The Authorities Accountability Workplace, which falls underneath the legislative department, has rejected DOGE’s efforts to embed staffers on the company.
Authorities Accountability Workplace/GAO
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Authorities Accountability Workplace/GAO
When the Division of Authorities Effectivity comes calling, it sometimes begins with an e-mail.
That usually features a request to embed DOGE staffers to study extra about what the company does and evaluate its internal workings.
In response to a DOGE staffer’s Might 13 message asking “to debate getting a DOGE group assigned to the company,” the Authorities Accountability Workplace’s response was easy.
“At the moment, we despatched a letter to the Appearing Administrator of DOGE stating that GAO is a legislative department company that conducts work for the Congress,” a spokesperson for the watchdog mentioned on Friday. “As such, we’re not topic to DOGE or Govt Orders.”
It is the most recent instance of how DOGE is making an attempt to increase its attain past high-profile Cupboard businesses, and in some circumstances past the chief department and the federal authorities solely.
NPR has recognized near 40 entities — inside, adjoining to and outdoors of the federal government — the place DOGE and the Trump administration have turned their consideration in latest weeks.
A few of them have already been successfully dismantled by DOGE, just like the U.S. Institute of Peace, the positioning of a dramatic daylong standoff between USIP staffers and representatives of the cost-cutting initiative claiming to be new management.
Some have been focused for elimination by the president in his price range proposal for subsequent 12 months, like AmeriCorps and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.
A few of them aren’t authorities businesses in any respect and, like GAO, have rebuffed DOGE’s requests, such because the impartial Company for Public Broadcasting and the personal nonprofit Vera Institute of Justice.
Almost the entire conferences have been performed by a small group of younger staffers, together with a minimum of one school pupil, with no federal authorities expertise and little obvious data about what these entities do, in response to greater than a dozen lawsuits, paperwork shared with NPR and interviews with staff who have been granted anonymity as a result of they don’t seem to be licensed to talk publicly and worry retaliation from the Trump administration.
Protesters rallying in opposition to the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE) in Washington, DC on the Nationwide Mall on April 5, 2025.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Photographs
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Anna Moneymaker/Getty Photographs
Meet the younger staffers driving DOGE’s outreach
NPR has recognized six DOGE staffers based mostly on the Normal Providers Administration who’ve been primarily chargeable for assembly with these impartial organizations: Nate Cavanaugh, Justin Fox, Justin Aimonetti, Jack Stein, Jonathan Mendelson and Marshall Wooden.
Cavanaugh presently serves because the appointed president of the U.S. Institute of Peace. Shortly after being named the appearing director of the Interagency Council on Homelessness — one of many businesses Trump’s price range proposal requires eliminating — Cavanaugh positioned its total employees on administrative go away.
Cavanaugh first emerged at GSA in February, the place he met with many technical staffers and software program engineers and interviewed them about their jobs, in response to 4 GSA staff who spoke on situation of anonymity as a result of they feared retaliation.
Since then, he is additionally been detailed to a number of different businesses, in response to courtroom filings, together with the U.S. African Improvement Basis (USADF), the Inter-American Basis (IAF), the Institute of Museum and Library Providers, the Nationwide Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Minority Enterprise Improvement Company.
An e-mail from DOGE staffer Justin Fox to Authorities Accountability Workplace staffers despatched on Might 13, supplied by Home Committee on Oversight and Authorities Reform Democrats. Redactions by Congressional employees.
NPR screenshot/Home Committee on Oversight and Authorities Reform Democrats
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NPR screenshot/Home Committee on Oversight and Authorities Reform Democrats
Cavanaugh’s accomplice in a lot of the small company outreach is Justin Fox, a 21-year-old school pupil who, in response to his LinkedIn profile, is a school pupil at Indiana College Bloomington and the founding father of Vantix Advisors, a “cutting-edge blockchain consulting agency.”
Lower than every week after becoming a member of the federal authorities in early March, Fox was detailed to assist DOGE’s efforts at USADF, and has been concerned with conferences concerning IAF, NEH, USIP, the Wilson Heart, the Millennium Problem Company and extra.
Fox despatched this week’s e-mail to the GAO, with Cavanaugh copied, in response to a copy of the e-mail shared by the highest Democrats on the Home Oversight and Administration Committees.
Cavanaugh and Fox have been detailed to the Nationwide Labor Relations Board in the future after NPR reported on a whistleblower disclosure alleging delicate knowledge left the company’s community after DOGE staffers got unfettered entry to its techniques.
The 2 have additionally been assisted at occasions by Justin Aimonetti, an lawyer who beforehand labored as an affiliate on the agency Dechert LLP. Aimonetti is detailed to DOGE from the GSA.
