NEW: How did the Trump administration disembowel USAID in less than three weeks? The first step was seizing control of the agency’s IT system — including the personal data of all its employees. This, we were told, may have violated federal law. 1/ In today’s story, @annabarryjester and I name the top agency officials who gave “the keys to the kingdom” to Musk’s DOGE engineers + the legal jeopardy the administration may find itself in propublica.org/article/usaid-…

NEW: Trump and Rubio have arrested the international humanitarian aid system and forced lifesaving aid programs to completely halt operations — this despite an announcement earlier in the week claiming they had changed course. 1/ @annabarryjester and I take stock of the dire consequences unfolding around the world:
Emergency care for displaced Palestinians and Yemenis. Heat and electricity for Ukrainian refugees. HIV treatment and mpox surveillance in Africa.
All have had to stop. propublica.org/article/trump-…

There is a ceasefire deal, so I want to share this story from my past year reporting inside the State Dept. trying to answer the central question of Biden’s foreign policy:

How did the U.S. let Israel get away with widespread horrors in Gaza? 1/ 2/ Since Oct. 7, 2023, Biden and Secretary of State Blinken repeatedly drew lines on humanitarian grounds that the Israelis ostensibly couldn’t cross.

The IDF crossed them anyway.

And each time, there were no real consequences. propublica.org/article/biden-…

Our latest is on the State's secretive arms pipeline to Israel, what senior leaders knew about civilian harm and when, and how they've rushed weapons out the door since Oct 7 anyway — over internal legal objections. A quick thread on the reporting: propublica.org/article/israel… In January, Jack Lew, Biden’s ambassador to Israel, sent a cable urging Washington to send 3,000 more bombs to the IDF. Lew wrote that there was no potential the Israelis would misuse the bombs because they had a “decades-long proven track record” of avoiding killing civilians.

Leaked docs: While Gaza starved, USAID and State's refugees bureau came to a legally explosive conclusion — Israel had deliberately prevented food & medicine from getting in

But Blinken told congress the exact opposite, so the arms could keep flowing. propublica.org/article/gaza-p… Behind the scenes, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew had pushed Blinken to trust the Israelis, who promised to help facilitate aid — even though Lew's own staff at the embassy had repeatedly told him that wasn't the case.

1/NEW: The federal judiciary governs itself. Judges make sure other judges disclose their finances & don’t violate ethics. Chief Justice Roberts touts how well the system works.

But time and again, it's protected, not policed, federal judges. Here's how: propublica.org/article/judici… 2/ @kirstenberg and I got inside the vaunted Judicial Conference, an extremely secretive council of judges that’s supposed to enforce the transparency laws at the heart of our reporting this year.

NEW: It's not just Harlan Crow. Clarence Thomas has had a trio of other ultrawealthy patrons — an oil baron, investment guru and corporate titan — funding his luxury travel for decades.

My latest, w/@Amierjeski, plus a thread on the reporting
propublica.org/article/claren… Each of these patrons appears to have come into Thomas’ life after he was appointed to the Supreme Court, one of the most powerful, sacrosanct government positions in the country.

The founder of “911 call analysis” says you can spot a murderer on the phone if you know how to analyze speech patterns, tone, pauses, word choice, and even grammar. This is junk science.

So why — and how — are prosecutors across the country still using it to lock people up? This story goes down the rabbit hole a bit, thousands of emails and other documents that show prosecutors’ playbook to sidestep evidence rules and disguise 911 call analysis in court.

A reporting thread on the story we published yesterday. It's about a young mother from Illinois named Jessica Logan and what happened after her baby died in the middle of the night. Just after 3 a.m. on October 7, 2019, Jessica called 911, hysterical.

The day he was assigned the case, a detective would listen to the recording and decide she was faking. Why?

We just published the story of Jeremiah Ardoin, a narcotics detective in Louisiana who reported stop-and-frisk arrests, officers stealing/planting drugs and a Black man who had died in police custody. usatoday.com/in-depth/news/… That death was known internally by some Baton Rouge police as “The Flag Street Massacre.”

The man who died during a no-knock warrant, Dontrunner Robinson, had blunt force trauma all over his body. Thirty-two cuts, gashes and bruises.

Around the country, we documented how police departments hunt down and silence internal whistleblowers to cover up misconduct with impunity. They've been fired, jailed and, in at least one case, forcibly admitted to a psychiatric ward. usatoday.com/in-depth/story… We found hundreds of cases. And it doesn't matter how bad the stuff is they expose: fellow deputies beating a prisoner who later died; a captain who impregnated a 16-year-old girl and then paid for an abortion; a co-worker bragging about killing an unarmed teenager.

🚨 Late last month, Dr. Bill Foege — public health titan, former CDC director, presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, man most responsible for eradicating smallpox — sent the current CDC director an extraordinary letter in private. usatoday.com/story/news/inv… Foege called on Redfield to come clean about the federal government's failures and orchestrate his own firing to protest White House interference during the pandemic response. We got the letter. Here's what it says, in Foege's words: