Democrats press White House over potential ‘insider trading’ before Trump tariff pause

(WASHINGTON) — Environmental Protection Agency staff members across the country have been told by supervisors they are prohibited from communicating with grantee partners they are supposed to supervise and monitor, according to multiple sources inside the EPA and others working directly with the agency.

And without notice, many nonprofit organizations and other EPA grant recipients have found themselves frozen out of accessing their federal funds without notice or explanation.

“I have never experienced anything like this,” said Melissa Bosworth, who runs a small nonprofit organization based out of Denver that had been administering an EPA award approved by Congress last May for tribal, school and local municipalities in the mountain west.

Nonprofit leaders from across the country with EPA grants and contracts describe weeks of a communication blackout. Bosworth said her local contacts at the EPA’s Region 8 office stopped responding within days of President Donald Trump’s inauguration. She and her partnering organization, Montana State University, noted they reached out repeatedly to their local point of contact but got no response.

ABC News reached out to the EPA’s Region 8 office for comment.

Then, at the end of February, she received formal notice that her grant had been terminated. The purpose of the grant was to help cities, tribes and schools in rural Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas gain access to federal funding for projects focused on clean drinking water, disaster preparedness, emissions reduction and food security.

The termination notice, reviewed by ABC News, suggested her contract might have been canceled because of the president’s executive order to shutdown diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

“It was about helping fight disparities on behalf of small cities and rural schools,” she said. “So often it is the big universities and big institutions that have the expertise to get funds. I worry the disparity for rural America, tribes and the smallest communities will get worse.”

Bosworth has a son with autism, and her business partner gave birth last month to a baby with severe medical challenges. They both have now been laid off.

“We thought there was a good chance they would try to terminate our contracts, but without any actual communication, we did not have anything formal to fight against,” Bosworth told ABC News. “We did not know what was real, if we could spend money or how to ask questions. I wonder if the ambiguity was part of the strategy.”

While the communication blackout appeared to be sweeping in multiple regional offices and consequential for grant recipients, it did not seem to apply to all EPA staff nationwide.

Even before receiving the termination notice, Bosworth said she struggled to access her EPA grant. She and dozens of other nonprofit leaders from California to Tennessee said they have been frozen out of the government payment system off and on, without explanation or notice.

In an EPA regional office in Philadelphia, staff members described being told in meetings with EPA political appointees based in Washington, D.C., that they are still not permitted to process new awards or even communicate with grant award recipients as late as last week. The edict came despite recent court rulings blocking the administration’s proposed federal funding freeze.

And when local EPA staffers pressed their regional bosses about the communications blackout, those bosses told them to comply because they did not want to risk doing anything to jeopardize their jobs, according to multiple sources.

As part of his work advising agencies to reduce spending and cut staff, Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency have promised transparency and increased oversight over how taxpayer dollars are going out the door. Experts who work in grant management as well as former EPA officials argue the lack of communication will result in the opposite — less transparency and no oversight.

“The preponderance of evidence is that many program officers are under some kind of gag order, making it nearly impossible for them to do their jobs,” one former EPA official under the Biden administration told ABC News. “If you care about abuse in federal spending, this makes no sense and is absurdly hypocritical.”

Typically, EPA staff works closely with nonprofit organizations and local government partners who have been awarded grants, conducting oversight and answering and asking questions about how the government money is being spent.

Rebecca Kaduru, president at Institute for Sustainable Communities, based in Nashville, said she has lost access to the payment system at least once a week for the last month. Her organization had two EPA grants until last month, when one was terminated.

The effective gag order has left nonprofit leaders, local governments and tribes stunned and unsure about how to move forward in spending the EPA grants they were awarded.

Kaduru explained the strain of chaos of the last few months.

“Do I fire staff because I can’t pay payroll? But if I do, I am not compliant with the grant that says I have to have staff and keep our website,” she said on the phone. “It is very high risk for nonprofits.”

On Monday, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the agency had decided to terminate over 400 contracts with nonprofit organizations around the country.

“Working hand-in-hand with DOGE to rein in wasteful federal spending, EPA has saved more than $2 billion in taxpayer money,” Zeldin wrote in a statement. “It is our commitment at EPA to be exceptional stewards of tax dollars.”

The EPA did not respond to questions about which contracts exactly were canceled or why, but it appeared environmental justice and community change grants were hit particularly hard in this week’s cuts.

Over 100 organizations received community change grants last year, totaling more than $1.6 billion, as part of environmental justice work funded through the bipartisan Infrastructure Reduction Act in 2022. The grants focus on helping low-income, disadvantaged and often rural communities fight air and water pollution, create green spaces and invest in renewable energy and disaster preparation.

On Tuesday, Zeldin also sent an internal memo to all regional administrators saying that the agency planned to eliminate all environmental justice positions and offices immediately.

“With this action, EPA is delivering organizational improvements to the personnel structure that will directly benefit all Americans,” the memo, which ABC News reviewed, said.

Many nonprofit leaders who received termination notices in the last few weeks expressed frustration that they were not given the chance to explain their work and said the savings, in their view, were overblown. The news comes as agency leaders were also told to draft plans with a deadline of this week for further staffing reductions.

In terms of savings, in a recent post, Zeldin claimed he saved taxpayers over $12 million by canceling the contract with Kaduru’s organization, for example. However, in actuality, it was an $8 million grant, with over half of it already spent.

Speaking to a joint session of Congress last week, Trump said his administration wants to focus on pollutants, saying, “Our goal is to get toxins out of our environment, poisons out of our food supply and keep our children healthy and strong.”

Both current career EPA staff as well as nonprofit partners said the cuts and the closure of environmental justice offices will make this work harder.

“I think it is a shame they are not looking into what we do — asking what we actually do,” Kaduru said. “It is a shame because those environmental justice programs in particular are really are good programs, and I think there is an unfortunate misunderstanding about what environmental justice [is].”

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(LAS VEGAS) — To Cherie DeVille, one of the adult entertainment industry’s most popular stars, pornography — and its easy accessibility online — is a fundamental freedom protected by the First Amendment.

“This isn’t a whim or something that I’m going to do for a week. I love this job,” said the former physical therapist turned sex worker who has millions of followers on social media. “It’s very good business for me.”

To parents with young children, like Dawn Hawkins of Virginia, America’s multibillion-dollar porn juggernaut is a social poison infiltrating families via the internet.

“How are we going to teach our children healthy intimacy and boundaries and consent when what they’re viewing across multiple platforms is sharing really the opposite message,” said Hawkins, who wants stricter controls for sexually-explicit content.

The age-old debate over the widespread availability of pornography in America will enter a new phase this spring as the U.S. Supreme Court decides whether states can legally require websites hosting adult content to perform electronic age verification of all users.

A green light for online age checks could dramatically alter how millions of U.S. adults access sexually explicit content on their phones, tablets, and computers and potentially build a more stringent safety barrier for children than what currently exists.

The decision will come at a time when hardcore porn is booming business and easier to obtain than ever before, with the rapid proliferation of adult film studios, live camera websites, social media platforms, and online networks of amateur creators. Many sites have no paywall or age verification gateways.

“It’s not a matter of if my kids are going to be exposed to pornography. It’s a matter of when. It’s definitely going to happen,” said Hawkins, a mother of 5 who also heads the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, which has led an effort to crack down on the porn industry.

Hawkins and many national parent organizations have voiced growing concern in recent years that software filters and parental controls on personal electronics – installed by manufacturers and long considered the primary line of defense for families – have not been effective at keeping explicit content from kids.

More than 70% of men and 40% of women say they’ve consumed sexually explicit content in the past year, according to a recent study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine. American teens have reported similar levels of exposure in studies reviewed by ABC News.

Public health experts say young people who view sexually explicit content are more likely to start having sex earlier, engage in unsafe sex, and have multiple partners.

“As long as we’re prioritizing adults’ access to this content and not also prioritizing children’s safety, we are going to destroy the next generation,” said Hawkins. “We are just asking that the pornography companies put a fence around it and make sure that those accessing this content are of age.”

Nineteen states have recently passed laws mandating that sites containing sexually-explicit material harmful to children require all users to upload a copy of their digital or government ID, or perform a biometric scan, in order to verify that they are over 18. Legislators say the measures are common sense steps similar to age checks at brick-and-mortar stores.

