Trump is dismantling democracy at 'unprecedented' speed, global report finds by Headshot of Frank Langfitt

 

Three major reports out this month say President Trump has done serious damage to American democracy at remarkable speed since his return to the White House.

An annual report from V-Dem, an institute at Sweden's University of Gothenburg, concluded democracy had deteriorated so much in the U.S. that it lowered the country's democracy ranking from 20th to 51st out of 179 countries.

The U.S. landed between Slovakia and Greece.

 Meanwhile, Bright Line Watch, which surveys more than 500 U.S. scholars, concluded that the U.S. system now falls nearly midway between liberal democracy and dictatorship. The newest survey comes out next week. Bright Line Watch's co-directors spoke to NPR exclusively ahead of publication.

Yet another report out Thursday from Freedom House, a Washington, D.C.-based democracy think-tank, said that among free countries, the U.S. joined Bulgaria and Italy in registering the largest declines in political rights and civil liberties last year.

 The developments in the United States are moving towards dictatorship, what the founders wanted to avoid," said Staffan Lindberg, the V-Dem Institute's founding director, who spent seven years in the U.S. "It's the most rapid decline ever in the history of the United States and one of the most rapid in the world."

V-Dem stands for Varieties of Democracy. More than 4,000 scholars contributed data to the report, which is the largest of its kind.

White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales dismissed V-Dem's analysis as "a ridiculous claim made by an irrelevant, blatantly biased organization."

She called Trump a champion for freedom and democracy and the most transparent and accessible president ever.

"His return to the White House saved the legacy media from going out of business," Wales said.

 Trump has rejected criticism that he tries to rule as an autocrat.

"A lot of people are saying maybe we like a dictator," Trump said to reporters in the Oval Office last August. "I don't like a dictator. I'm not a dictator."

Lindberg said V-Dem downgraded America's rating based on the Trump administration concentrating executive power, overstepping laws, circumventing the Republican-led Congress as well as attacks on the news media and freedom of speech. Lindberg, a political scientist, is struck by the speed with which Trump has acted.

 Under the Trump administration, democracy has been rolled back as much during just one year as it took Modi in India and Erdogan in Turkey 10 years to accomplish, and Orban in Hungary four years," said Lindberg, referring to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

All three of those leaders came to power through democratic elections, but scholars say they have since undermined checks and balances on executive power to try to ensure they remain in office.

Trump is a big fan of Orbán's and has praised him as a "strongman" and a "tough person." Orbán faces election next month — the first real challenge to his rule in a decade and a half.

 

cholars are alarmed by Trump's blitz on the U.S. system of governance, but John Carey, a co-director of Bright Line Watch, says the United States' democracy rating might have slid even further in recent months if not for the courts pushing back.

Carey says autocrats try to co-opt or pressure government institutions that serve as referees but notes that didn't work last month as the Supreme Court ruled against the president on tariffs.

"One of the things that the tariff decision suggested [is] he has not fully captured that set of referees," said Carey, a professor of political science at Dartmouth, "and that's the most important set."

Brendan Nyhan, a fellow Dartmouth professor and Bright Line co-director, adds that just because Trump has undermined democracy, doesn't mean the effects are permanent.

"There's just no question that what we're seeing is the authoritarian playbook," said Nyhan, "but there's no guarantee that Trump will be able to operate this way after the midterms, let alone a successor after 2028."

 Yana Gorokhovskaia, director for strategy and design for Freedom House, says some of Trump's policies abroad also are undermining the country's democratic standing overseas.

For instance, the State Department often used to call out election fraud in other countries, but under Trump, it has said it will only comment on foreign elections when the U.S. has a clear and compelling interest.

"What we're losing is democratic solidarity globally," Gorokhovskaia said. "We're no longer emphasizing ... a distinction between democracies and autocracies in the world."

 That doesn't mean the U.S. doesn't take sides in foreign elections. Just last month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio publicly endorsed Orbán, Hungary's autocratic leader, for a fifth term.

Our skin is teeming with microbes. We should learn to love them by Jasmin Fox-Skelly

 

Billions of bacteria, fungi and viruses live on the surface of our bodies. We are only just beginning to understand the vital role they play in our health and wellbeing.

Your skin is crawling. Zoom in on any square centimetre of the skin on your body and you'll find between 10,000 to one million bacteria living there. Your body is covered in a bustling microbial ecosystem. Pretty disgusting, right?

Or is it? There is growing evidence that our skin microbiota actually plays a crucial role in keeping us healthy and brings a surprising range of other benefits. So don't reach for that antibacterial soap just yet.

You might already have heard of the gut microbiome – the ecosystem of microbes that inhabit your intestines. It is well established that the diversity of this collection of bacteria, fungi, viruses and other single-celled organisms plays an important role in a range of  diseases, from diabetes to asthma and even depression. (Learn how exercise can give your gut microbes a boost.)

But it turns out the microbial hitchhikers on our skin can be just as good for us, offering the first line of defence against any pathogens that might be unlucky enough to settle on the surface of our bodies. They also help to break down some of the chemicals that we encounter in daily life and play an important role in the development of our immune systems.

The skin microbiome is second only to our guts when it comes bacterial diversity. This is quite surprising if you think about it. Compared to the safe, warm and moist habitats of our mouths or guts, the skin is a pretty inhospitable place.

"Skin is a very hostile environment compared to other areas of the body," says Holly Wilkinson, a lecturer in wound healing at the University of Hull, in the UK. "It's dry, barren, and very exposed to the elements. Bacteria that live there have evolved over millions of years to cope with these pressures."

And this co-evolution has brought us many benefits.

 Not all parts of the skin are colonised equally either. Bacteria can actually be surprisingly picky about where they want to live. Take a swab and run it along your forehead, nose, or back, and you'll find that these areas are brimming with Cutibacterium, a genus of bacteria that has evolved to feed off the oily sebum made by our skin cells to help moisturise and protect the outer layer of our body.

 

Take a sample from your warm and moist armpit, however, and you'll probably find plenty of Staphylococcus and Corynebacterium. Look between your toes and you'll find an abundance of Propionibactrium species – some of which are also used in cheesemaking along with a wide range of fungi. Dry regions of the skin, such as the arms and legs, are particularly inhospitable to bacteria, and so species that make their home here don't tend to stay for too long. They also tend to play host to a larger proportion of viruses than other external areas of the body. (Of course, our skin plays host to other creatures too, such as tiny mites – see the video below to find out more about them, if you can stomach it.)

More like this:

• The curious ways your skin shapes your health
• How gut bacteria are controlling your brain
• Why pollution is affecting us in some surprising ways

Over millennia, these microbes have formed a kind of symbiotic relationship with us humans. The bacteria, fungi and mites living on our skin benefit from a constant supply of rich nutrients. But we rely on our skin microbiome too, as beneficial species help us repel more harmful, pathogenic bacteria by competing against them.