Latest DOGE conferences have additionally included a trio of younger authorities novices with finance backgrounds, in response to their LinkedIn profiles: Mendelson, most not too long ago an investor at Accel; Stein, most not too long ago an funding banking affiliate at Salem Companions; and Wooden, who was an funding banking affiliate at Jefferies.
Mendelson began at GSA on Apr. 9, Stein began Apr. 15, and Wooden began Apr. 21, in response to two authorities staff not licensed to talk publicly about DOGE’s actions.
Not one of the DOGE staffers named on this story returned NPR’s request for remark about their backgrounds or work participating with these small businesses.
A take a look at the onboarding course of
On the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, DOGE’s e-mail got here on Apr. 17, requesting a gathering to assign a group to the small federal company, which advises the president and Congress on preserving the nation’s heritage. The company has simply 42 staff, in response to its web site.
A 2008 file picture of the Nationwide Constructing Museum in Washington, DC, which homes the small Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, an company now going through scrutiny from the Division of Authorities Effectivity.
Paul J. Richards/AFP by way of Getty Photographs
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Paul J. Richards/AFP by way of Getty Photographs
An preliminary video name came about on Apr. 22, adopted by an in-person assembly the following day on the Nationwide Constructing Museum in Washington, D.C., in response to Lynne Richmond, ACHP’s appearing director of communications, schooling and outreach.
“The DOGE representatives have been searching for a normal overview of the ACHP and its program, tasks, and actions. In addition they sought details about our price range, employees, and current contracts,” Richmond mentioned. Since then, DOGE has detailed a group to ACHP, the place they’re within the means of being onboarded, she mentioned.
An identical course of has performed out at dozens of small, usually obscure, impartial entities throughout the federal authorities since early March.
On Apr. 17 alone, DOGE staffers scheduled conferences with officers from the Truman Scholarship Basis, the Denali Fee, the Workplace of Navajo and Hopi Indian Relocation and the U.S. Entry Board, in response to the 2 sources not licensed to talk about DOGE’s operations.
Amy Nieves, a spokesperson for the Entry Board, which develops accessibility requirements underneath federal legal guidelines together with the Individuals with Disabilities Act, confirmed that the board’s management had a “cordial assembly” with members of DOGE on the board’s Washington workplace on Apr. 22 and that “further conferences and engagements have taken place and are anticipated.”
The Truman Scholarship Basis, the Denali Fee and the Workplace of Navajo and Hopi Indian Relocation did not reply to NPR’s requests for remark.
When bringing DOGE in means shutting down
At some locations, interactions with DOGE have rapidly changed into efforts to close them down.
After Trump issued an govt order calling for the efficient shuttering of the Institute of Museum and Library Providers, DOGE took half in finishing up that directive.
Cavanaugh accompanied Trump’s newly appointed appearing director to IMLS headquarters on Mar. 20, the place they took management of its laptop techniques, in response to courtroom filings. Quickly after, IMLS’s total employees of 70 was placed on administrative go away. (A federal choose has since paused Trump’s try to remove IMLS and 6 different businesses.)
Rain falls on the Nationwide Endowment for the Humanities constructing (NEH) on April 11, 2025 in Washington, DC. The Trump administration’s Division of Authorities Effectivity has assigned a group to the company, which provides grants tied to the humanities. The company is within the means of making an attempt to put of 75% of its employees on the orders of the Trump administration.
Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Photographs
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Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Photographs
On the Nationwide Endowment for the Humanities, Cavanaugh and Fox notified practically 1,500 grantees that their awards have been terminated, utilizing a non-governmental Microsoft e-mail account, in response to a lawsuit difficult the company’s dismantling.
They then demanded NEH management terminate roughly 75% of its employees, leaving it a “shell of an company that Congress established and has persistently funded,” the lawsuit mentioned.
As a part of Trump’s efforts to shrink the federal forms and slash authorities spending, the president has issued a slew of govt orders aiming to remove lots of the entities contacted by DOGE.
Trump’s topline 2026 price range proposal requires the shuttering of practically two dozen impartial businesses, commissions and organizations, from the Marine Mammal Fee to the nonprofit Neighborhood Reinvestment Company to regional federal-state collaborative partnerships just like the Delta Regional Authority and the Denali Fee.
At different businesses, staff are ready to see what comes of DOGE’s evaluate. Following DOGE’s visits to Peace Corps headquarters in April, the company that sends volunteers overseas has advised employees to arrange for cuts.
DOGE employees met with Peace Corps officers as not too long ago as Might 9 to debate staffing cuts and resignations, in response to the 2 authorities staff not licensed to talk about DOGE’s operations.
