(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.
(WASHINGTON) — After about six hours of amendment votes, the Senate approved a budget blueprint Saturday morning by a vote of 51-48.
Republican Sens. Rand Paul and Susan Collins cast votes against the resolution. Every other Republican in the chamber voted for it, and every Democrat voted against it.
The resolution only needed a simple majority of votes to pass, so it now heads to the House for further consideration.
If the House also approves the proposal, it will unlock the next step in the reconciliation process and will allow committees in both the House and the Senate to begin drafting legislation aimed at accomplishing Republican wish-list items such as raising the debt ceiling, increasing border security and extending President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts.
The final package, if Republicans can agree on it, will be able to be passed with a simple majority of votes in both chambers.
Democrats were powerless to stop the resolution from moving forward Saturday morning, but they put up a fight by forcing votes on a number of amendments, including amendments on protecting access to Medicare and Medicaid, modifying or eliminating some of Trump’s tariffs and protecting funding for caregivers for children and the elderly.
The Senate completed its vote-a-rama just after 2:30 a.m.
Though Republicans defeated the most eye-popping of the Democratic amendments, some that were offered got a sprinkling of across-the-aisle support from a handful of GOP defectors, signaling the challenges ahead in drafting legislation that’s palatable to enough Republicans to pass muster when it comes up for a final vote.
Though an amendment that would have struck the instructions governing massive spending cuts to the House Energy and Commerce Committee failed, it got the support of three GOP senators: Collins, Josh Hawley and Lisa Murkowski.
This is the budget instruction that many Democrats say presents a risk to Medicare and Medicaid funding, signaling a possible hazard on the path ahead for any package that is cobbled together. Collins has signaled that concerns about cuts in this area of the package is why she voted against the entire resolution.
Collins, Murkowski and Hawley also supported the amendment to protect funding for caregivers.
With Vice President J.D. Vance’s tiebreaking vote, Senate Republicans will only be able to lose three members of its caucus when a final package is put together.
The Senate will return to Washington on Monday for one more week of work before a two-week recess.
(WASHINGTON) — After months of negotiations, a deal to turn over TikTok’s United States operations to a new company with a majority American ownership was finalized on Wednesday, according to senior administration officials.
The investors — which included Oracle, Blackstone, Andreeson Horowitz and several others — ByteDance and the Trump administration negotiated and agreed to the terms.
The plan was for President Donald Trump to sign an executive order to approve the deal this week, triggering a 120-day closing period to finalize the paperwork and financing.
ByteDance would have maintained a minority ownership in the new company, under the 20% threshold required by Congress.
All that remained was for the Chinese government to approve the deal — something all sides of the negotiations expected would happen.
However, on Wednesday afternoon, Trump announced his tariffs.
Thursday morning, representatives for ByteDance called the White House to say the Chinese government would not approve the deal until negotiations could be held on Trump’s tariffs.
The deal remains in limbo, hostage to the emerging trade war between the U.S. and China.
On Friday, Trump said he is extending the deadline for TikTok to be banned or sold off by its Chinese-owned parent company, ByteDance.
The previous April 5 deadline will be pushed 75 days, Trump said in a post to his social media platform. It’s the second time he has pushed the deadline since taking office.
The TikTok negotiations were led by Vice President JD Vance, sources told ABC News. The deal is currently not being renegotiated with investors and the White House both standing by.
The revival appears to depend on what happens with U.S. and China negotiations on trade.
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Kamala Harris, in separate remarks on Thursday, criticized President Donald Trump and the White House for moves that they called unconstitutional or contributing to an erosion of the country’s values.
Neither Obama or Harris have spoken much publicly since Election Day in 2024.
Obama, in a speech at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, on Thursday, criticized the second Trump administration for levying new tariffs, for threats against universities and law firms, and for what he framed as upending the international order, according to a transcript of his remarks provided by a spokesperson and shared on Obama’s Medium profile.
“Look, I don’t think what we just witnessed in terms of economic policy and tariffs is going to be good for America, but that’s a specific policy. I’m more deeply concerned with a federal government that threatens universities if they don’t give up students who are exercising their right to free speech,” Obama said during a discussion on how he feels the values of the United States have “eroded.”
Obama added, “I am more troubled by the idea that a White House can say to law firms, ‘If you represent parties that we don’t like, we’re going to pull all our business or bar you from representing people effectively.’ That kind of behavior is contrary to the basic compact we have as Americans.”
The White House has defended actions toward universities as holding them accountable for their responses to antisemitism or other issues, and has said executive actions against law firms are meant to bolster national security or to stop work detrimental to the country.