"Just by virtue of the fact that there are all these bacteria already there, it's quite hard for a pathogen to get a foothold," says Wilkinson. "Any bacteria coming in has got to be able to overwhelm the system, but to do so they've got to compete with bacteria that [are] highly evolved to be in this environment.

 

Skin bacteria can also wage war on potential invaders by producing chemicals that inhibit their growth, or even kill them outright. For example Staphylococcus epidermidis and Staphylococcus hominis – two commensal species that rely upon us and other animals to host them – produce antimicrobial molecules that inhibit Staphylococcus aureus, a harmful species of bacteria associated with MRSA infections and a common source of skin infections.

Some scientists also believe that, like our gut microbiome, the skin microbiome plays a role in helping to "train" our immune system during childhood, teaching it which targets to attack, and which to ignore. There is thought to be a link between the diversity of certain bacteria on the skin and a lower risk of allergies, for example.

 

The skin microbiome has other important functions too. For example, it's thought that certain bacteria can help us retain a youthful visage by helping us retain moisture, keeping our skin supple, smooth and plump. 

To stop toxins and harmful pathogens from coming in and water from rushing out, our skin contains several layers, with the top being the most impenetrable. The top layer is called the stratum corneum and is formed from dead cells called corneocytes, interspersed with fatty molecules known as lipids.

 

"It's very tough and waterproof, hence why we don't dissolve when we go out in the rain," says Catherine O'Neill, professor of translational dermatology at the University of Manchester.

Beneath the stratum corneum you have layer upon layer of live skin cells called keratinocytes. There are tiny gaps between these skin cells through which water could leak. To stop this from happening keratinocytes produce lipids, which help repel moisture.

"It's kind of like a brick-and-mortar kind of structure," says Wilkinson. "You've got the cells, and then in between the cells you've got all of these lipids that act as part of the barrier as well. They act like a glue keeping everything together."

So, where do bacteria come into this? Well, it turns out that some of the more helpful bacteria that live on our skin not only produce lipids themselves, but send out signals telling our skin cells to produce more lipids too. For example, studies show that Cutibacterium stimulates the skin to produce more of the lipid-rich sebum, which reduces water loss and increases hydration. Staphylococcus epidermidis also increases levels of skin ceramides – lipids that act like a glue holding our skin cells together to keep our skin barrier intact and healthy.

 So far so good. But what happens when the delicate balance of the skin microbiome is disrupted? Skin "dysbiosis" has been linked to conditions from atopic dermatitis (a type of eczema), to rosacea, acne and psoriasis. Even the presence of dandruff on the scalp is associated with a particular type of fungi. Malassezia furfur and Malassezia globosa fungi produce a chemical called oleic acid, which disturbs the stratum corneum cells on the scalp, provoking an itchy inflammatory response

 

However, in each of these cases it is difficult to establish whether the disease state is caused by the skin microbiome, or whether the skin microbiome itself has changed as a consequence of the disease.

There's even some evidence to suggest that the skin microbiome could protect us from the some of the harmful effects of UV radiation

One phenomenon that we can, at least partially, blame on bad bacteria is skin ageing. As you get older, the types of bacteria that live on your skin change. You tend to find less of the "good" species that protect against infections and help keep skin moist and hydrated. Instead you get higher levels of the harmful pathogenic bacteria. This has implications for skin healing.

"Older people tend to have drier skin that's associated with lower amounts of the types of bacteria that help with lipid production," says Wilkinson. "That leads to increased risk of skin infections, as, it reduces skin integrity. In older people, you're more likely to get a spontaneous wound appearing because you lose that integrity of the skin."

Unfortunately, "bad" skin bacteria may also interfere with wound healing. Research by Elizabeth Grice, a professor of dermatology and microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania, has shown that wounded mice lacking a skin microbiome take much longer to heal.

 

Meanwhile work at the Hull York Medical School by Wilkinson's colleagues has shown that a person's skin bacteria can predict whether they will heal from a chronic wound or not. Chronic, non-healing wounds are a life-threatening skin condition affecting one in four diabetics and one in 20 people over the age of 65.

"Hopefully at some point in the very near future we might be able to use that kind of strategy to figure out which patients are going to be most at risk of developing a non-healing wound, and provide that early intervention before it gets to the stage where they need to have a leg amputation, or develop a really nasty infection," says Wilkinson.

Indeed, certain strains of Staphylococcus aureus are associated with delayed healing. However, the exact mechanisms by which this pathogenic bacteria interferes with healing are uncertain.

"Staphylococcus aureus produce enzymes that can help them invade and digest the tissue around them," says Wilkinson. "But they can also interfere with your immune function, causing your own system to turn against you.

"The main driver of poor healing in chronic wounds is the fact that the wounds are stuck in that inflammatory phase, and they can't get out of it. So having the Staphylococcus aureus bacteria there just keeps it in this perpetual loop of inflammation."

 

Other studies have found that some skin microbes may actually be beneficial for wound healing.

There's even some evidence to suggest that the skin microbiome could protect us from the some of the harmful effects of ultraviolet radiation. When UV radiation hits the skin it can damage DNA. However, skin cells have an inbuilt protection mechanism.

"Essentially they stop reproducing and then the skin goes through a series of checks to repair that damaged DNA," says O'Neill. "If it can't repair it, the cells will basically kill themselves." 

However, in a recent unpublished study, O'Neill found that if you remove the microbiome, then skin cells carry on dividing even when they have damaged DNA.

 

"Obviously, this is a really important protective mechanism against tumours," says O'Neill. "And clearly the microbiome seems to be a big part of that." 

Research in mice has also indicated that the microbiome may also help to modulate the way our immune system responds to UV exposure, helping to prime it to fight off potential infection. UV light is known to suppress our immune response while it can also damage the skin, offering pathogenic bacteria the opportunity to invade our bodies. It appears the skin microbes help to induce an inflammatory response to UV light exposure, priming our bodies to fight off infection.

There's even some evidence to suggest that the skin microbiome could influence the gut. For example a recent study shows that skin injuries can lead to significant changes in the intestinal microbiome, increasing a person's susceptibility to gut inflammation. Studies also show that Malassezia restricta, a fungal member of the skin microbiota, is associated with Crohn's disease and can exacerbate colitis.

"Everyone knows there is gut-skin axis, whereby eating a poor diet can give you bad skin, but the idea that when something is wrong with our skin microbiome, that it could maybe give us diarrhoea. That's completely crazy," says Bernhard Paetzold, cofounder and chief scientific officer of S-Biomedic, a company which aims to treat conditions like acne by restoring the skin microbiome. "However, very recently, we have started to understand that this crosstalk is bidirectional and in fact there is a skin-gut axis."

