IRS plans to cut up to 25% of workforce in next round of layoffs
David Ake/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The IRS started a new round of layoffs on Friday beginning with the agency’s Office of Civil Rights and Compliance, according to an email obtained by ABC News.
Overall, the agency is planning to cut nearly a quarter of its workforce with the cuts beginning Friday, sources familiar with the plans said.
“This action is being taken to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the IRS in accordance with agency priorities,” according to the email, which added that the layoffs will “result in staffing cuts across multiple offices and job categories.”
The civil rights office will be effectively shuttered by the move, with the remaining staffers moved into the Office of Chief Counsel, according to the email.
The agency had previously drawn up plans to cut roughly 18% to 20% of the 100,000-person workforce by the middle of May.
The email sent to IRS employees Friday said the reduction in force will “be implemented in phases” and noted that employees will be offered early retirement incentives starting next week.
The agency also recently put approximately 50 IT security staffers on administrative leave, according to people familiar with the move, as the agency faces pressure to make workforce cuts and demands for data-sharing across the federal government during tax season. The Trump administration has said workforce changes will not affect staff directly working to process tax returns.
However, there are concerns that the layoffs may still cause delays.
“The bottom line: Forever, it has been an absolute rule of thumb that you keep things stable during filing season. Because it’s delicate,” one former IRS commissioner told ABC News. “And the idea that nearly 10% of the entire IRS workforce is being laid off right in the middle of filing season is extremely risky.”
Earlier this year, more than 4,000 IRS employees accepted the Trump administration’s deferred resignation offer. The agency also fired more than 6,600 probationary employees but has been forced to reinstate them under court orders.
It’s not clear if members of those two groups of employees will be targeted in the new reductions in force.
Several senior agency leaders, including the chief human resources officer, acting commissioner and acting general counsel, have resigned or been demoted since January.
The IRS and the White House did not respond to a requests for comment from ABC News.
(BETHLEHEM, PA) — At a “People’s Town Hall” on Thursday held by the Democratic National Committee, in a church located in a Pennsylvania district that Democrats lost to Republicans in 2024, party leaders fired up the crowd when slamming the White House and congressional Republicans over Medicaid, federal government cuts, and other issues.
Town halls are among the strategies that Democrats are using to try to get their base fired up against the Trump White House — but attendees there and at other events say they’re still looking for the Democratic Party to take on Republicans more directly.
DNC chair Ken Martin, speaking at the Bethlehem event, called President Donald Trump and key adviser Elon Musk “cowards,” riling up the crowd by framing the work of the duo in stark terms.
“There’s nothing moral about what these cowards are doing, and there’s nothing moral about what we saw today in Washington, D.C., as Donald Musk — Donald Trump and his president, President Musk, decided to do, signing that executive order eliminating the Department of Education, which is going to have a disproportionate impact on the disabled community and so many children throughout this country,” Martin told the crowd, amidst boos towards Trump and Musk.
And Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, who received among the loudest applause of any of the panelists, took a starker tone: “Don’t let anybody tell you that we’re in a constitutional crisis,” Raskin said.
“Because that is too passive-sounding. That’s too ambiguous. This is an attack on the Constitution of the United States, and we’re going to defend the Constitution of the United States!”
Republicans face fierce pushback at in-person events
The Democratic Party claims that it’s holding these town halls as a way to hear directly from voters.
“The purpose of these town halls is not for us to spread our message, but us to hear from people throughout this country right now who are facing deep and serious impacts to their own lives, to their neighborhoods and communities, because of what this administration is doing,” Martin told ABC News on Thursday after the town hall.
But Martin and others, explicitly, are also emphasizing the idea that Democrats are showing up and hosting these events while Republicans are pulling back from hosting in-person events or facing fierce pushback from constituents when they do. Some of the loudest applause in the church on Thursday came when speakers criticized the district’s representative, Ryan Mackenzie — who in 2024 narrowly flipped the seat held by Democrat Susan Wild.
Arnaud Armstrong, a spokesman for Mackenzie, told ABC News in a statement on Wednesday that Mackenzie has answered questions at in-person events and would run a telephone town hall on Thursday night to allow for more people to speak with the congressman, including people with disabilities or seniors who might struggle to make it to an in-person event.
During that telephone town hall, Mackenzie said, “This is the best way that I have found to reach literally thousands of people at once and be able to have this kind of conversation.”