Obama added that if he had threatened law firms or made moves similar to the second Trump administration, he would not have been tolerated, and said that he wasn’t discussing this from a “partisan basis.”
“This has to do with something more precious, which is who are we as a country and what values do we stand for … I think people tend to think, ‘oh, democracy, rule of law, independent judiciary, freedom of the press,'” he said. “That’s all abstract stuff because it’s not affecting the price of eggs. Well, you know what? It’s about to affect the price of eggs.”
He also criticized the Trump administration on foreign policy, and for striking against what Obama called the “rules-based system” of alliances and trade abroad, calling out the White House’s stated aim of getting control of Greenland for the sake of national security.
“And this is an important moment, because in the last two months, we have seen a U.S. government actively try to destroy that order and discredit it,” Obama said, according to the transcript. “And the thinking, I gather, is that somehow, since we are the strongest, we’re going to be better off if we can just bully people into doing whatever we want, and dictate the terms of trade all the time, and if we see a piece of land, be like, ‘who’s going to stop us? Greenland looks good.'”
Harris, speaking on Thursday at the Leading Women Defined Summit in California, framed actions by the White House as unconstitutional and said they are contributing to a “sense of fear,” according to video of her remarks provided by the Leading Women Defined Foundation to ABC News.
Harris said “we are in the midst of seeing progress being rolled back.”
“What has changed is that there is a sense of fear that has been taking hold in our country, and I understand it,” Harris said. “But we’re seeing people stay quiet. We are seeing organizations stay quiet. We are seeing those who are capitulating to clearly unconstitutional threats, and these are the things that we are witnessing each day in these last few months in our country.”
“And it understandably creates a great sense of fear. Because, you know, there were many things that we knew would happen, many things — I’m not here to say ‘I told you so,'” Harris said to laughter and cheers.
She added after, “I swore I wasn’t gonna say that.”
But Harris separately also framed showing courage as being able to galvanize others.
“Fear has a way of being contagious … Courage is also contagious. When one person, when a few, stand with the courage that is the courage exhibited by the leaders in this room every day, to stand, to have the courage to say, ‘I feel fear,’ the courage to say, ‘what is happening is wrong,’ the courage to say that there is a way that we must chart to get through this — understanding our power in the democracy we still have if we hold on to it,” Harris said. “Courage is contagious.”
Harris, who is considering a California gubernatorial bid, according to sources, did not say anything about her future plans.
In response to a request for comment from ABC News on Obama’s and Harris’s remarks, White House spokesman Kush Desai wrote, “During her time in office, Kamala Harris presided over the weaponization of our justice system against political opponents, the coercion of social media companies to censor free speech, and the wholesale destruction of our country’s economy and borders.
“Neither she nor Barack Obama, who wrote off worker layoffs by saying ‘some of those jobs of the past are just not going to come back’, are in any position to weigh in on the merits or constitutionality of the Trump administration’s historic action to put Americans and America First,” he added.
ABC News’ Averi Harper and Kelsey Walsh contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — A tearful tribute from the United States’ most decorated figure skaters coupled with multiple fundraising efforts has garnered $1.3 million on behalf of the Washington, D.C., plane crash victims, organizers said Thursday.
“Legacy on Ice,” a figure skating tribute show that took place last month at Capitol One Arena in Washington, D.C., honored the 67 lives lost in the fatal midair collision on Jan. 29 — with nearly half of the passengers being members of the figure skating community.
On Thursday, almost exactly nine weeks since the crash, Monumental Sports and Entertainment (MSE), which co-hosted the event with U.S. Figure Skating (USFS), announced a total of $1.3 million had been raised from the sold-out event and subsequent fundraising.
“This is evidence of what good that can happen when people band together,” MSE CEO Ted Leonsis said in a statement provided to ABC News, emphasizing the “herculean effort and generosity” of organizers and the Washington community.
“The kids that were lost — skating is what they loved to do, so it only felt right that that’s how we remember them,” two-time U.S. national champion Gracie Gold said in a video compilation of the “Legacy on Ice” event posted by Team USA on Friday.
The midair crash between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and American Eagle Flight 5342 above the Potomac River left no survivors and was the first major commercial crash since 2009.
The incident was particularly poignant within the skating community given the sport’s history with aviation tragedy — in 1961, the entire U.S. national team died aboard Sabena Flight 548 while traveling to the World Figure Skating Championships in Prague, Czechoslovakia.
Last week, the 2025 World Figure Skating Championships took place in Boston, marking two months since the fatal crash in D.C. and 64 years since the 1961 tragedy.
