / CNN:
White House says it will cancel $8 million in Politico subscriptions after a false right-wing conspiracy theory spreads  —  White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, responding Wednesday to a question about a right-wing conspiracy theory, announced that the federal government would cancel $8 million worth of Politico subscriptions.
RELATED:
David Folkenflik / NPR:
Why CBS stands at the epicenter of Trump's assault on the media  —  The television news magazine 60 Minutes — the most storied and profitable show in the history of CBS News — currently finds itself as the avatar of President Trump's onslaught against the media in the courts and the court of public opinion.
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Dara Kerr / The Guardian:
US immigration is gaming Google to create a mirage of mass deportations  —  Thousands of press releases about decade-old enforcement actions topped search results, all updated with a timestamp from after Trump's inauguration  —  News of mass immigration arrests has swept across the US over the past couple of weeks.
Discussion: Gizmodo, Daily Kos, Mashable and Eschaton
Alec MacGillis / ProPublica:
Memory-Holing Jan. 6: What Happens When You Try to Make History Vanish?  —  ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power.  Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they're published.  —  On Jan. 10, the U.S. Department of Justice released a 123-page report …
Discussion: NJTODAY.NET
Noam Scheiber / New York Times:
Trump's Attacks on DEI Get Approval From Some in the Left Wing  —  Many Democrats and activists are rallying to defend diversity programs, but others say they distract from deeper efforts to address inequality.  —  A few days after President Trump issued an order urging the private sector to end …
Discussion: HotAir
Bloomberg:
Fed Closes Climate Program, Ending Stress-Test Burden for Banks  — US central bank initiated the pilot program two years ago  — Decision impacts lenders, including JPMorgan and Citigroup  —  The Federal Reserve has ended its program that required the biggest US banks to submit data …
Niraj Chokshi / New York Times:
Airline Pilots in the DC Plane Crash Acted as Expected, Experts Say  —  The pilots of the American Airlines regional jet in the Washington airport collision acted as expected, aviation safety experts and other pilots said.  —  Just after 8:43 p.m. on Jan. 29, an air traffic controller …
Discussion: Washington Examiner and DNyuz
Timothy W. Ryback / The Atlantic:
The Oligarchs Who Came to Regret Supporting Hitler  —  They helped him in pursuit of profit.  Many ended up in concentration camps.  —  he was among the richest men in the world.  He made his first fortune in heavy industry.  He made his second as a media mogul.
Ryan Goodman / Just Security:
The Senate's Dilemma: Kash Patel and the Purging of the FBI  —  In the days since Kash Patel's nomination hearing for F.B.I. director, a crisis of historic proportions has engulfed the Justice Department and the Bureau.  The idea of Patel leading the F.B.I. through this period …
 
 
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 More Items: 
Andrew Goudsward / Reuters:
Trump administration disbands task force targeting Russian oligarchs
Axios:
Netanyahu told U.S. officials war could end if Hamas leaders go into exile: sources
Discussion: Fox News and israelhayom.com
Dan Froomkin / Press Watch:
‘Trump Brazenly Defies Laws’ is not an A17 story
Ben Penn / Bloomberg Law:
Bondi Diminishes Justice Department White Collar Enforcement
Discussion: Salon, The Lever, KRDO and Sludge
 Earlier Items: 
Hannah Harris Green / The Guardian:
US health department condemns private equity firms for role in declining healthcare access
Aamer Madhani / Associated Press:
Trump tells prayer breakfast he wants to root out ‘anti-Christian bias’ and urges ‘bring God back’
Moira Donegan / The Guardian:
It is Elon Musk who is now running the United States. Not Donald Trump
Paul Krugman:
RFK Jr. and the MAGA Death Trip
Steven Erlanger / New York Times:
Trump's Gaza Plan Has Many Pitfalls, Hamas Among the Biggest
Ally Mutnick / Politico:
Democratic polling finds Elon Musk is unpopular
Discussion: New Republic, Breitbart and Axios
 

 
From Techmeme:

Daniel Thomas / Financial Times:
Netflix agrees to acquire WBD's studios and streaming business in an $82.7B cash-and-stock deal, including debt, to close after WBD splits in two in Q3 2026

Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
The EU fines X €120M for breaching online content rules, the first fine under the DSA, citing issues like its deceptive blue checkmarks, after a two-year probe

New York Times:
The New York Times sues Perplexity, claiming the AI startup violated its copyrights and kept using its content despite repeated demands over the past 18 months
 
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