Disillusioned Democrats
The town halls come as Democratic voters show disillusion with their party.
A recent CNN/SSRS poll taken in early March found that 52% of Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents felt that the leadership of the Democrats is taking the party in the wrong direction, and that 57% felt that the party should mainly work to “stop the Republican agenda.”
While waiting in line outside to enter the town hall, some residents of Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley region told ABC News that President Donald Trump’s actions struck close to home or worried them — but that they felt disillusioned with the broader Democratic response so far.
‘Very mixed feelings’ on Democrats’ response to Trump
Carole Ostfeld, a retired teacher from Allentown, Pennsylvania, came bearing a sign that said “Hands off Medicaid.” She and her husband David told ABC News that they came out to the town hall in order to protest Trump and Musk, including because of Trump’s actions with the Department of Education.
But asked how they feel about the Democratic response to the Trump administration, Carole Ostfeld said, “I’ve got very mixed feelings –“
Her husband added, “It needs to be more.”
Asked if Democrats’ messaging is resonating with them, Carole Ostfeld said it is — but, “as they say, you can’t fight city hall,” as Republicans are in power.
Another attendee, Ann Frechette of Easton, Pennsylvania, said the news about Trump signing an order to dismantle the Department of Education, which came that day, struck close to home. “I have a son in college who benefits from a Pell Grant,” she told ABC News. “And I’m afraid that that Pell Grant will disappear, that monies like that will disappear. He’s on Medicaid, I think he may lose his health insurance. There’s so many things.”
But the broader Democratic response was disillusioning her as well. While she praised some individual lawmakers, including Raskin, she added, “I think the Democrats in general, they don’t — I’m a Democrat, but my party doesn’t seem to get the message that was delivered last November. I would like people to stand up to what is being done.”
Firing up supporters
That said, the town hall itself was by many measures a success — or at least, the Democratic speakers were able to fire up their supporters.
All of the pews were filled, with some attendees standing on the back or the sides of the sanctuary; and the crowd gave thunderous standing ovations to the speakers multiple times – particularly when, for instance, Raskin spoke about taking on Trump or former Democratic Rep. Susan Wild criticized the incumbent representative.
People paid attention as audience members shared their own stories and questions, and then applauded them warmly, cheering on their peers in a clear show of support.
During a question and answer portion of the town hall, attendees raised concerns about the future of Medicaid, educational programs, and other issues.
Another attendee, Terri Neifert, told the crowd that she has lived in Bethlehem almost her entire life and became disabled after a fall at a grocery store, which changed the trajectory of her life. She said she managed to get her degree and to support her family through Medicare, food banks, and Social Security disability.
“If they cut Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps… I would lose everything,” Neifert told the crowd.
Neifert received a round of applause from the audience, and other attendees went up to her after the event wrapped to thank her for sharing her story.
Asked by ABC News after the town hall how she was feeling by then about the Democrats’ response to the Trump administration, Neifert — similar to other attendees — focused on the road ahead.
“It looks like it’s gonna be a fight, and an uphill battle… more public outcry, more marches, and Congress needs to pull up their big boy pants and start doing their job,” Neifert said.
Going on the road
Some Democrats or Democratic-aligned allies are taking a different tack than the town halls — and going on the road.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, a progressive independent who caucuses with Democrats, has been on the road for weeks with what he calls the “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, making stops for rallies in both right- and left-leaning districts. The Democratic Party has shown support for his efforts, reposting social media posts from Sanders about the tour.
Out there on Sanders’ tour, some attendees said they’re disillusioned with the party’s response to Trump.
“They gotta be a little tougher,” one rally attendee told “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl at the Denver event. Another was blunter: “Quit being a bunch of doormats.”
But — in a sign that the rallies may be a successful tactic for Democrats to reach their base — they’re attracting thousands of people. Sander’s Denver appearance, alongside Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., brought in more than 30,000 attendees.
Sanders said it was the largest rally he’s ever hosted — bigger than the rallies on his two presidential runs.
Sanders himself has his own criticism for the Democratic Party, telling Karl in an interview on ABC News’ “This Week” that the Democrats should have done more for working people when they had control of the Senate.
“And since then, do I think the Democrats have been effective in rallying the American people, in stopping Trump’s movement toward oligarchy and authoritarianism? No, I don’t,” Sanders told Karl.