“Final month, the Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE) started an evaluation of Peace Corps operations. Consequently, the company has recognized methods to considerably restructure its workforce, each domestically and abroad,” an unnamed spokesperson utilizing a Peace Corps press e-mail account advised NPR. “Workers have been supplied a Deferred Resignation Program possibility and have been made conscious that the company intends to additionally implement additional employees reductions.”
The Peace Corps spokesperson mentioned the company “stays operational” and has no plans to withdraw volunteers serving overseas. The Nationwide Peace Corps Affiliation, an alumni group, has raised considerations that “an already lean company might be pressured to sacrifice providers for present Peace Corps candidates, Volunteers, and alumni.”
Final week, the Peace Corps was added as a defendant in a lawsuit introduced by a coalition of labor unions, nonprofits and native governments that is difficult the Trump administration’s overhaul of the federal authorities. A courtroom has quickly blocked some businesses from slicing jobs and placing staff on administrative go away.
Some DOGE targets should not federal businesses in any respect
Among the many dozens of organizations contacted by DOGE in latest weeks are a number of privately integrated nonprofits that have been created by Congress and obtain federal funding however should not thought-about authorities businesses.
That features the Authorized Providers Company, which funds authorized help for many who cannot afford it, the Neighborhood Reinvestment Company, which operates underneath the title NeighborWorks America and offers grants, coaching, and help to neighborhood improvement teams, and the Company for Public Broadcasting, which offers grants to public radio and tv stations.
Cavanaugh tried to assign a DOGE group to evaluate CPB’s operations in April, a day after Trump tried to fireside three board members, in response to filings in a lawsuit introduced by CPB difficult Trump’s transfer.
CPB denied that request, citing federal legislation stating that the group “is not going to be an company or institution of the US Authorities.”
The legal guidelines creating the Authorized Providers Company and NeighborWorks America additionally say, in each circumstances, that “the company shall not be thought-about a division, company, or instrumentality of the Federal Authorities.”
Authorized Providers Company president Ron Flagg met with DOGE employees on Apr. 14, Carl Rauscher, director of communications and media relations at LSC, confirmed. “We supplied data they requested,” Raucher mentioned.
NeighborWorks America declined to touch upon its interactions with DOGE. “NeighborWorks America is aligned with the administration’s housing objectives,” Douglas Robinson, a spokesperson for the nonprofit, mentioned in a press release to NPR. “Just like the administration, we imagine within the environment friendly supply of economic sources and technical experience that sustains and builds reasonably priced housing provide.”
DOGE’s efforts went even additional when it approached the Vera Institute of Justice, a non-public nonprofit that has obtained federal grants, however was not created by Congress, about assigning a group there.
In an Apr. 15 name, Cavanaugh mentioned his request to embed into Vera was “void” — not as a result of Vera is a nongovernmental group, however after studying from Vera employees that the Division of Justice had terminated the entire group’s grants, in response to notes Vera Institute employees shared with NPR.
DOGE’s bigger playbook
At bigger, better-known businesses together with the Inside Income Service and the Division of Agriculture, DOGE has been amassing delicate private knowledge for functions that embrace immigration enforcement and looking for fraud. It is also been behind firings, program cuts and grant cancellations throughout the federal authorities.
DOGE’s interactions with smaller, impartial entities look like centered not on knowledge, however on slashing spending and finishing up the Trump administration’s agenda as specified by the president’s govt orders and price range proposal.
Within the name with Vera Institute management, Cavanaugh mentioned DOGE’s outreach was about interrogating “each institute or company that has Congressional monies appropriated to it,” in response to notes supplied by Vera.
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk (proper) attends a Cupboard assembly on the White Home on April 30, 2025. Musk is stepping again from his guiding function with the Division of Authorities Effectivity even because the advert hoc group’s work continues.
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Andrew Harnik/Getty Photographs
Cavanaugh didn’t reply to a request for remark about why DOGE has sought to embed employees at Vera and different organizations that aren’t authorities businesses.
Slashing employees and budgets of smaller businesses is unlikely to make a giant contribution in the direction of DOGE’s said purpose of downsizing the federal authorities. Billionaire Elon Musk, the de facto head of DOGE, has already diminished his cost-cutting goal from $2 trillion earlier than Trump took workplace to $150 billion.
Musk says he’s scaling again the time he is spending working within the federal authorities, however that doesn’t imply DOGE’s work is scaling again. The busy schedules of staffers together with Cavanaugh and Fox, who’ve been onboarded as full-time GSA staff and never time-limited particular authorities staff like Musk, present that the work is meant to proceed into the longer term.
Do you’ve gotten details about DOGE outreach to impartial businesses and nongovernmental organizations? Attain out to the authors by way of encrypted communications on Sign. Stephen Fowler is obtainable on Sign at stphnfwlr.25. Shannon Bond is at shannonbond.01. Please use a nonwork machine.
