Tuesday, March 25, 2025
The Snapshot
Geoff Bennett:
Senior Trump administration officials, including the vice president and secretary of defense, used the encrypted commercial messaging app Signal to debate the pros and cons of launching military strikes against the Houthis in Yemen.
Amna Nawaz:
And they accidentally invited the editor in chief of "The Atlantic" and "Washington Week" moderator Jeffrey Goldberg to be part of that chat group.
Goldberg revealed the details today in a report published for "The Atlantic," and he joins me now.
Jeff, welcome to the "News Hour." Thanks for joining us.
Jeffrey Goldberg:
Thanks for having me.
Amna Nawaz:
So, you're added to this group chat. You see some 18 or so other people on it. Among them appear to be senior national security and Cabinet officials like Marco Rubio, J.D. Vance, Pete Hegseth, John Ratcliffe, Tulsi Gabbard, Stephen Miller, Steve Witkoff, Michael Waltz.
How did you end up on this chat? And when do you realize it looks like you were added by mistake?
Jeffrey Goldberg:
I was invited a couple of weeks ago to connect with Michael Waltz, the national security adviser. That didn't strike me as particularly strange, given my job and his job.
A little while later, I'm added to a group chat with the people you just named. That seemed strange. But I kind of just ignored it a little bit. And then it really became a very bizarre situation on Saturday the 15th of March, when I was shared on a text in this group from somebody purporting to be Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense.
And this text contained operational military information, including the time that bombs were supposed to start dropping on Yemen. And this was two hours before that time. So I simply waited and stared at my phone.
And, sure enough, the attack, the American attack on Yemen began to be felt at about 1:30 Eastern or so, 1:50 Eastern. And that's when I realized that the chain was real. Until that point, I really had a deep suspicion that I was being spoofed or hoaxed or being led astray on a disinformation campaign, the rationale for which I can't figure out.
But this all seemed so improbable that I simply assumed that it couldn't be real.
Amna Nawaz:
And I want to point out you share some details. You report some details of what unfolds on that text chain.
When it comes to these operational details, though, you're very careful with your language. You write in your piece what appears to be from the account of Pete Hegseth posts — quote — "operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying and attack sequencing."
This gets posted two hours later. The bombings begin. And then what do you see unfold on the group chat?
Jeffrey Goldberg:
A lot of happiness and virtual high-fiving. There's some reporting, again, material that I didn't feel comfortable reporting because it contained tactical operational information, about the effects of the bombing on various places in Yemen.
Mainly, it was the participants in this group chat, which, as you note, contained most of the national security leadership of the United States congratulating each other and sending emojis, flag emojis, muscle emojis, fire emojis to each other in celebration of a successful mission.
Amna Nawaz:
We did hear from Brian Hughes. I know you did as well, the spokesman for the National Security Council, who sent a statement in response when you did reach out. He said that it appears the message thread was authentic, that they're reviewing how an inadvertent number, presumably yours, was added.
He also says — quote — "The thread is a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials. The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to our service members or our national security."
Jeff, you have reported on national security for decades. That this is being held up as an example of a deep and thoughtful policy coordination, had you ever seen anything like this before?
Jeffrey Goldberg:
I don't disagree with something that he said.
If you look at the story on TheAtlantic.com, you will see that they are having a live debate, including the vice president of the United States, about the utility of attacking Yemen and the European component of this and various other things. There's interesting discourse going on.
But, according to everything I understand, they're not supposed to be doing this on commercial messaging apps. They got quite lucky that they included my phone number in the — if they're going to pick an errant phone number, I mean, at least it wasn't somebody who supported the Houthis, because they were actually handing out information that I believe could have endangered the lives of American servicepeople who were involved in that operation.
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, issued the following statement today in response to today’s article in The Atlantic entitled “The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans:”
“Jeffrey Goldberg’s reporting in The Atlantic calls for a prompt and thorough investigation. If senior advisors to President Trump in fact used non-secure, non-government systems to discuss and convey detailed war plans, it’s a shocking breach of the standards for sharing classified information that could have put American servicemembers at risk. There needs to be an oversight hearing and accountability for these actions.”
Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) joined MSNBC’s Inside with Jen Psaki to blast the irresponsible planning of sensitive military operations over text chat and call out the utterly incompetent handling of national security interests following The Atlantic’s reporting.
View the full interview here.
Key Excerpts:
On the incompetence and arrogance of Trump’s national security advisors:
It is stunning. I can understand Jeffrey’s disbelief, or thought that is, this somehow contrived, because it is so stunning and so incompetent and so dangerous in terms of the planning for this operation and who might have been on this text chain. But what really leaps out at me is that you have the Director of National Intelligence, you have the head of the CIA, and no one it appears bothered to say, “Hey, folks, should we really be talking about this here? Should we really be using an unclassified channel to talk about an operation, a detailed military operation, that’s going to take place in a few hours?” That is just so striking to me, and it shows both the level of incompetence, but also a certain kind of arrogance that some of the folks on that had to know that they should never be discussing these things on a Signal chat. But there is a feeling that they’re beyond accountability. I mean, who’s going to hold them accountable? They can break whatever rules. They’re stopping the FBI from doing background checks on people. They can deal with national security however they see fit.
[…] Just staggeringly irresponsible. And it’s not just that they had a reporter by accident on this chat. They should have never been doing this on a chat to begin with. And what’s more, who knows what phones they were using? Who knows the safety and security of those phones, whether a foreign government had already penetrated some of those communications? So, the dangers are real. There should be a real accounting over this. But you could expect more of the reaction you saw from Hegseth, which is to attack the reporter rather than acknowledging their own dangerous incompetence here. It put pilots at risk potentially. But also it meant that the success of the operations could have been dramatically reduced if, for example, word got out to not just the Houthis, but allies of the Houthis, like Iran, that could have tipped them off – “Hey, here’s when these attacks are going to start. Here’s when you’ll know that the next target is upon you.” It’s just staggeringly irresponsible.
On the shocking lack of concern over the communication of national security interests:
There certainly could be a criminal offense here. This is information that in a normal world would be highly classified. And so someone could have very plainly violated laws in terms of the handling of sensitive national security of information, even if it isn’t classified. But I think to your point, also, my guess is that this is probably the tip of the iceberg. This was probably not the first time that the people on this chat used Signal to communicate information that – if not highly classified – was highly sensitive national security information. So, who else is doing this? Apparently, it certainly appears to be widespread, because no one on that chat seems to have objected to it or even raised the issue.
Now, I know we don’t know the full conversation, because Jeffrey was careful to limit what he made public to protect the legitimate national security interests of the country, even if the participants in the chat weren’t protecting it. But if nobody was objecting, that means that there was a certain routine already in this administration to use such poor trade craft.
###
Geoff Bennett:
How does this lapse strike you from an operational security perspective, that the country's top national security officials shared information about an imminent strike, an imminent attack on a commercial messaging app?
Leon Panetta, Former U.S. Secretary of Defense: Well, look, this is a serious security breach, particularly when it comes to war plans.
Look, war plans, attack plans are among the most sensitive and classified information that you can have. And it has to be handled with care. I think it was a mistake to have a conversation a Signal app that is not approved for sharing classified information. So, I'm not sure why they even placed any of this information on Signal.
But, nevertheless, the fact that it included somebody who was not cleared for that information, and as a matter of fact was a member of the press, is a serious breach and one that needs to be fully investigated.
Geoff Bennett:
What are the traditional secure channels for this type of discussion? How would this normally unfold?
Leon Panetta:
Well, when I was both director of the CIA and secretary of defense, when it came to attack plans, the discussion was reserved for the Situation Room in the National Security Council, which is highly protected and is a place where you can have that kind of discussion without having to worry whether or not any of that information would leak.
So I'm a little bit taken aback that they would have this kind of conversation a commercial messaging network. That just strikes me as being pretty careless.