There's even a theory that your skin microbiome could affect your brain, although the jury is still out on this. For example, a recent study took 20 healthy volunteers and asked them to perform a range of cognitive tests while measuring their brain activity. It found that removing bacteria from the skin on the forehead increased the attention level of participants

 

As we learn more about the skin microbiome and its role in health and our wellbeing, there is growing excitement among scientists about the role it may play in other aspects of our lives.

Treatments

So, could we improve our health by swapping our bad skin bacteria for the good guys – a kind of microbial skin transplant, if you will. Possibly, although to do this you'd have to wipe out the existing microbial community on your body, which could cause other problems, including the risk of driving antibiotic resistance. 

Our skin microbes are also heavily influenced by our environment, so we would also need to consider how the world around us contributes to the diversity of different bacteria, fungi and viruses on our bodies. Even the cosmetics we use can alter the make up of our skin microbiota in ways that are only just starting to be understood.

Some companies believe it may be possible to stimulate the growth of "healthy" microbes by treating the skin with "prebiotics" and "probiotics" to feed the good bacteria, or apply bacterial proteins or lipids to your face directly. There is little published evidence for how effective this is, but there are some signs it can tweak the balance of different skin bacteria.

 

Wilkinson is even researching whether special viruses that infect bacteria – known as bacteriophages – and the molecules they produce, could be used to wipe out Staphylococcus aureus in a targeted way without harming the rest of the microbiome.

"The idea is that by depleting the pathogenic bacteria, and allowing the natural microbiota to be restored, you can accelerate wound repair," she says. "So that is all very exciting for us, and hopefully that will eventually lead to a step change in the way that we approach treating these infections."

How Trump's Treasury is shifting sanctions to punish his critics and reward friends by Chiara Eisner , Robert Benincasa

 

After Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez condemned the U.S. attacks on Iran as a violation of international law, President Donald Trump did what he's done before with people who criticize his actions. He asked the secretary of the Department of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, to take care of it.

"In fact, I told Scott to cut off all dealings with Spain," Trump said in the Oval Office on March 3. "I could tomorrow stop, or today even better, stop everything having to do with Spain, all business having to do with Spain."

On March 12, Spain's foreign minister, José Manuel Albares, indicated that using the Treasury Department to attack Spain would make "no sense" and would affect the whole European Union.

 

But there is a way for the agency to target Spanish individuals and businesses, and Trump's Treasury Department has used it on other foreign leaders who have spoken out against the administration.

Since Trump began his second term, his administration has imposed — or rescinded — Treasury Department sanctions on foreigners in ways that have diverged from historical precedent or the sanction programs' intent, former State Department officials say.

The Treasury Department has historically used sanctions to restrict foreigners who pose serious threats to the U.S. and their own countries. The U.S. currently sanctions foreign entities under 37 official programs. Some of those programs allow the U.S. to block foreigners who have acted maliciously on behalf of a specific country, like North Korea or Russia. Other programs allow the federal government to restrict people from any foreign country, as long as they have committed or pose a serious risk of committing dangerous acts, like terrorism, drug trafficking or human rights abuse. Blocked people, companies, boats and planes are added to a list, called the "Specially Designated Nationals" list.

 

The sanctions are meant to protect Americans and bring about a positive change in behavior.

"When deployed effectively, these tools can disrupt weapons of mass destruction procurement rings, suffocate narcotics and criminal cartels, degrade the capabilities of terrorist groups, and alter the decision making of threatening regimes," Treasury Department documents reviewed by NPR state.

But under Trump, the agency has sanctioned people after they criticized the President or his political allies. The agency has also lifted sanctions it previously imposed on people accused of crimes and corruption, despite a lack of clear evidence of change in their behavior, former U.S. ambassadors said.

 "It's supposed to operate independent of personal interests, and it's supposed to reinforce our strategic interests, not advance personal vendettas," said former U.S. ambassador to Hungary, David Pressman. "And so what you're seeing in this particular instance is different than what has happened before."

 

In 2025, Trump's Treasury Department repeatedly sanctioned prominent foreign officials after they ruled or spoke out against different types of military aggression from the U.S., Israel and Brazil.

In February, shortly after Trump took office, and after the International Criminal Court had issued arrest warrants in 2024 for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister for their roles in the war in Gaza, the Treasury Department started sanctioning some of the court's judges and prosecutors. By December, 11 staffers had been sanctioned. Except for two ICC staffers that Trump sanctioned during his first term in 2020, no other U.S. president has sanctioned ICC employees, Treasury Department data shows.

In July, the Treasury Department sanctioned U.N. human rights official Francesca Albanese. Albanese had been investigating human rights abuses in Palestinian territories and had started characterizing the Israeli aggression against Palestinians as a genocide. 

 

Later that month, as Brazil's Supreme Federal Court considered whether former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a Trump supporter, had attempted a coup with top military officials after he lost an election, the Treasury Department sanctioned the lead justice on the case.

"Alexandre de Moraes has taken it upon himself to be judge and jury in an unlawful witch hunt against U.S. and Brazilian citizens and companies," said Secretary Bessent in a press release published by the Treasury Department that announced the sanctions on the justice. "De Moraes is responsible for an oppressive campaign of censorship, arbitrary detentions that violate human rights, and politicized prosecutions — including against former President Jair Bolsonaro."

 After the court decided Bolsonaro was guilty in September, the Treasury Department sanctioned De Moraes' wife. 

 

The Treasury Department sanctioned the two Brazilians using Global Magnitsky Sanctions, a program that allows the U.S. to sanction foreigners who commit serious human rights abuse. It was named after Russian Sergei Magnitsky, who died in his government's custody after accusing Russian officials of corruption.

Democratic U.S. senators criticized the use of Magnitsky sanctions again De Moraes, citing a lack of evidence and saying the actions undermined America's global standing.

"These actions fly in the face of the spirit and purpose of the Global Magnitsky Act, and send a signal that America's commitment to fighting corruption hinges on political winds," wrote Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) in a joint statement.

Then, on Oct. 24, the Treasury Department sanctioned Gustavo Petro, the president of Colombia. That was one month after Petro said in the 2025 U.N. General Assembly that the U.S. had violated international law by executing people on boats in the Caribbean sea, and days after Petro reiterated on X, in Spanish, that a U.S. attack on a Colombian fisherman was "murder."

 

The consequences for sanctioned foreigners can be severe. Their assets within U.S. jurisdiction are frozen and they are restricted from entering the U.S. and from using U.S. financial services. No U.S. companies are allowed to deal with them.

Some of those sanctioned by the U.S. have pushed back against their new restrictions.

"These sanctions are a flagrant attack against the independence of an impartial judicial institution which operates pursuant to the mandate conferred by its States Parties from across regions," the ICC stated in a press release, following the most recent sanctions to its members in December. "When judicial actors are threatened for applying the law, it is the international legal order itself that is placed at risk."