“It’s possible to prove your age entirely on your own cell phone. So, no personal data need ever leave the palm of your hand,” said Iain Corby, executive director of the Age Verification Providers Association, an industry trade group that sells technology to adult websites.

Third-party apps — used widely by porn sites across Europe — can make the verification process fast, free, and secure for consumers, Corby said.

“The simple case might be using a driver’s license. So you would be redirected to an agency’s website, and then once you’ve done a photo of your I.D., you do a selfie. And then we check that the two match,” Corby said. “We just tell that website that you’re over 18 – not your name, not your face, and not even your actual date of birth. Just that you were over 18.

“Another option works in a very similar way to facial estimation, but in fact, it’s based on how you move your hands,” added Corby, demonstrating the biometric scan technology for ABC News.

The porn industry, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, says online age-verification requirements are unconstitutional, infringing on adult rights by putting privacy at risk and impeding access to legal content.

Decades of Supreme Court precedent have upheld the constitutionality of pornographic material and adults’ right to access it. In two separate cases, the court previously ruled that the government can’t mandate age verification of users online before allowing them to see explicit material.

“Whenever the government is passing a law in the name of protecting kids, I think there are serious questions to be asked about whether what it’s really doing is saying this speech is bad for everyone,” said Vera Eidelman, an ACLU attorney. “And that’s exactly what the First Amendment exists to protect against.”

Industry advocates say the onus should remain on parents and technology companies, which they claim have the capacity to install smarter content filters and other safety monitoring controls on devices used by kids.

“Kids are going to do what they’re going to do. You know, you don’t ban alcohol because kids can get a fake ID or because they can drink from their parents’ liquor cabinet,” said Ken Fields, an adult film actor who opposes electronic age verification laws. “You do the best you can to try to keep that from happening within reason without infringing on the legal rights of legal adults and citizens.”

The Texas law at issue before the Supreme Court applies to websites with more than one-third of sexually-explicit content harmful to children. It does not apply to search engines or social media sites. Critics say it could also limit teenagers’ access to public health and sexual health resources unrelated to porn.

“I think their heart is in the right place. The execution is not there,” said Nick from Colorado, an attendee at the AVN Expo in Las Vegas last month, the nation’s annual adult entertainment convention. “There’s a way to do it, it’s just not the way it’s being done.”

Several participants, who all declined to share their last names, told ABC News they worried about a loss of anonymity when surfing to adult websites. “If you do absolutely upload your driver’s license, who gets it? So where does that information go?” said Meredith from Tennessee.

“There’s a lot of ways you can get shamed, whether it’s at work or other places,” said Brett from Florida. “It’s more of a privacy concern than anything else.”

During Supreme Court oral arguments last month in a major test case from Texas, a majority of justices appeared sympathetic to the states’ efforts to limit kids’ exposure to sexually explicit material, despite long standing precedent opposing overly burdensome requirements on adults, including electronic age checks.

A decision is expected by the end of June.

“It’s going to be a massive amount of monetary loss, and I think you’re going to see an explosion of illegal, unethical porn because they don’t care and they won’t comply,” said DeVille. “I do not care what you think about porn. This should terrify you because this is a massive government overstep in one of our most cherished things in the United States.”

To Hawkins, a favorable decision would be a sigh of relief.

“The burden can’t only be on parents,” she said of the need to keep children away from pornography. “Something like demanding age verification on these nefarious websites is such a simple, commonsense measure that that would drastically help protect kids from exposure.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Federal judges have been blunt in their rulings from the bench as the Trump administration has been hit with numerous lawsuits challenging its policies, layoffs and firings and other orders.

While many of the cases are still working their way through the system, several federal judges have been swift in issuing temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions, questioning the legality and constitutionality of President Donald Trump’s actions.

The president and his allies, including billionaire Elon Musk, whose Department of Government Efficiency has been at the center of some of the suits, have dismissed many of the orders in interviews and on social media. Musk has called for the impeachment of multiple judges, and Trump has also called for the impeachment of Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Boasberg has called on the administration to stop deporting Venezuelans as part of Trump’s executive order that invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime authority used to deport noncitizens with little to no due process, as a lawsuit plays out.