Geoff Bennett:
How might a foreign intelligence service, a foreign country trying to do the U.S. harm, how might they use this kind of information or how might they exploit what appear to be lax security practices?
Leon Panetta:
Well, there are very serious consequences to leaking information about a potential military attack.
If that information is leaked to an adversary, not only does it jeopardize very important intelligence resources that are being used to be able to determine military plans, but, in addition to that, that kind of leak would give a potential adversary an advantage of being able to strike first and going after whatever weapons, whatever naval vessels were going to be used for the attack.
So it could cost lives of our men and women in uniform if that information was leaked. That's the danger here. And, furthermore, it weakens our national security, very frankly, if we cannot protect that kind of sensitive information.
Geoff Bennett:
President Trump, when he was asked about this today by reporters, he said he didn't know anything about it, and then he quickly pivoted to criticizing "The Atlantic." It doesn't appear that he's focused on taking accountability.
And, of course, he faced a criminal trial, criminal charges from his handling of classified information. That aside, in your view, what should the consequences be?
Leon Panetta:
Well, I don't think there's any question that somebody made a serious blunder here, a serious mistake, of including somebody that should not have been part of a national security group discussing war plans.
So, who added that name? And why did that happen? That really does have to be investigated, because it could involve a breach of our espionage laws, because that kind of breach simply cannot happen when the security of the United States is on the line. That is the danger of having that kind of information leak.
Monday, March 24, 2025
The Schumer Scalp: A Waste Of Time, Money and Focus.
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The Schumer Scalp: A Waste Of Time, Money and Focus.
And Not (Mostly) For The Reasons You Might Think
Why You Might Want To Read This: Folks want Schumer’s “scalp” but there are the three reasons why time, energy, activism and money is better spent elsewhere.
Look, Chuck Schumer is a political car wreck. A disaster. Even among the small slice of voters who can even name him, or choose him out of a line-up or identify the Senate position he holds—and that’s a very, very small slice of voters—he inspires no one.
While Chuckie blathers on about “bi-partisanship” and always promises to find 1,000 ways to “find common ground” with lunatics, Republicans take Chuckie’s lunch money every day, with then-Republican leader and chief schoolyard bully Mitch McConnell building out the template years ago.
Worse, Schumer’s politics are bad on many levels, not the least of which is his decades-long leading role arming Israel to the teeth and, thus, blessing the slaughtering of thousands of men, women and children. Which if you aren’t appalled by the immorality of it all is just really bad politics with a huge swath of people, especially younger voters.
And he’s a coward, to boot. A guy who, by virtue of his leadership position, already has full-time security personnel and a retinue of factotums following him around at every moment, cancelled his recent book tour in the past week because of…“security reasons”.
C’mon, “security reasons” means he’s afraid of being shouted at by actual voters, which is a fantastic message to all those voters he, and his party sidekicks, claim to want to connect with out in the heartland (is my sarcasm heavy enough?). He should never be allowed, evah again, to utter some bullshit about his Brooklyn “toughness”. He’s a coddled, meek careerist.
I’m sympathetic that people want his “scalp” as a price for the almost daily caving in and lack of strategy and spine BUT….the hating on Schumer is a distraction, and an admission, implicit or explicit, that there is no coherent progressive opposition.
FIRST POINT: within a narrow political lens, what is the credible, fact-based, past track record path to replace Schumer?
Let’s start with the various calls for someone to primary him. In his last re-election campaign, 2022, Schumer raised more than $37 million facing virtually no opposition. The Democratic primary was cancelled for lack of an opponent, as was the primary for the third-party Working Families Party, which also, shaking in its boots, got in line and endorsed Schumer despite his pro-Wall Street record. He won the general election easily by 14 points.
That $37 million is the low-end of his money machine. If someone serious ran against him in a primary or general election in 2028, when he’s up next for re-election, he will easily pile up $80-$100 million, with AIPAC and Wall Street leading the charge on his behalf. And that will be in a presidential election year when, trust me, there will be a singular focus on a “get-with-the-program” message to ensure J.D. Vance is not the next president, which will scare away at least a certain segment of folks who are done with Schumer.