 After the Treasury Department stated that the agency sanctioned Petro for engaging in "international proliferation of illicit drugs or their means of production," Petro said on X that the Treasury Department's statement was a lie. Under his leadership, Colombia had seized more cocaine than any other government, he said, in Spanish. Petro described the imposition of the sanction as an "arbitrary act typical of an oppressive regime."

 

"The whole scenario is quite mad, in my view," said Richard Nephew, a former anti-corruption coordinator at the State Department. "So, it is hard to imagine a comparative situation and it is pretty obvious — to me — that this is political retribution rather than a serious use of sanctions tools for behavior modification purposes."

Albanese, the U.N. human rights official, responded to her sanctions with a lawsuit filed by her family on Feb. 26, 2026. It argued that Trump, Bessent and others in the administration had prevented her from accessing her property in the United States and violated her First, Fourth and Fifth amendment rights as well as the sanctions rules themselves.

 

In December, the U.S. lifted sanctions on the Brazilian justice and his wife. The ICC members, Petro and Albanese remain on the list. Asked for comment, Treasury Department spokeswoman Gigi O'Connell declined.

Previously sanctioned, now meeting at the White House

Historically, sanctions have been imposed following extensive research, former Treasury Department officials said.

"The facts that are being used for the basis of designation, those had to be irreproachable," said former Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, who led the Treasury Department under the Obama administration, from 2013 to 2017.

But the sanctions are not meant to last forever. The agency allows people to demonstrate they have improved their behavior by filing a petition. If that petition is successful, the sanctions can be lifted.

"A lot of times the argument will be like, look, the circumstances have changed, but to address any ongoing concerns that the U.S. government might have, I'm going to commit to providing audited financials for the next five years, or donating an amount to charity or divesting from an asset," said Erich Ferrari, a lawyer who has helped people remove themselves from the sanctions list for more than a decade. "All these different things you can say to kind of address the underlying concerns that led to the sanctions in the first place."

 

But in some instances last year, Trump's Treasury Department removed sanctions against people who U.S. ambassadors and senators did not believe had addressed the agency's initial concerns.

On Jan. 7, 2025, under the Biden administration, the U.S. sanctioned Antal Rogán, the head of the Hungarian cabinet, for his involvement in the country's system of political corruption. Three months later, in April, Rogán's sanctions were removed.

Pressman, the former ambassador to Hungary, speculated that Rogán's sanctions were removed because of the "perceived personal loyalty" of Trump and Hungary's Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, who Trump endorsed for reelection in February.

 

'With friends, everything is easier," Orbán wrote on X, while posting a video of Trump's endorsement, which happened at the inaugural meeting of his Board of Peace, of which Orbán is a member.

"The challenges in Hungary remain," said Pressman. "And the delisting in this case of Antal Rogán had nothing to do with changed behavior."

Something similar happened months later when the Treasury Department removed sanctions on Horacio Cartes, the former President of Paraguay, in October 2025.

In 2023, the Treasury Department had accused Cartes of collecting bribes through representatives during private events held by the Iran-backed terrorist group, Hezbollah. Cartes was also involved in "rampant corruption," the agency stated, including allegedly using $1 million of his personal funds to buy the votes of legislators to push for a constitutional reform that would have allowed him to run for a second term.

 Cartes had not demonstrated a clear change in that sort of behavior when he was delisted, said Marc Ostfield, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Paraguay from 2022 to 2025.

"The U.S. says that links to Hezbollah are a grave concern of this current administration," said Ostfield. "So it's really hard to understand why the U.S. would lift sanctions on Cartes."

 One person removed from the Treasury Department's sanctions list has already used his renewed access to the U.S. for a meeting with a member of the Trump administration.

When, in October 2025, the U.S. removed sanctions on Milorad Dodik, the former President of the Republika Srpska who was previously sanctioned for "undermin[ing] the stability of the Western Balkans region through corruption and threats to long-standing peace agreements," some U.S. politicians said.

"Dodik has undermined the Dayton Peace Agreement, cozied up to Putin, and profited from corruption — hardly grounds for relief," said Sen. Shaheen, the New Hampshire Democrat. "The American people deserve answers."

But on Feb. 6, 2026, Dodik posted three photos on X of him and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt inside the White House. 

 

NPR asked the White House to explain why Dodik's sanctions were removed and why Leavitt met with Dodik in February. A representative for the White House declined to respond by email.

Pressman said the recent examples conflict with the purpose of the sanctions programs.

"This authority is being utilized in ways to augment the power of an individual rather than advance our country's interests," said Pressman, adding it is "rewarding loyalists and punishing those who are perceived to be opponents."

---

Medicare Advantage 'dark money' group tries to win higher payments for insurers by Fred Schulte , Maia Rosenfeld , David Hilzenrath

 

Judging by more than 16,300 comments recently posted on a federal government website, you'd think there was a groundswell of older Americans demanding that federal officials hike payments to their Medicare Advantage health insurance plans.

Yet about 83% of the comments are identical to a letter that appeared on the website of a secretive advocacy group called Medicare Advantage Majority, a data analysis by KFF Health News has found.

The "dark money" group does not reveal its funders or much else — other than to say it is "dedicated to protecting and strengthening Medicare Advantage" and is "powered by hundreds of thousands of local advocates nationwide."

 "Our campaign provides information and offers tools for concerned Americans to use to reach decision makers," spokesperson Darren Grubb said in an email. The group has spent more than $3.1 million on hundreds of Facebook ads since September 2024, according to Facebook's Ad Library, a database of the social media company's online ads.

 

There's no doubt health insurers are unhappy with a January proposal from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS to keep Medicare Advantage reimbursement rates essentially flat in 2027 — far less than they expected from the Trump administration.

Medicare Advantage plans differ from traditional Medicare because private insurance companies administer them. The insurance plans enroll about 35 million members, more than half the people eligible for Medicare. The plans offer things like vision and drug coverage, but Medicare Advantage insurers restrict the hospitals and doctors that patients can use and require prior approval for various procedures.

CMS, is set to announce a final decision by early next month on the rate proposal. The agency solicited public comments on the proposal from Jan. 26 through Feb. 25 to give interested parties and the public a chance to air their views.

Medicare Advantage Majority, which says the rate proposal amounts to a "cut" in services and warns of dire consequences for seniors should it go through, accounted for at least 13,519 of the 16,324 comments published as of March 11.

 

The proposed rate plan "puts my access to care at risk," the group's template letter to policy makers reads in part. "If the investment made by Washington in the Medicare Advantage program is nearly flat year-over-year, I could lose benefits I rely on every day, including affordable prescriptions, capped out of pocket costs, and access to trusted doctors and specialists."

"Medicare Advantage is not optional for me. The cost protections alone have saved me thousands of dollars and made my health care manageable. Without this program, I would face higher costs, fewer providers, and fewer benefits at a time when I can least afford it," the letter states.

Critics warn that these sorts of campaigns may create a misleading impression of grassroots support, especially when it's not clear who is financing them.

