Tag
The systematic destruction of federal agencies and programs, including mass layoffs, budget elimination, and institutional capture. Covers the deliberate hollowing-out of regulatory, scientific, and social service functions of the U.S. government.
9 incidents
Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation
RFK Jr.'s dismantlement of federal health agencies during an active measles crisis — including firing vaccine advisors, cutting thousands of positions, and clawing back billions — coincided with the worst measles outbreak in 30+ years, which began in January 2025 before his confirmation, and degraded the federal response while America's measles-elimination status is threatened.
Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power
The National Weather Service lost roughly 550 to 600 staff, including meteorologists and storm modelers, through probationary firings and early retirements, leaving 30 forecast offices without lead meteorologists. The NWS Goodland, Kansas office became the first to abandon 24/7 operations. Five former NWS directors warned the cuts endanger lives heading into tornado and hurricane season.
Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power
DOGE fired 350 NNSA nuclear weapons workers, including warhead assemblers at Pantex and radioactive waste managers at Savannah River, as part of a 2,000-person Department of Energy purge. Most firings were rescinded within 24 hours after bipartisan alarm over nuclear stockpile security, but the incident exposed DOGE's indiscriminate approach to agencies with critical national security functions.
Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power
The systematic dismantlement of the Department of Education began with DOGE slashing $881 million in research contracts and eliminating IES, followed by cutting half the workforce, and culminated in an executive order to shutter the entire department.
Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power
DOGE operationally shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — a Congressionally-created agency protecting 330 million Americans from financial fraud — by ordering staff to cease all work, deleting social media accounts, and planning to fire nearly all 1,700 employees. Federal courts intervened but the agency remains gutted.
Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power
Mass layoffs at the FDA driven by the Department of Government Efficiency eliminated over 3,500 staff in 2025, causing foreign food safety inspections to drop by nearly half, outbreak investigations to go unsolved at record rates, and critical programs like avian influenza testing to be halted.
Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power
Trump fired at least 17 inspectors general across the federal government without the advance notice to Congress that the Inspector General Act generally requires, and a later federal ruling said the notice failure violated the statute.
Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation
A systematic effort to dismantle federal disaster preparedness and response capacity through budget cuts, mass layoffs, program terminations, and structural reorganization. FEMA's workforce has already shrunk by one-third, with plans to cut it in half. The disaster response workforce faces a 41% cut and the surge workforce an 85% cut, leaving the country dangerously unprepared for hurricanes, wildfires, earthquakes, and other disasters.
Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power
The US left the WHO on January 22, 2026 without paying what it owed for 2024 and 2025, about $260–270 million according to the WHO and the UN. The 1948 joint resolution that authorized US membership makes the right to withdraw conditional on meeting US financial obligations for the WHO's current fiscal year. HHS says the US is under no obligation to pay.