The American Civil Liberties Union sued the Justice Department on behalf of five Venezuelans contending the deportees were not criminals. The judge argued that the accused deportees could face real harm and granted the TRO.

Several of the judges have faced increased harassment and threats, according to the U.S. Marshals Service and sources with knowledge of the situation.

Here are some of the major rulings issued by judges against the administration.

March 21

Boasberg said during a court hearing over the AEA deportations of Venezuelan migrants to an El Salvadorian prison that the administration’s use of the law was “incredibly troublesome and problematic.”

“I agree it’s an unprecedented and expanded use of an act that has been used … in the War of 1812, World War I and World War II, when there was no question there was a declaration of war and who the enemy was,” Boasberg said.

The judge noted that the Trump administration’s arguments about the extent of the president’s power are “awfully frightening” and a “long way from” the intent of the law.

The Trump administration argued that members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua and the gang’s national security risk warranted the use of the 18th century act.

Boasberg vowed to hold the Trump administration accountable, if necessary, if it violated his court order from March 15.

“The government’s not being terribly cooperative at this point, but I will get to the bottom of whether they violated my word and who ordered this and what’s the consequence,” he said.

Boasberg also grilled Deputy Assistant Attorney General Drew Ensign over his compliance with the court order to turn back the flights already in the air and questioned how the deportation flights were put together.

“Why is this proclamation essentially signed in the dark on Friday night, early Saturday morning, when people [were] rushed on the plane?” Boasberg asked. “To me, the only reason to do that is if you know the problem and you want to get them out of the country before a suit is filed.”

“I don’t have knowledge of those operational details,” Ensign said.

Boasberg also raised concerns that the rapid nature of the deportations prevented the men from being able to challenge the allegations that they belonged to Tren de Aragua.

“[What] they’re simply saying is don’t remove me, particularly to a country that’s going to torture me,” Boasberg said.

An attorney for the ACLU argued that those targeted by the AEA should be able to contest whether they fall within the act.

“Otherwise, anybody could be taken off the street and removed,” said Lee Gelernt, the attorney for the ACLU. “This is a very dangerous road we’re going down.”

As Ensign appeared to undermine arguments made earlier in the week about the timing of the order and struggled to answer Boasberg’s questions, the judge suggested the Department of Justice might be risking its reputation and credibility.

“I often tell my clerks before they go out into the world to practice law, the most valuable treasure they possess is their reputation and their credibility,” Boasberg said. “I just ask you make sure your team [understands] that lesson.”

Boasberg decided on March 24 that the men who were deported were entitled to due process in court.

“Federal courts are equipped to adjudicate that question when individuals threatened with detention and removal challenge their designation as such. Because the named Plaintiffs dispute that they are members of Tren de Aragua, they may not be deported until a court has been able to decide the merits of their challenge,” he wrote.

Later that evening, the Trump administration invoked the “state secrets privilege” in a court filing to attempt to stop the federal judge from learning more information about the flights.

“Removal flight plans-including locations from which flights depart, the planes utilized, the paths they travel, where they land, and how long they take to accomplish any of those things–reflect critical means and methods of law enforcement operations,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in the filing.

March 20

U.S. District Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander slammed DOGE in a 137-page ruling that blocked the group’s unlimited access to Social Security information.

“The DOGE Team is essentially engaged in a fishing expedition at SSA, in search of a fraud epidemic, based on little more than suspicion. It has launched a search for the proverbial needle in the haystack, without any concrete knowledge that the needle is actually in the haystack,” she wrote.

“The government has not even attempted to explain why a more tailored, measured, titrated approach is not suitable to the task,” Hollander added. “Instead, the government simply repeats its incantation of a need to modernize the system and uncover fraud. Its method of doing so is tantamount to hitting a fly with a sledgehammer.”

The White House has not commented on the case as of March 25.

March 18

In a 79-page decision, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes blocked the Trump administration from enacting the policy that would have banned transgender soldiers from serving in the military.

Reyes said the policy continued an unfortunate history of the armed services excluding marginalized people from the “privilege of serving.”