Pausing from the fierce competition, skaters and spectators took time to remember the victims.
Maxim Naumov, 23, who lost both of his parents in the crash, received a one-minute standing ovation at a gala on Sunday that concluded the competition.
“I don’t have the strength or the passion or the drive or the dedication of one person anymore. It’s three people,” Naumov said in an interview with NBC News’ Craig Melvin last week. He described his parents, 1994 Russian world champions and coaches Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova, as “superheroes.”
At last month’s “Legacy on Ice” tribute, Naumov performed to his parents’ favorite song in Russian, “The city that does not exist.”
He opened with choreography clasping each of his hands around the empty air on either side of him, symbolizing him reaching for his parents’ hands that are no longer here.
Naumov’s performance concluded with him sobbing on his knees and repeatedly mouthing words, which he later explained was him saying in Russian “This is for you” and “Mom and Dad, I love you.”
During the World Figure Skating Championships, a remembrance memorial featured videos of the plane victims on the TD Arena jumbotron, and Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu highlighted the six members lost from the Skating Club of Boston.
Just a day after clinching his second consecutive world championship title, Ilia Malinin delivered an emotional tribute performance at the gala, in which he fought back tears and brought the audience to their feet.
Known as the “Quad God” and the first skater to land a quadruple axel in competition, Malinin also performed at “Legacy on Ice” last month, closing out the show with an upbeat, motivating number titled “Hope.”
U.S. pairs champions Alisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov displayed photos of the Skating Club of Boston members, and two-time U.S. champion Amber Glenn sported a T-shirt that said, “Skate with their spirit.”
Efimova, Mitrofanov, and Glenn also performed at “Legacy on Ice,” where they were accompanied by a cast of U.S. Figure Skating’s top stars, past and present.
Included in the lineup was 17-year-old Isabella Aparicio, who lost both her father, Luciano, and her 14-year-old brother, Franco, in the crash. Skating to a recording of her father playing “Canon in D” on the guitar, Aparicio fell to her knees at the conclusion of her routine, and the tear-ridden audience leapt to their feet in support of the skater.
“Legacy on Ice” also honored the victims’ final skating endeavor as they had been traveling home from a development camp that is hosted annually for the highest-performing youth skaters following the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. The performers reenacted a skating skills class that is traditionally conducted at such camps, staging the exercise to Beyonce’s “Halo.”
“Against the backdrop of this massive tragedy, this region has provided a light in showcasing its generosity and empathy for the victims, their families, and the heroic first responders,” Leonsis said in a statement following the event.
According to MSE, donations will be distributed to USFS, the Greater Washington Community Foundation’s “DCA Together Relief Fund,” and the D.C. Fire & EMS Foundation, with each organization receiving approximately $425,000.
(WASHINGTON) — Ed Martin, the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said in a message to staff on Friday that he’s “expanded” the scope of his investigation into the office’s handling of cases stemming from the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — and likened them to the government’s internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, according to an email obtained by ABC News.
Martin, whose nomination is still pending confirmation by the Senate, has dubbed his investigation the “1512 Project,” referring to the felony obstruction charge used against hundreds of Capitol attack defendants that was later narrowed by the Supreme Court.
“We have contacted lawyers, staff and judges about this — and sought their feedback,” Martin wrote in his email. “One called the bi-partisan rejection of the 1512 charge the ‘greatest failure of legal judgement since FDR and his Attorney General put American citizens of Japanese descent in prison camps — and seized their property.’ I agree and that’s why we continue to look at who ordered the 1512 and why. A lot to do.”
Fifteen of the 16 judges at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, including several Trump appointees, previously upheld the application of the 1512 charge for Jan. 6 defendants whose conduct, prosecutors argued, crossed the line beyond simple misdemeanor trespassing offenses.
Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee, also joined Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan in dissenting from the court’s majority opinion to say that the obstruction of an official proceeding charge was properly applied to describing Congress’ certification of the presidential election.
Martin further told staff in his email that he has “been asked to look into leaks that took place during the January 6th prosecutions,” which he claimed were “used by the media and partisans as misinformation.”
“It was bad all around. (One participant said she believed the media was in a frenzy for attention like during the OJ Simpson trial),” Martin said.
The email is just the latest in a series of controversial actions by Martin that has thrown one of the most important and high-profile U.S. attorney’s offices in the country into turmoil.
Martin, a “Stop the Steal” promoter who represented several defendants charged in the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, has leveled numerous public threats to investigate Democratic lawmakers and sent menacing letters to critics of President Donald Trump.