I’ve seen some comments from “progressive” groups claiming that small donor contributions will make a race credible because the “ground game” will make up for the financial gap, that there is something analogous to a “tea party” revolt gathering steam.
Please, excuse me while I spit out my tea in laughter. New York is not Vermont, Vermont being probably the only state where someone like Bernie Sanders has a prayer of being elected statewide (since it has exactly one member of Congress who covers the entire state like a U.S. Senator, allowing Bernie to first serve in the House and build name recognition over 16 years before running for the Senate). It took only a fraction of a Schumer-like money dump to defeat, in primaries, progressive “Squad” members Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman, who were House incumbents. The “progressive” movement is, to date, disorganized, incoherent and lacking a serious bench of capable organizers.
Your second, more immediate, route is to encourage some internal coup. That’s going to fail as well—his caucus members know he controls both committee assignments and the spigot to the outside big money donors. You think anyone is likely to be a coup leader? Certainly not Dick Durbin, who is way past his expiration date and conveys the energy of an undertaker, or Jack Reed, an unintelligible mumbler, or Patty Murray who has gone from the 1992 victorious “mom in tennis shoes” to a dour dinosaur or the roughly half-dozen others who wake up each morning and hear “Hail to The Chief” in their heads as they plot their path to the White House and, so, have zero interest in alienating the party elites.
As the cliche goes, if you come for the king, you better not miss.
SECOND POINT: Let’s say, by some miracle, Schumer is kicked to the curb. What then?
The reality is harsh: The U.S. Senate is pretty much a black hole for progress, and will be functionally dead for at least a decade or two. By that, I mean there is very little chance that some hoped-for progressive majority takes power, ushering in a second New Deal. It’s not a zero chance but, given the choice, I’d place my very small available money on the almost certainly suicidal bet that the White Sox win the World Series this year (sorry, Chisox fans!).
That bracing reality has a lot to do with the undemocratic nature of the U.S. Senate, which should be abolished. (Read the chapter on the Senate in Robert Dahl’s “How Democratic Is the U.S. Constitution”?, a book in which he also argues the Supreme Court is undemocratic, a view held by many others even before this cast of jokers, liars and sexual predators became the Court’s majority).
To repeat what my smart readers know: the current Senate Majority leader, John Thune, comes from South Dakota, a state with 924,000 people. He has the same voting power in the Senate as either California senator, a state with almost 40 million people and a $4 trillion economy that makes it the largest sub-national economy on the planet. Madness! And patently anti-democratic.
If you consider the Senate election cycles coming up over the next decade, Republicans have a solid lock on 40 seats—that count does not include Maine, Texas, North Carolina, Ohio or even Iowa. I *suppose* in some of those cases (Maine, North Carolina, Ohio) someone could make a semi-credible case for winning a currently-held Republican seat (for example, when Grassley finally, officially, is declared brain dead or dies in office—senility, as we know, is not disqualifying to continue to serve—some non-Republican *might* win the Iowa seat). Note: the 40-seat lock means you will never get 3/4 of the state legislatures to vote for a constitutional amendment abolishing the Senate. We are stuck with it.
If by some miracle, Democrats win back the Senate in any of the next 2-3 elections, what would the unnamed Schumer replacement face? Let’s pretend this new Senator doesn’t first have to battle inside the party on some core economic and foreign policy planks (alert: s/he WILL have that very fight and, yes, I am not taking seriously, absent evidence, that a third-party, independent majority will descend from the heavens). There’s that thing called the filibuster, the 60-vote super majority required to move most bills, which ensures that any decent idea—national health care, e.g.—goes to its legislative limbo to die. For example, there are not, and will never be, 60 votes to pass the Protecting the Right To Organize (PRO) Act (and, as I’ve written elsewhere, it’s time for the labor movement to stop wasting time giving the impression otherwise).
Virtually nothing will pass. If your jam is to just be part of halting the worst of the worst, by all means, be a U.S. Senator.
