Senate Majority Leader John Thune is playing dumb when it comes to Donald Trump’s significant efforts to shutter USAID.

Since taking office, Trump has made several major moves to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development: He signed an executive order pausing all foreign aid, issued a stop-work order sending staff and contractors home, and sent agents from the Department of Government Efficiency to raid USAID’s offices for personnel and payment files. But, supposedly, his main guy in the Senate has no idea what’s going on.

Benjamin Weiss of Courthouse News asked Tuesday whether Thune believed Trump had the authority to “unilaterally close” a federal agency without congressional approval. The South Dakota Republican acted like he had no idea what he was being asked about.

“It was my understanding, I don’t think they’re closing an agency, but I do think they have the right to review funding and how those decisions are made and what priorities are being funded,” Thune replied, according to Fox News’s Chad Pergram.

“I think that’s probably true of any administration when they come in … we’re trying to determine again, how the the various programs are authorized and funded under USAID, how those dollars are being spent, whether they’re being spent wisely and well and consistent with the purpose for which they are, are intended,” Thune said.

“It’s in need of reform. It’s in need of transparency and greater accountability. And I think that’s what the administration’s trying to achieve,” Thune said.

Yes, transparency—but that’s not what a group of Democratic leaders got when they marched down to USAID headquarters on Monday and were denied entry from the offices.

Thune’s statement seems particularly divorced from reality, considering that Elon Musk announced Trump’s intention to shutter the agency and Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s plan to absorb some parts of the organization and abolish the rest.

FBI agents who worked on cases related to the January 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection are suing to prevent Donald Trump’s new leaders at the Justice Department from retaliating against them.

Agents at the intelligence bureau filed two separate lawsuits on Tuesday against the Justice Department. The first class action lawsuit was filed in federal court anonymously and accuses the DOJ’s Trump-appointed leadership of putting together lists of agents who worked on cases seeking future punitive action for January 6, citing a survey being circulated in the bureau. The agents fear that Trump’s DOJ will make the lists public, or use them to punish agents they think are disloyal.

“Plaintiffs legitimately fear that the information being compiled will be accessed by persons who are not authorized to have access to it,” the lawsuit states. “Plaintiffs further assert that even if they are not targeted for termination, they may face other retaliatory acts such as demotion, denial of job opportunities or denial of promotions in the future.”

The lawsuit claims that the agents’ First Amendment rights were violated, as was the federal Privacy Act. It seeks to prevent the DOJ from collecting and circulating the identities of the FBI agents and other bureau employees in ways that could tie them to the January 6 cases, or to the case on Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents.

The FBI Agents Association, representing several other agents at the bureau, is also suing the DOJ over fears of retaliation for work relating to the January 6 attacks, fearing that their personal information will be exposed. In both lawsuits, agents fear that even if Trump doesn’t take direct action against them, his DOJ loyalists would be giving a hit list to the MAGA right, including the more than 1,500 January 6 defendants he pardoned.

Trump has targeted the bureau for revenge and tried to fire six senior agents last week. His nominee to run the law enforcement agency, Kash Patel, has already compiled an enemies list and refuses to answer questions about it. If Patel is confirmed, Trump will not only be able to take his revenge against those who investigated him and his supporters, but also protect his loyalists from prosecution when they break the law.

Trump is preparing an executive order to abolish the Department of Education—a move that will undoubtedly hurt teachers, students, and parents in red states the most.

The draft order will direct the department to slash spending and slash staff, according to The Washington Post. Such an aggressive decision on such a large scale would have sweeping consequences.

“The Dept of Education provides crucial funding for low-income public schools—eliminating it would result in the loss of 6% of teachers’ jobs nationwide,” former adviser for Barack Obama, Steven Rattner, wrote on X.

Rattner shared a chart based on data from the Center for American Progress on states’ K-12 education funding under Title I, the Education Department’s main federal program to help low-income students. Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Nevada, and Arizona—states that all went for Trump—are the most reliant on that funding, and the most likely to lose hundreds of........

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