Among those who have received letters from Martin in which he suggested their actions were under investigation by his office are Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., and Rep. Eugene Vindman, D-Va.
Earlier this week, ABC News confirmed Martin sent an informal letter to President Joe Biden’s younger brother James Biden, inquiring about the sweeping preemptive pardons he and his wife received in the waning hours of the Biden presidency.
(WASHINGTON) — When President Donald Trump announced his controversial tariffs on virtually every trading partner in the world, he repeatedly called them “reciprocal” — a response, he said, to those nations that had hit the U.S. with tariffs and hurt the American economy.
But Trump’s claim is misleading not only because some of the nations hit with tariffs haven’t levied any against the U.S., but also because the math apparently used by the administration to come up the tariffs doesn’t hold up, according to several economic experts.
The White House’s list of tariffs issued against each location includes different tariff rates. In announcing the tariffs at the Rose Garden on Wednesday, Trump claimed the numbers were calculated based on “the combined rate of all their tariffs, non-monetary barriers and other forms of cheating.” Trump added that he was being “kind,” and divided that number in half and called it a “discount.”
The calculations for almost all of the tariffs was determined by dividing trade deficit of each nation with the value of its imports, according to economic experts’ analysis. That number was then divided in half for Trump’s “discount” for the final tariff percentage, experts said.
“Before yesterday, 99% of trade economists had never seen a formula like this before,” Oren Ziv, an assistant professor of economics at Michigan State University, told ABC News Friday.
Several economic experts and journalists blasted the formula soon after the speech, including James Surowiecki, a financial news journalist and author, who explained it in a post on X.
“So we have a $17.9 billion trade deficit with Indonesia. Its exports to us are $28 billion. $17.9/$28 = 64%, which Trump claims is the tariff rate Indonesia charges us. What extraordinary nonsense this is,” he said in his post.
The White House later put out an explanation of its calculations that said it was using the trade deficit and import figures.
“This calculation assumes that persistent trade deficits are due to a combination of tariff and non-tariff factors that prevent trade from balancing. Tariffs work through direct reductions of imports,” the White House said in a statement.
National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told Fox News on Thursday about the administration’s thinking behind their policy.
“So what happened was that the U.S. Trade Representative looked at where the trade deficits were and adjusted the tariffs in order to respond to the national emergency that I think we all agree about,” he said.
Ziv said this logic does not fit with any modern definition of trade deficits.
“When economists study trade deficiency, they don’t find any evidence for this rationale,” he said.
Ziv noted that trade deficits are more related to the markets rather than exports and imports and manufacturing.
Ziv said the formula is not very likely to yield the results that the administration is seeking.
“Since World War II, most industrial countries have followed a consistent set of rules of trade policies. Essentially, they learned that trade wars don’t help anyone,” he said.
(WASHINGTON) — Foreign adversaries including Russia and China are targeting government workers who have been laid off amid the Trump administration’s attempt to downsize to recruit as spies, according to new intelligence.
“New intelligence indicates agents from China, Russia, and other countries have set their sights on recently fired probationary workers, or those with security clearances, hoping to obtain valuable information about U.S. critical infrastructure or national security interests,” according to intelligence distributed by the U.S. Coast Guard to its workforce.
“These foreign intelligence officers actively search LinkedIn, TikTok, Reddit, and Chinese social media site Xiaohongshu — known as RedNote — for potential sources,” it added. “In at least one instance, a foreign agent was instructed to create a company profile on LinkedIn, post a job listing, and actively track federal employees who indicated they were ‘open for work.'”
The Coast Guard did not develop the intelligence but rather distributed it as a warning to Coast Guard officials around the world.
“Posting about your frustration, status as a recently fired employee, or any other OPSEC sensitive information could make you a target,” the notice said. “Our adversaries have successfully preyed on upset and disgruntled government workers during past furloughs.”
Military members can be attractive targets, according to the intelligence, because of the information they may have access to.
The Coast Guard said a telltale sign of foreign agents attempting to recruit former government officials is something that is too good to be true, noting that it probably is.
“Your contact might overly praise or focus on your skills/experience, especially if your government affiliation is known,” it said in the notice, adding that a sense for urgency might be an indicator as well.
(WASHINGTON) — Hundreds of college and high school students representing student governments from some of the largest schools in the Washington, D.C., area will rally outside the Department of Education on Friday to oppose the administration’s gutting of the agency.
The “Hands Off Our Schools” rally is expected to turn out over 500 students, according to a spokesperson, who added that the rally has been working to increase its permit size to accommodate north of 1,000 participants.
