President Donald Trump took further steps toward reforming the federal government on Friday with a flurry of executive orders eliminating federal agencies, canceling numerous Biden administration orders, and targeting a Paul Weiss law firm.
Trump took apart seven federal agencies, terminated 18 Biden executive actions, and suspended the security clearances of Weiss and Mark Pomerantz.
Friday’s moves dismantled these federal agencies: the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, the United States Agency for Global Media, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in the Smithsonian Institution, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, and the Minority Business Development Agency.
Trump targeted the agencies because he deemed them “unnecessary,” according to the order, which states that the move “continues the reduction in the elements of the Federal bureaucracy that the President has determined are unnecessary.”
One of the agencies, the United States Agency for Global Media, oversees American broadcast company Voice of America. Trump chose former Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake to direct the agency, but she did not get confirmed before the order.
Lake currently serves as a special adviser to USAGM, and it is unclear what will happen to her position. If VOA is disbanded, it will topple a news company that has been broadcasting state media since 1942.
The 18 executive actions rescinded by Trump add to the 78 he revoked on his first day in office in January. Trump wrote that the “following additional rescissions are necessary to advance the policy of the United States to restore common sense to the Federal Government and unleash the potential of American citizens.”
The executive actions Trump is pulling include pro-LGBT memorandums, several manufacturing orders, an order to increase the minimum wage of federal contractors, and several climate-related actions, among others.
Trump’s decision to revoke the security clearances of Weiss and Pomerantz follows their involvement in a New York case against him and a case against Jan. 6 protesters.
Weiss’ firm brought a pro bono case against the protesters in 2021 and hired Pomerantz in 2022, who, according to Trump, manufactured “a prosecution against me and who, according to his co-workers, unethically led witnesses in ways designed to implicate me.”
TRACKING WHAT DOGE IS DOING ACROSS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
The order also restricts any government contracts with Weiss’ law firm. “Government contracting agencies shall, to the extent permissible by law, require Government contractors to disclose any business they do with Paul Weiss and whether that business is related to the subject of the Government contract,” the order says.
The moves are in line with Trump’s past actions. His administration has dismantled USAID and erased most traces of Biden from the executive branch. The order targeting Weiss matches his push to purge the FBI and DOJ of those who investigated or prosecuted him under Biden.
