WASHINGTON — Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.) on Tuesday sounded the alarm that Elon Musk and his surrogates are “actively dismantling” the U.S. Division of Schooling, as staffers along with his Division of Executive Potency are on-site on the company’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., poring over federal contracts and techniques.
“It’s our understanding that today, they’re inside the building, they’re on the sixth floor, they’re canceling grants and contracts,” the New Mexico congresswoman informed HuffPost. “They’re literally dismantling and shutting down programs as we speak.”
“We expect that the Department of Education is going to potentially be dissolved in the coming days,” warned Stansbury, who’s the highest Democrat on a Space oversight subcommittee thinking about DOGE and Musk’s actions.
A spokesperson for the Division of Schooling didn’t reply to a request for touch upon what DOGE is doing on the division’s headquarters or if leaders be expecting their division to be eradicated. A White Space spokesperson didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Some recipients of federal training grants informed HuffPost on Tuesday their contracts have been hastily terminated within the closing 24 hours.
One one who works at a analysis corporate that contracts with the Institute of Schooling Sciences, the nonpartisan analysis arm of the Schooling Division, mentioned their contracts had been all canceled Monday evening, “effective immediately.” Some other grant recipient mentioned their group’s Supporting Efficient Educator Construction grant, or SEED grant, used to be canceled Monday evening. SEED grants are used to assist educators expand and increase easiest practices that may function fashions for others.
This individual mentioned their group has additionally been barred from drawing down federal cash due for already-incurred bills.
If true, that might be unlawful underneath the Impoundment Keep an eye on Act, which prevents the president and different executive officers from unilaterally substituting their very own investment selections instead of what Congress has directed them to do.
“Yes, this violates the Impoundment Control Act. But how are we supposed to fight it? How do you keep staff on with no funding?” fumed this grant recipient, who used to be granted anonymity to talk freely. “It’s infuriating!
It sure looks like Elon Musk is breaking a lot of laws.
President Donald Trump tapped Musk, the richest man in the world and a Trump loyalist, to lead DOGE, an entity with the stated goal of cutting costs across the federal government and rooting out fraud. But so far, DOGE, which Trump designated as a replacement for the U.S. Digital Service, has been proceeding recklessly, politically and, to many observers, illegally.
Musk’s team of tech workers has operated in secrecy, potentially gained access to millions of federal workers’ sensitive records and triggered numerous lawsuits. It appears intent on gutting entire federal agencies, starting with the U.S. Agency for International Development, which provides tens of billions of dollars in foreign aid for global health and disaster relief. DOGE essentially declared all of USAID’s heywork to be wasteful spending — without input from Congress, which controls federal funding.
With Trump’s endorsement, DOGE now appears focused on eliminating the Department of Education. Musk said last week that the department “no longer exists.” In a televised interview on Sunday, simply forward of the Tremendous Bowl, Trump steered it’s advantageous with him if Musk needs to try this.
“It’s not legal. They know it’s not legal. But they’re doing it anyway,” Stansbury mentioned. “The only recourse we have right now is to go to the courts. I can tell you, we will absolutely be in the courts immediately as they’re dismantling the Department of Education.”
“We expect that the Department of Education is going to potentially be dissolved in the coming days,” mentioned Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.)
Invoice Clark by way of Getty Pictures
Stansbury has been specifically frightened about what’s going to occur to tribal education schemes in Local American communities if Trump and Musk continue with looking to do away with the Division of Schooling.
She mentioned she’s heard that the Trump management has been “running drills” for weeks in preparation of shifting tribal techniques funded through the Schooling Division on an “emergency basis” to the Division of Inner’s Bureau of Indian Schooling, or to easily finishing those techniques fully.
That may be unlawful on a number of ranges, mentioned Stansbury, noting it might violate statutory regulations and appropriations regulations and doubtlessly breach federal believe and treaty responsibilities. Past that, she pointed to a clause in Trump’s government order on training that “rang all the alarm bells” for any individual thinking about tribal training, because it echoed the so-called termination technology of the Nineteen Fifties, when the U.S. executive enacted insurance policies geared toward terminating its responsibilities to tribes.
All through this period, as Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.) led his notorious investigations to show meant communist infiltrators of the U.S. executive, Republican officers attempted to dismantle all federal popularity of tribal sovereignty — or popularity of the tribes themselves — and finish federal techniques for Local American communities.
Stansbury mentioned Trump’s government order mainly says the Bureau of Indian Schooling, which oversees federal education schemes for more or less 46,000 Local American scholars at 183 colleges around the nation, must take a look at college selection ― a euphemism for insurance policies that redirect scholars and investment in opposition to non-public colleges. Except for there’s no “school choice” for colleges funded as a part of tribal and treaty duties, because of the original manner during which they’re funded and operated, she mentioned. All this raises considerations about plans to dismantle the Bureau of Indian Schooling itself.
“It smacked of tribal termination and McCarthyism,” Stansbury mentioned of Trump’s government order on training. “That’s part of why we’re trying to raise consciousness about this. We want to make sure that is not the direction that the Trump admin is headed.”
“They know it’s not legal. But they’re doing it anyway.”
– Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.)
She wrote to Inner Secretary Doug Burgum on Tuesday to proportion her considerations.
“We are gravely concerned that the January 29th Executive Order is part of a larger set of actions in recent days that are intended to unilaterally delay, cancel, or dismantle programs vital to Tribal communities and students and dismantle the BIE and Department of Education,” Stansbury mentioned in her letter to Burgum. “Any unilateral attempts to disrupt existing services administered or funded by the BIE would directly violate the trust and treaty obligations of the United States and the fundamental separation of powers.
An Interior Department spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on whether Burgum is committed to preserving the Bureau of Indian Education in its current form or at all.
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Linda McMahon, Trump’s nominee to be the next education secretary, is set for her confirmation hearing on Thursday before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee. Some Democratic senators have already sent her questions about the fate of the department she hopes to lead.
“Do you support President Trump’s calls for [the Department of Education] to be abolished?” Sens Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Andy Kim (D-N.J.) requested McMahon in a Tuesday letter. “If this is the case, why?