The demonstration is organized by the student governments representing over 130,000 students at several colleges in the region, including Georgetown University, American University and Howard University, as well as along the Interstate 95 corridor up to Temple University, according to the organizers.
The coalition is a “historic alliance” standing against the “assault on education,” including campus free speech and student financial aid programs, according to a release by organizers.
It has a list of four demands for congressional leaders: preserve and strengthen the department; ensure all students are protected; oppose anti-diversity, equity and inclusion actions that restrict classroom autonomy; and reject the targeting of individual students and academics for expressing their political views.
“The recent executive orders undermine the bedrock of our nation and limit opportunities for children of all backgrounds to learn and achieve their full potential,” the organizers wrote in a statement. “By making educational spaces more restrictive and unwelcoming, these policies are set to leave lasting, harmful impacts on our generation and those who follow.”
President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to abolish the department and return education control to the states. The department has already let go of nearly half its workforce to start downsizing the agency.
Critics say college students will especially be affected if the president follows through with rehoming the Federal Student Aid Office’s responsibilities, such as the $1.6 trillion student loan portfolio, and terminating the federal workers who administer funds for higher education.
The rally is expected to run from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. and have about a dozen speakers. Organizers are also expecting Washington, D.C., high school state board of education representatives and former progressive Rep. Jamaal Bowman, a former principal, among the list of speakers. Organizers said they have reached out to additional lawmakers and are working to confirm the final list of speakers.
The event follows about a month’s worth of Friday demonstrations taking place at the department, including an “ED Matters” rally, “study-ins” and “clap-outs” for terminated federal workers.
More recently, lawmakers on Capitol Hill have been condemning the changes at the department. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., launched a “Save Our Schools” campaign this week against the administration’s attempt to dismantle the department. Her campaign will include investigations, oversight, community engagement and lawsuits, according to the senator.
“The federal government has invested in our public schools,” Warren said in an exclusive interview with ABC News. “Taking that away from our kids so that a handful of billionaires can be even richer is just plain ugly, and I will fight it with everything I’ve got.”
Meanwhile, McMahon shocked about a dozen House Democrats on Wednesday when she crashed their press conference outside the department after she met with them in a closed-door meeting at the agency.
(WASHINGTON) — The director of the National Security Agency, Gen. Timothy Haugh, was among the numerous officials far-right activist Laura Loomer urged President Donald Trump to remove during her official Oval Office meeting earlier this week, citing evidence of disloyalties, multiple sources tell ABC News.
In her Oval Office meeting, Loomer presented the president with printed files of research she compiled on various government officials — not only from the NSA and National Security Council, but also from other federal agencies, including the State Department, sources said. She urged the president to take action against those she claimed were disloyal or were appointed during former President Joe Biden’s administration, the sources added.
Haugh, who is the director of the NSA and also heads U.S. Cyber Command, and his civilian deputy Wendy Noble, were both removed from their positions, according to a U.S. official. Their firings came after Loomer’s meeting with the president on Wednesday.
Loomer appeared to confirm her involvement in a post on X, writing, “NSA Director Tim Haugh and his deputy Wendy Noble have been disloyal to President Trump. That is why they have been fired … Thank you President Trump for being receptive to the vetting materials provided to you and thank you for firing these Biden holdovers.”
Trump on Thursday acknowledged that Loomer has made recommendations to him and that he sometimes listens, but claimed that she was not involved in the NSC firings following their meeting on Wednesday.
“So Laura Loomer is a very good patriot. She is a very strong person, and I saw her yesterday for a little while. She makes recommendations of things and people, and sometimes I listen to those recommendations, like I do with everybody. I listen to everybody, and then I make a decision,” Trump said.
In a separate post Thursday night, Loomer said she reported names of “disloyal people” in the NSC to Trump. On Friday, she wrote on X that she planned to release “more names of individuals who should not be in the Trump administration due to their questionable loyalty & past attacks on President Trump.”
Asked about these recent X posts from Loomer, the White House referred ABC News to Trump’s previous comments about her making recommendations.
Loomer’s involvement comes after weeks of both public and private pressure, sources said, as she raised concerns about the administration’s vetting process and the inclusion of officials she perceives as disloyal to the president.
Loomer has frequently spread misinformation. In July, she claimed in a social media post, without citing evidence, that President Joe Biden had a medical emergency after landing at Joint Base Andrews.
She had also started unsubstantiated claims about family members of Judge Juan Merchan in Trump’s New York hush money case, including that his daughter posted a fake photo of Trump in jail on social media, which the court has denied. It prompted Trump to share Loomer’s posts and spread the rumors.