Donna Brazile, a former DNC chair and an ABC News contributor, said on “This Week” after Sanders’ interview, said, “Bernie Sanders is filling a void, a major void left after, of course, the defeat of Kamala Harris last year by Donald Trump. This void has to be filled because there’s so much anger, anger not just in red districts, but also in blue districts.”
That void is one that Democrats hope to fill with these events.
Martin, asked by ABC News after the Bethlehem town hall if he thought the messages of the Democrats is going to resonate in Republican districts or with Democrats themselves, said that wasn’t really the point.
“It’s really not about the message resonating,” Martin said. “What this is about is listening to people. Hearing the concerns of Americans right now throughout this country, who deserve to be heard, right?”
Martin added later: “We’re going to fill a void for them, and we’re going to talk to more people throughout this country.”
ABC News’ Hannah Demissie, Isabella Murray, Jonathan Karl, Meghan Mistry and Quinn Scanlan contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Elon Musk is the world’s richest man. He’s revolutionized electric cars as CEO of Tesla, launched rockets as head of SpaceX and seized control of a social media platform by buying Twitter for $44 billion.
The South African-born businessman spent $270 million to help President Donald Trump get reelected. When Trump returned to office on Jan. 20, he empowered Musk to slash federal spending and make key decisions about the future of the U.S. as a lead adviser in the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
The following day, the Office of Personnel Management — which acts as the government’s human resources department — directed agencies to compile a list of workers whose positions could be eliminated.
By Jan. 22, there was a federal hiring freeze. All agencies were directed to put diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) staff on leave, related programs were shuttered and employees were ordered to remove pronouns from their signatures.
The next several days set off confusion and panic for many workers across the country. A federal funding freeze briefly denied Head Start — free early childhood development programs designed to help low-income households — access to funding on Jan. 27, despite a federal judge’s court order to the contrary.
Then, on Jan. 28, some 2 million federal workers received an email with an offer to resign and be paid through September or risk being fired. The email subject line “Fork in the road” mirrored the language Musk used when he slashed Twitter’s workforce in 2022.
Within 30 days, DOGE gained access to personal information of millions of Americans through at least 15 federal agencies. Much of Musk’s staff consisted of young engineers who moved into the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
Musk initially wanted an office in the West Wing, but told people he thought what he was given was too small, multiple people familiar with his comments told ABC News earlier this month.
Only Congress has the power to eliminate entire agencies, but Musk and his team proved they can still be stripped down when they went into the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
“DOGE was in the building. We took down our Pride flags,” USAID contractor Kristina Drye told ABC News on Feb. 3. “I took out any books I felt would be incriminating. No one was talking.”
At the same time, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) workers were told to stay home — its headquarters closed and all work stopped. The consumer watchdog was created after the 2008 financial crisis and housing crash to protect American families from unfair and deceptive practices.
Around 75,000 workers took the Trump administration’s offer to resign, according to the White House. However, some people — like Kansas-based Department of Agriculture natural resource specialist Nick Detter — say they accepted within the timeframe and were fired anyway. The administration acknowledged that this has happened by mistake.
“I would never say that there’s no room for improvement, efficiency in the federal government,” Detter told ABC News. “But in my experience over the last month with this whole thing, that’s not what this has been.”
After the buyout offer closed, many federal workers said they started receiving emails and calls informing them that they were fired. Justine Beaulieu, who worked for the Department of Agriculture until last week, said she was among them.
“I was three days away from my due date on Friday when I got that termination letter. And I had my baby yesterday, right on time,” she told ABC News. “Paid maternity leave is off the table, and my health insurance is set to lapse at the end of this month.”
The administration has been reversing course in some cases, working to rehire the workers who manage the country’s nuclear weapons and the inspection officers who worked on containing the bird flu outbreak.
Musk has been designated as a special government employee. His companies Tesla and SpaceX have been awarded $18 billion in federal contracts over the last decade. Some of this money has come from agencies the president asked Musk to review, but Musk dismissed the notion that there could be conflicts of interest.
“No, because you have to look at the individual contract and say, first of all, I’m not the one, you know, filing the contract — it’s people at SpaceX,” he told ABC News on Feb. 11.
On the same day, Trump assured ABC News any possible conflicts of interest would be addressed.