 

It puts a different spin on a massive groundswell of comments to know all are being driven by one specific organization," said Michael Beckel, director of money in politics reform for Issue One, a group that seeks to limit the influence of money on government policy and legislation.

"There's no way for the public to know what wealthy donors or special interests are funding dark money groups like this," he said. "That means there's no scrutiny of who's really calling the shots."

Some health care policy experts, who have long argued that the government overpays Medicare Advantage plans by tens of billions of dollars every year, believe industry groups or their surrogates routinely overstate possible negative impacts of rate decisions they don't like.

"The plans always say that the sky is falling," said Matthew Fiedler, a health care policy expert with the Brookings Institution. "The industry has a lot of money at stake here. They try to exert pressure on policymakers any way they can."

At the same time, even critics concede that some of the millions of people enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans could face service cuts if insurance companies are not satisfied with government payments.

 

"It is legitimate for people to be worried," said Julie Carter, counsel for federal policy at the Medicare Rights Center, a group that advocates for older adults and people with disabilities.

Her group argues that Medicare Advantage plans have never attained expected cost savings and instead have been overpaid for years at least partly due to "actions to maximize profits." She said the health plans "are supposed to be saving money, not taking extra."

People struggling to pay health care bills may have little use for the policy debate in Washington.

"If it wasn't for being able to have this program, I really wouldn't be able to afford any kind of medical services, to be honest," said EsterAlicia Rose, 75, who works at the front desk of a hotel in Pagosa Springs, Colo. She said she signed the Medicare Advantage Majority form letter to reach policymakers.

Kathy Lovely-Marshall, 66, a retired nurse who lives in Brookville, Ohio, did too. She said she receives "a lot of perks" from her plan, such as dental care, eyeglasses, and prescriptions.

"All those things are a big plus as far as I am concerned," she said. "I'm very happy with the plan I have."

But Corenia Branham, 90, a widow and cancer survivor who lives in Alum Creek, W.Va., said she wants nothing to do with Medicare Advantage plans run by private health insurance companies. She said she didn't turn in any of the four form letters under her name, which were posted online by CMS on Feb. 23 and signed, "Miss Corenia Branham Branham." It's not clear why her name is signed twice.

 Branham said she's not on Medicare Advantage and doubts she could count on it for needed care.

"I wouldn't recommend it to nobody," she said. "I sure don't want anything to do with it."

 

Grubb, the Medicare Advantage Majority spokesperson, disputed that account. He said Branham responded to an ad on Facebook. On Feb. 6, she "completed the form with her information and chose to send her comment to CMS as well as to her representatives in Congress and the White House," he said.

Other Medicare Advantage advocacy groups have stepped up ad campaigns as the rate decision looms.

The Better Medicare Alliance, whose "allies" include a range of health insurers, health care providers, and consumers, is urging seniors to "Tell Washington to Stand Up for Medicare Advantage."

"We've mobilized beneficiaries to write letters and make phone calls, and we've run digital ads on streaming platforms," spokesperson Susan Reilly said.

Reilly said that this year roughly 3 million seniors "were forced to find new coverage" because plans either shuttered operations or left some areas.

She also said Medicare Advantage plans have "scaled back" benefits such as offering transportation to medical appointments, nutrition support, and dental and vision coverage, while over the past two years beneficiaries have faced an average $900 increase in out-of-pocket maximums.

"We do view this as especially serious," Reilly said. "This isn't a single bad year; it's the cumulative effect of years of underfunding and policy disruption from the previous administration that has left the program increasingly vulnerable."

As of March 11, CMS said it had received 46,884 comments but had posted only 16,324 online.

CMS spokesperson Catherine Howden said the agency would make more comments public "as soon as practicable."

"The agency focuses on reviewing the substance of timely submissions and does not speculate on volume, sentiment, or potential impact of comments while the comment period is open/under review," she said in a statement.

Believe it or not, there was a time when the US government built beautiful homes for working‑class Americans to deal with a housing shortage Eran Ben-Joseph

 

In 1918, as World War I intensified overseas, the U.S. government embarked on a radical experiment: It quietly became the nation’s largest housing developer, designing and constructing more than 80 new communities across 26 states in just two years.

These weren’t hastily erected barracks or rows of identical homes. They were thoughtfully designed neighborhoods, complete with parks, schools, shops and sewer systems.

In just two years, this federal initiative provided housing for almost 100,000 people.

Few Americans are aware that such an ambitious and comprehensive public housing effort ever took place. Many of the homes are still standing today.

But as an urban planning scholar, I believe that this brief historic moment – spearheaded by a shuttered agency called the United States Housing Corporation – offers a revealing lesson on what government-led planning can achieve during a time of national need.

Government mobilization

When the U.S. declared war against Germany in April 1917, federal authorities immediately realized that ship, vehicle and arms manufacturing would be at the heart of the war effort. To meet demand, there needed to be sufficient worker housing near shipyards, munitions plants and steel factories.

 

The U.S. Housing Corporation built nearly 300 homes in Bremerton, Wash., during World War I. National Archives

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In 1918, as World War I intensified overseas, the U.S. government embarked on a radical experiment: It quietly became the nation’s largest housing developer, designing and constructing more than 80 new communities across 26 states in just two years.

These weren’t hastily erected barracks or rows of identical homes. They were thoughtfully designed neighborhoods, complete with parks, schools, shops and sewer systems.

In just two years, this federal initiative provided housing for almost 100,000 people.

Few Americans are aware that such an ambitious and comprehensive public housing effort ever took place. Many of the homes are still standing today.

But as an urban planning scholar, I believe that this brief historic moment – spearheaded by a shuttered agency called the United States Housing Corporation – offers a revealing lesson on what government-led planning can achieve during a time of national need.

Government mobilization

When the U.S. declared war against Germany in April 1917, federal authorities immediately realized that ship, vehicle and arms manufacturing would be at the heart of the war effort. To meet demand, there needed to be sufficient worker housing near shipyards, munitions plants and steel factories.

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So on May 16, 1918, Congress authorized President Woodrow Wilson to provide housing and infrastructure for industrial workers vital to national defense. By July, it had appropriated US$100 million – approximately $2.3 billion today – for the effort, with Secretary of Labor William B. Wilson tasked with overseeing it via the U.S. Housing Corporation.

Over the course of two years, the agency designed and planned over 80 housing projects. Some developments were small, consisting of a few dozen dwellings. Others approached the size of entire new towns.

For example, Cradock, near Norfolk, Virginia, was planned on a 310-acre site, with more than 800 detached homes developed on just 100 of those acres. In Dayton, Ohio, the agency created a 107-acre community that included 175 detached homes and a mix of over 600 semidetached homes and row houses, along with schools, shops, a community center and a park.

Designing ideal communities

Notably, the Housing Corporation was not simply committed to offering shelter.