“The President has the power — indeed the obligation — to ensure military readiness. At times, however, leaders have used concern for military readiness to deny marginalized persons the privilege of serving,” Reyes wrote.

“[Fill in the blank] is not fully capable and will hinder combat effectiveness; [fill in the blank] will disrupt unit cohesion and so diminish military effectiveness; allowing [fill in the blank] to serve will undermine training, make it impossible to recruit successfully, and disrupt military order,” she added.

“First minorities, then women in combat, then gays filled in that blank. Today, however, our military is stronger and our Nation is safer for the millions of such blanks (and all other persons) who serve,” she said.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has slammed the judge on X and vowed to appeal.

Lawyers for the administration argued in court papers that the court “has broadly construed the scope of the DoD Policy to encompass all trans-identifying servicemembers or applicants” and claimed the Department of Defense’s new guidance “underscores Defendants’ consistent position that the DoD Policy is concerned with the military readiness, deployability, and costs associated with a medical condition — one that every prior Administration has, to some degree, kept out of the military.”

March 13

U.S. District Judge William Alsup scolded a DOJ attorney during a hearing for a lawsuit against the mass firing of federal workers.

Alsup slammed the attorney for refusing to make acting Office of Personnel Management Director Charles Ezell available for cross-examination and withdrawing his sworn declaration, which Alsup called a “sham.”

“The government, I believe, has tried to frustrate the judge’s ability to get at the truth of what happened here and then set forth sham declarations,” Alsup said. “That’s not the way it works in the U.S. District Court.”

“You will not bring the people in here to be cross-examined. You’re afraid to do so because you know cross-examination would reveal the truth. This is the U.S. District Court,” Alsup said. “I tend to doubt that you’re telling me the truth.”

Alsup bashed the government for submitting a declaration from Ezell he believed to be false but then withdrawing it and making Ezell unavailable for testimony.

“You withdrew his declaration rather than do that. Come on, that’s a sham. It upsets me,” Alsup said. “I want you to know that I’ve been practicing or serving in this court for over 50 years and I know how that we get at the truth, and you’re not helping me get to add to the truth. You’re giving me press releases, sham documents.”

Alsup later ruled that thousands of federal workers needed to be rehired.

The judge determined the Trump administration attempted to circumvent the procedures in place for issuing reductions in force by asserting that the employees were terminated for performance reasons without providing evidence.

“I just want to say it is a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that’s a lie,” he said. “That should not have been done in our country. It was a sham in order to try to avoid statutory requirements.”

If the Trump administration wants to reduce the size of the federal government, it needs to follow the process established in federal law, he said.

“The words that I give you today should not be taken as some kind of wild and crazy judge in San Francisco has said that the administration cannot engage in a reduction in force,” he said.

His ruling is being appealed by the administration, which asked the Supreme Court on March 24 for an emergency stay.

Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris argued in her filing that the labor unions and nonprofit groups that challenged the mass firings lack standing, saying they have “hijacked the employment relationship between the federal government and its workforce.”

“This Court should not allow a single district court to erase Congress’s handiwork and seize control over reviewing federal personnel decisions — much less do so by vastly exceeding the limits on the scope of its equitable authority and ordering reinstatements en masse,” she wrote.

Jan. 23

Just days into Trump’s second presidency, U.S. District Judge John Coughenour issued a temporary restraining order blocking Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship and expressed shock in the order from the president.

“I have been on the bench for over four decades,” said Coughenour, who was nominated to the bench by President Ronald Reagan in 1981. “I can’t remember another case where the question presented is as clear as it is here. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order.”

“I have difficulty understanding how a member of the bar can state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order. It boggles my mind,” the judge told the DOJ’s attorney during the hearing. “Where were the lawyers when this decision was being made?”

The Trump administration has appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court.

Harris, the acting solicitor general, argued in a filing to the Supreme Court that the nationwide injunctions “transgress constitutional limits on courts’ powers” and “compromise the Executive Branch’s ability to carry out its functions.”

“This Court should declare that enough is enough before district courts’ burgeoning reliance on universal injunctions becomes further entrenched,” she wrote.

ABC News’ Emily Chang and Laura Romero contributed to this report.

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