“If we thought that, we would not let him do that segment or look in that area, if we thought there was a lack of transparency or a conflict of interest,” the president said.
Trump has fired independent watchdogs like Defense Department Inspector General Robert Storch.
“When you just wholesale fire people like that without giving any reasons for doing it, it sends a message that that sort of oversight, that productive oversight, isn’t really valued,” Storch told ABC News on Feb. 12.
The total savings DOGE has made so far is still unclear, but the group’s work has already set the stage for one of the biggest modern shakeups of the federal government.
(WASHINGTON) — Experts who’ve spent decades studying the assassination of President John F. Kennedy told ABC News Friday they are hopeful that President Donald Trump will see to the disclosure of government documents on the killing that have been withheld from the public.
But despite the president’s order Thursday directing a plan for “full and complete release” of the material, some prominent researchers are not holding their breath.
“This order is a good first step, but it has loopholes in it,” warns author Jefferson Morley, whose website, jfkfacts.org, says it seeks to “abolish the official secrecy” that surrounds the 1963 assassination.
Pointing to language in Trump’s order that calls for a “plan” for the release, Morley fears continued foot-dragging within the intelligence community over some 3,600 documents in the National Archives’ JFK collection that still contain redactions.
“These agencies have not been cooperative with the law, with Congress, or with anybody over the last 60 years,” Morley said. “That resistance to full disclosure is not going to stop because Trump issued an order.”
New York-based attorney Larry Schnapf, who has in the past sued the government to compel the release of JFK documents, says years of experience battling a reluctant national security apparatus inform his skepticism.
“We’re hoping this is going to be a mechanical plan,” Schnapf said. “But if they’re going to do a substantive [document-by-document] review, then it’s going to be a while before the records are released.”
Schnapf also worries that the current lack of confirmed Trump-appointees in key roles at the intelligence agencies could slow the disclosures.
“If [Trump] doesn’t get his people in within 15 days, I think we’re going to have an initial delay, anyway,” Schnapf said.
In 1992, Congress passed a law requiring full disclosure of the JFK documents by 2017. But the law also allowed for exceptions if the president certified that “identifiable harm” to national security would be done if the secrets were revealed. Even as they oversaw the release of tens of thousands of pages, both Donald Trump and Joe Biden yielded to concerns of the CIA, FBI and other agencies, that thousands more documents should remain redacted.
A December 2022 memo to the White House has the CIA’s chief data officer writing that “limited redactions” were still necessary to keep secret the names of CIA employees, intelligence assets, sources and methods still in use, as well as “still-classified covert action programs still in effect.”
Jefferson Morley calls that bunk.
“The fact that they’re using techniques today that they used in an operation involving Oswald — and therefore it should remain secret — that’s absurd,” Morley said.
Author Gerald Posner, who wrote the 1993 book, “Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Assassination of JFK,” is less pessimistic than Morley and Schnapf about the timing of the releases.
“[Trump] doesn’t like to be humiliated or made to look as though there’s a limit on his power,” Posner said. “And if [the agencies] come back and want to hold onto stuff this time, they’re going to have a tougher road.”
Posner and the other experts agree that the CIA is likely to be embarrassed by the disclosures, since the redacted documents are expected to shine further light on the spy agency’s tracking of Lee Harvey Oswald as early as 1959 — surveillance that intensified in the months leading to Kennedy’s death as Oswald traveled to Mexico City with a plan to defect to Communist Cuba.
“In an ideal world, we would get to that bottom of that story by finding out more about the officers who had Oswald under surveillance, more about the CIA operations that enveloped Oswald as he made his way towards Dallas,” Morley said, calling the CIA’s files “key to the story.”
One key advocate for release aims to have a seat at Trump’s cabinet table, and is hoping to learn more from government records about the 1968 assassination of his father.
“The 60-year strategy of lies and secrecy, disinformation, censorship, and defamation employed by Intel officials to obscure and suppress troubling facts about JFK’s assassination has provided the playbook for a series of subsequent crises,” Robert F. Kennedy Junior said in a statement, pointing to the killings of RFK and MLK, the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, 9/11 and the government’s handling of Covid-19.
“[E]ach accelerated the subversion of our exemplary democracy by the Military/Medical Industrial Complex and pushed us further down the road toward totalitarianism,” Kennedy said.