Its architects, planners and engineers aimed to create communities that were not only functional but also livable and beautiful. They drew heavily from Britain’s late-19th century Garden City movement, a planning philosophy that emphasized low-density housing, the integration of open spaces and a balance between built and natural environments.

 

Importantly, instead of simply creating complexes of apartment units, akin to the public housing projects that most Americans associate with government-funded housing, the agency focused on the construction of single-family and small multifamily residential buildings that workers and their families could eventually own.

This approach reflected a belief by the policymakers that property ownership could strengthen community responsibility and social stability. During the war, the federal government rented these homes to workers at regulated rates designed to be fair, while covering maintenance costs. After the war, the government began selling the homes – often to the tenants living in them – through affordable installment plans that provided a practical path to ownership.

 

Though the scope of the Housing Corporation’s work was national, each planned community took into account regional growth and local architectural styles. Engineers often built streets that adapted to the natural landscape. They spaced houses apart to maximize light, air and privacy, with landscaped yards. No resident lived far from greenery.

In Quincy, Massachusetts, for example, the agency built a 22-acre neighborhood with 236 homes designed mostly in a Colonial Revival style to serve the nearby Fore River Shipyard. The development was laid out to maximize views, green space and access to the waterfront, while maintaining density through compact street and lot design.

At Mare Island, California, developers located the housing site on a steep hillside near a naval base. Rather than flatten the land, designers worked with the slope, creating winding roads and terraced lots that preserved views and minimized erosion. The result was a 52-acre community with over 200 homes, many of which were designed in the Craftsman style. There was also a school, stores, parks and community centers.

Infrastructure and innovation

Alongside housing construction, the Housing Corporation invested in critical infrastructure. Engineers installed over 649,000 feet of modern sewer and water systems, ensuring that these new communities set a high standard for sanitation and public health.

Attention to detail extended inside the homes. Architects experimented with efficient interior layouts and space-saving furnishings, including foldaway beds and built-in kitchenettes. Some of these innovations came from private companies that saw the program as a platform to demonstrate new housing technologies.

One company, for example, designed fully furnished studio apartments with furniture that could be rotated or hidden, transforming a space from living room to bedroom to dining room throughout the day.

To manage the large scale of this effort, the agency developed and published a set of planning and design standards − the first of their kind in the United States. These manuals covered everything from block configurations and road widths to lighting fixtures and tree-planting guidelines.

 

The standards emphasized functionality, aesthetics and long-term livability.

Architects and planners who worked for the Housing Corporation carried these ideas into private practice, academia and housing initiatives. Many of the planning norms still used today, such as street hierarchies, lot setbacks and mixed-use zoning, were first tested in these wartime communities.

And many of the planners involved in experimental New Deal community projects, such as Greenbelt, Maryland, had worked for or alongside Housing Corporation designers and planners. Their influence is apparent in the layout and design of these communities.

A brief but lasting legacy

With the end of World War I, the political support for federal housing initiatives quickly waned. The Housing Corporation was dissolved by Congress, and many planned projects were never completed. Others were incorporated into existing towns and cities.

Yet, many of the neighborhoods built during this period still exist today, integrated in the fabric of the country’s cities and suburbs. Residents in places such as Aberdeen, Maryland; Bremerton, Washington; Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; Watertown, New York; and New Orleans may not even realize that many of the homes in their communities originated from a bold federal housing experiment.

 

The Housing Corporation’s efforts, though brief, showed that large-scale public housing could be thoughtfully designed, community oriented and quickly executed. For a short time, in response to extraordinary circumstances, the U.S. government succeeded in building more than just houses. It constructed entire communities, demonstrating that government has a major role and can lead in finding appropriate, innovative solutions to complex challenges.

At a moment when the U.S. once again faces a housing crisis, the legacy of the U.S. Housing Corporation serves as a reminder that bold public action can meet urgent needs.

The next redistricting battle might be who is counted in state legislative districts by Hansi Lo Wang

 

A next potential front in the redistricting war could involve who is counted for state legislative districts.

For decades, mapmakers have generally drawn the districts that state lawmakers represent based on the total number of people living in an area. But Republican officials in some states have called for using a narrower population: only "eligible voters."

Some advocates of this form of redistricting have interpreted it to mean leaving out non-U.S. citizen adults and all children. Only adult citizens would count, including those who, in some states, are not eligible to vote because of a felony conviction or their mental incapacity.

 

Such a change would likely lead to a transfer of political influence — away from urban areas that are younger and more racially diverse, and toward rural areas that are older and whiter.

In 2016, the Supreme Court ruled that a state is allowed to draw legislative districts based on its total population. "As the Framers of the Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment comprehended, representatives serve all residents, not just those eligible or registered to vote," wrote the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the court's unanimous opinion after a local GOP official and another Texas voter challenged a state Senate map.

But the high court stopped short of ruling on the legality of state legislative mapmaking based only on adult citizens, with Justice Samuel Alito authoring a concurring opinion calling it "an important and sensitive question" the justices could consider if such a plan were brought to the court.

 

A decade later, Republican officials in some states have filed lawsuits that could end up forcing the Census Bureau to release the information that linedrawers would need to create such a redistricting plan — census block-level data about people's U.S. citizenship status.

Missouri, the latest GOP-led state to sue, would be primed to use that data after voters in 2020 approved new redistricting requirements in the state's constitution.

Still, any state wading into these uncharted redistricting waters would face both legal and practical hurdles, including whether the bureau can produce reliable block-level citizenship data in time for the next round of scheduled redistricting, after the 2030 census.

And while Republicans would be more likely to benefit than Democrats, the partisan gains from redistricting based on adult citizens may not be enough to change the balance of power in many state legislatures, a study suggests.

How the GOP push to alter the census connects with adult citizen-based districts

The push to change who's counted in state legislative districts comes amid Republican efforts to exclude some or all noncitizens living in the states from certain or all census tallies.

To produce a narrower population count, the bureau would need to add to census forms a question asking about U.S. citizenship and/or immigration status — or resurrect a citizenship data project from the first Trump administration involving government records.

Such a question or project would also unlock adult citizen-based redistricting in Missouri, according to Nick Stephanopoulos, a professor specializing in election law at Harvard Law School.

"To do redistricting, you need really granular data on where people or citizens or adult citizens are located," Stephanopoulos adds.

 

Catherine Hanaway, Missouri's Republican attorney general, did not agree to be interviewed or respond to written questions.

But in the state's legal complaint against the bureau, Missouri claims that including residents without legal status and those with nonimmigrant visas in the census "hopelessly skews" legislative redistricting, noting that the state's constitution requires those districts to be drawn on the basis of "one person, one vote."

"Indeed, it is impossible to comply with the 'one person, one vote' rule," the complaint adds, "when Missouri must rely on census data altered by the inclusion of illegal aliens and temporary visa holders," such as international college students who live in the United States.

A few months before Missouri voters approved that rule in 2020, the state's solicitor general at the time — D. John Sauer, who is now the Trump administration's top Supreme Court lawyer — told a judge that the state government interpreted it to mean that "the criteria is based on the number of actual eligible voters in a relevant district as opposed to an absolute population."

 Republicans would likely benefit, but not in many states, a study suggests

The first Trump administration failed in its attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, but the effort led to the release of a 2015 report by the late Thomas Hofeller, a Republican redistricting strategist.

In the document, Hofeller wrote that redrawing state legislative districts based on adult citizens "would be advantageous to Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites."

Stephanopoulos of Harvard Law School, however, doesn't completely agree with Hofeller's conclusion.

"Tom Hofeller's memo was right about the consequences for minority voters versus white voters, but it largely overstated the effects with respect to partisanship," says Stephanopoulos, who co-authored a 2021 academic study involving simulated redistricting plans for Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Nevada, New York, Texas and Utah.

 

Adult citizen-based redistricting, the study found, would reduce the number of legislative districts in which Black or Latino voters have an opportunity to elect their preferred candidate in places where voting is racially polarized — a key protection against racial discrimination under the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The most notable drops would likely be in Arizona, Florida, New York and Texas.

In most states, however, this method of mapmaking is not likely to give Republicans an edge in control of state legislatures, according to this research.

The exceptions would be Florida and Texas, where Republicans have controlled the state legislatures for decades. With adult citizen-based redistricting, "both of those states' lower houses would be comfortably Republican, not close to flipping to the Democrats," 

 

 

 

Documents Reveal a Web of Financial Ties Between Trump Officials and the Industries They Help Regulate by Corey G. Johnson, Brandon Roberts and Al Shaw

 

ProPublica is releasing a trove of disclosure records that detail the finances of more than 1,500 Trump appointees, including former lobbyists, industry executives and at least a dozen officials who declined to identify former clients.

 

Thousands of companies are jockeying for billions of dollars in Defense Department contracts to build a shield designed to intercept and destroy missiles launched against the United States.

But amid the intense competition, a handful of firms have an important inside connection.

At least four of the companies awarded contracts so far are owned by Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity firm founded by billionaire Steve Feinberg, who until last year ran the company and is now the deputy secretary of defense — the second-highest-ranking official in the Pentagon.

Feinberg oversees the office in charge of the Golden Dome for America project, which is modeled on Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.

Feinberg filed paperwork saying he divested from Cerberus and its related businesses. But his government ethics records contain an unusual clause: He is allowed to continue contracting with the company for tax compliance and accounting services as well as health care coverage, a financial relationship that documents show could continue indefinitely.

Feinberg’s financial statements and ethics agreement are part of a trove of nearly 3,200 disclosure records that ProPublica is making public today. The disclosures, which can be viewed in a searchable online tool, detail the finances of more than 1,500 federal officials appointed by President Donald Trump. Records for Trump and Vice President JD Vance are also included.

 

The documents reveal a web of financial ties between senior government officials and the industries they help regulate — relationships that have drawn scrutiny as Trump has dismantled ethics safeguards designed to prevent conflicts of interest.

On his first day back in office, Trump rescinded an executive order signed by President Joe Biden that required his appointees to comply with an ethics pledge. The pledge barred them from working on issues related to their former lobbying topics or clients for two years. Weeks later, Trump fired 17 inspectors general charged with investigating fraud, corruption and conflicts of interest across the federal government. Around the same time, he removed the head of the Office of Government Ethics, the agency that oversees ethics compliance throughout the executive branch. The office is currently without a head or a chief of staff.

 

Against that backdrop, ProPublica has, over the past year, used the disclosure records to investigate how personal financial interests have intersected with government decision-making inside the Trump administration.

The documents helped show that senior executive branch officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, made well-timed securities trades, at times selling stocks just before markets plunged because Trump announced new tariffs. (The officials either did not respond to requests for comment or said they had no insider information before they made their trades.)

Other disclosures revealed that two high-ranking scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency who recently helped downgrade the agency’s assessment of the health risks of formaldehyde had previously held senior positions at the chemical industry’s leading trade group. (The EPA said the scientists had obtained ethics advice approving their work on the project.)

In December, ProPublica reported that Trump has appointed more than 200 people who collectively owned — either by themselves or with their spouses — between $175 million and $340 million in cryptocurrency investments at the time they filed their disclosures. Some of those appointees now hold positions overseeing or influencing regulation of the crypto industry. Among them are Todd Blanche, Trump’s former criminal defense attorney and now the second-highest-ranking official in the Justice Department.

Blanche’s disclosure records show that he owned at least $159,000 in crypto-related assets last year when he shut down investigations into crypto companies, dealers and exchanges.

After ProPublica reported on Blanche’s actions, six Democratic senators accused him of a “glaring” conflict of interest, and a watchdog group asked the Justice Department’s inspector general to investigate. A Justice Department spokesperson has said Blanche upholds the highest ethical standards and that his crypto orders were “appropriately flagged, addressed and cleared in advance,” but she did not respond to questions asking who had cleared his actions.

Conflicts of interest have long plagued both Democratic and Republican administrations. But ethics experts say Trump’s second term marks a sharp break from modern norms.

Trump has openly defended his family’s financial enrichment while he is in office, including through cryptocurrency deals that critics say allow investors, including foreign entities, to curry favor by boosting the president’s personal wealth.

 

“I found out nobody cared, and I’m allowed to,” Trump told The New York Times, referring to his family’s business dealings.

Trump also remains unapologetic about accepting a Boeing 747 worth about $400 million from the Qatari government and transferring nearly $1 billion from a nuclear weapons program to retrofit it. Virginia Canter, chief counsel for ethics and corruption at Democracy Defenders Fund, a nonprofit governmental watchdog group, cited Trump’s new plane as a brazen example of self-dealing.

 

“Ethics is in the toilet,” said Canter, who served as an ethics lawyer at the White House, Treasury Department and Securities and Exchange Commission during the presidencies of George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly defended the president and his appointees. “President Trump is leading the most transparent administration in history,” Kelly said. “He has also nominated highly-qualified individuals across the Executive Branch who have a wide range of public and private sector backgrounds.”

 

The idea of a space-based missile defense shield has persisted ever since President Ronald Reagan proposed his own version nicknamed “Star Wars.”

Trump rekindled the idea on the campaign trail. His Golden Dome for America imagines a battery of weapons, deployed from land, sea and space, able to destroy missiles launched at the U.S.

 

In December, the Defense Department started selecting companies for the project, for which it has allocated as much as $151 billion. So far, the agency has granted awards to more than 2,000 firms. Cerberus owns or is a majority investor in at least four of them: North Wind, Stratolaunch, Red River Technology and NetCentrics Corp.

Citing national security concerns, defense officials have not publicized the amounts of each contract or the products or services the companies are providing. (The Defense Department is required by law to publicly announce only contracts worth more than $9 million.)

Feinberg, who co-founded Cerberus in 1992, listed assets worth at least $2 billion when he was nominated by Trump last year. In his ethics agreement, Feinberg said he would divest his stake in the firm, potentially giving assets to irrevocable trusts benefiting his adult children — a maneuver that is legal under federal conflict-of-interest law but one that ethics experts say undermines its intent.

Feinberg also told ethics officials that he needed to contract with Cerberus for accounting, tax and health care services in the short term but would find other providers by April 2026. However, at Feinberg’s request, Defense Department officials approved an extension earlier this year, allowing the financial relationship to continue without an end date. In an amendment to his ethics agreement, he said he would “pay customary and reasonable fees” for Cerberus’ services but did not say how much those would be.

 

It’s unclear what role Feinberg has played — or will play — in deciding which firms receive Golden Dome contracts. In response to questions from ProPublica, the Defense Department said Feinberg does not “have direct responsibility for any Golden Dome acquisitions” but did not elaborate. The department would not comment on whether Feinberg or anyone in his office had met with any contractor representatives.

What is not disputed is Feinberg’s oversight of the Golden Dome initiative. Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein, who heads the project, reports directly to him.

Richard Painter, a former White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, said Feinberg’s ongoing relationship with Cerberus creates at least a perception of a conflict of interest that could undermine confidence in the fairness of the contracting process.

“This is what President Eisenhower worried about in the 1960s” when he railed against the military-industrial complex, Painter said of Eisenhower’s farewell address warning of the risks of a too-close relationship between the military and private defense businesses.

 

In response to questions from ProPublica, a Cerberus spokesperson said in an email: “Mr. Feinberg divested his stake in Cerberus and any funds that it manages, and is not involved with the operations of Cerberus or any of its portfolio companies in any way.” The spokesperson added that the administrative services provided to Feinberg “are unrelated to any investment activities or operations of Cerberus or its funds and were pre-approved by the Department of War’s Ethics Office and the Office of Government Ethics.”

Another top official in the department is Marc Berkowitz, who was confirmed in December as assistant secretary of defense for space policy. During his confirmation, Berkowitz described the Golden Dome project as one of his top priorities.

Berkowitz previously worked as a space industry consultant and vice president for strategic planning at Lockheed Martin. The giant defense and aerospace company was among the firms awarded Golden Dome contracts days before Berkowitz’s confirmation.

Lockheed is likely to compete for a large role in the project. The company has set up a webpage dedicated to the Golden Dome, and Reuters reported that Lockheed is one of several firms that received contracts to build competing prototypes of the missile defense system.

In his financial disclosure documents, Berkowitz reported receiving two monthly pensions from Lockheed and owning between $1 million and $5 million worth of stock in the firm.

Berkowitz agreed to divest by March 18, documents show. During his confirmation hearing, he downplayed any potential role he would have in Golden Dome contract decisions, noting that his position was more about policy.

A senior Defense Department official told ProPublica that Berkowitz is recusing himself from matters involving Lockheed until his remaining shares are sold.

 Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said the department’s ethics framework is “rigorous” and that Feinberg and Berkowitz are in full compliance with the law.

“Any claims to the contrary are fake news,” Parnell said.

 

Other agencies have similar industry links. Across the administration, former lobbyists and corporate executives now occupy influential positions, including Bondi, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.

Their ties to former clients have made national headlines, but ProPublica’s searchable online tool provides the public an important glimpse into the financial relationships or industry links of a powerful and often hidden cadre of presidential appointees within the federal bureaucracy.

Reports show that after being nominated to head the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Jonathan Morrison revealed he served for two years as a director of the Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association, the trade group that represents companies that make and use self-driving cars. He left the position in February 2024.

 

At his confirmation hearing last year, Morrison said he wanted the NHTSA to set national standards and play a leading role in the industry’s development of self-driving vehicles.

Sean Rushton, an NHTSA spokesperson, said Morrison had an unpaid position on the autonomous vehicle group’s board of directors and doesn’t have to recuse himself from matters involving the organization because he left long before the presidential election and his nomination as highway traffic safety administrator.

Most political appointees and senior officials in the executive branch are required by law to file public financial disclosure reports. These documents detail their financial assets, the positions they hold outside government, their spouse’s holdings, their liabilities and their recent financial transactions (such as buying or selling stock) during a defined reporting period. For the most part, the law does not require appointees to provide exact financial values but instead a range.

At least a dozen appointees withheld the identities of previous clients, ProPublica found.

Appointees are allowed to keep the name of former clients confidential under exceptional circumstances, such as when the identity is protected by a court order or revealing the name would violate the rules of a professional licensing organization. In New York and Washington, D.C., for example, the organizations that license attorneys prohibit them from revealing confidential information about a client in most situations, including if doing so would be embarrassing or is likely to be detrimental to the client. While the relationship between a client and an attorney is often made public, in some cases — if, for instance, an appointee had conducted legal defense work for a client during a nonpublic criminal investigation — the client’s identity could be withheld from the financial disclosure.

Guidelines issued by the Office of Government Ethics say that such situations are unusual and “it is extremely rare for a filer to rely on this exception for more than a few clients.”

But at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, which is responsible for tariff policy, the head of the agency, Jamieson Greer, withheld the names of more than 50 former clients from his time at King & Spalding, one of the nation’s most influential law firms. In his disclosure, Greer cited the New York and D.C. bar rules for not identifying the clients.

Greer’s senior adviser in the federal agency, Kwan Kim, previously worked as an international trade lawyer for Covington & Burling. From October 2020 to February 2025, Kim helped businesses win federal exemptions from steel and aluminum tariffs and defended companies accused by investigators of import-related crimes, according to a Covington biography that has since been taken down. Kim kept the names of 52 companies he represented secret, citing the D.C. Bar rules, the disclosure documents show.

The U.S. Trade Representative office did not respond to ProPublica’s request for comment.

When the names of former clients are withheld, it becomes virtually impossible for the public to know if an official’s actions in government benefit a former client. Kedric Payne, ethics director at the nonpartisan watchdog group Campaign Legal Center, said the lack of disclosure is concerning.

“When you see these types of close connections between the regulated community and the new regulators, it raises a yellow flag,” Payne said. “Because these officials are walking an ethical tightrope where any meeting or communication with their former employer and client could become a serious conflict of interest.”

 

ProPublica’s journalists have been gathering these records for more than a year. We obtained all of the disclosures that were available from the Office of Government Ethics. Those consist of the top appointees who require Senate confirmation. To get records for people working in lower-level positions, we made requests to individual federal agencies. Some didn’t respond or responded partially; records we requested for about 1,200 people weren’t provided.

Still, ProPublica’s online tool is the most comprehensive public source of financial disclosures from across the executive branch.