THIRD POINT: Expecting Schumer to be the opposition is a “tell” on the lack of coherent strategy from progressives. The bigger obstacle: re-imagining the political system and building ***effective*** organizing, rather than the mess we have now, and, in the short term, focus energy, money, heart and soul into local elections. I’m going to opine on this third point some more soon but, for today, just three short-version tasks to focus on rather than Schumer...
Task number one: figuring out what the hell “progressive” means. I recently observed that anyone can embrace the “progressive” mantle—the “progressive” label became a thing back in the 1980s so actual socialists/communists/left-wingers could call themselves something approaching “the left” and avoid being red-baited, especially in the labor movement.
In recent years, you could vote for the Iraq War, get paid $225,000-per-vacuous-contentless-speech to Goldman Sachs and be for the death penalty and, without irony, call yourself a “progressive”—as Hillary Clinton has done. You can run for City Council as a “progressive” in my city and, at the same time, get on your hands and knees begging for the support of the business lobby which is shredding the livelihoods of working people—as plenty of posers did.
Voters are not dumb—they understand what utter rank hypocrisy these phonies represent.
Task number two: for the moment, if we use “progressive” in a somewhat amorphous way, the progressive “movement” is a cacophony of thousands and thousands of organizations. Mostly, deeply ineffective.
Each organization thinks it has The Answer. The organizations that survive, even if they barely hobble along and can’t point to any substantive victory, have a singular skill: each has figured out how to unlock the money spigot from foundations or individual donors. These thousands of organizations are competing for a finite amount of money from foundations and rich donors.
There needs to be a serious consolidation of organizations, at the local and national level.
That will help with the financing of the building of a deep bench of capable, experienced political organizers.
Task number three: local politics is winnable, especially if you consider that it costs a lot less than a big-state U.S. Senate race. It can turn into wielding enormous power, especially in states that allows people-sponsored ballot initiatives.
It doesn’t entirely meet the understandable urgency to halt today an expanding kleptocracy. However, it’s worth picking, carefully, some local (meaning, not federal) races to compete in that are affordable, winnable and move the ball.
It’s the beginning steps for seizing power and reshaping politics.
The electoral path is not enough. There has never been a better moment for a general strike. Actually, it’s long overdue and very doable.
Stay tuned for the general strike musings.
The Snapshot
In a poor neighbourhood of the Venezuelan city of Maracay, the mother of 24-year-old Francisco José García Casique was waiting for him on Saturday.
It had been 18 months since he had migrated to the US to begin a new life but he had told her that he was now being deported back to Caracas, Venezuela's capital, for being in the US illegally. They had spoken that morning, just before he was due to depart.
"I thought it was a good sign that he was being deported [to Caracas]," Myrelis Casique López recalled. She wanted him home.
But he never arrived. And while watching a television news report on Sunday, Ms Casique was shocked to see her son, not in the US or Venezuela but 1,430 miles (2,300km) away in El Salvador.
The footage showed 238 Venezuelans sent by US authorities to the Terrorism Confinement Centre, or Cecot, a notorious mega-jail. She saw men with shaved heads and shackles on their hands and feet, being forcefully escorted by heavily-armed security forces.
The Trump administration says all of the deportees are members of the Tren de Aragua gang, which has found itself in the White House's crosshairs. The powerful multi-national crime group, which Trump recently declared a foreign terrorist organisation, has been accused of sex trafficking, drug smuggling and murders both at home and in major US cities.
Ms Casique told the BBC she was certain her son was among the detainees, even if no official list of names has been released.
"It's him. It's him," she said, gesturing at a picture in which a man is seated, with his head bowed, on a prison floor alongside a row of others, a tattoo visible on his arm. "I recognize his features."
And there are so many others.
Noor's husband is not being helped by the actions Kshama Sawant has the Gaza Freaks doing. Not only do they also make the "his people" cry, they also make it all about him.
He's not the only one being deported. Group actions that pretend he is turn people off. He is no more special than anyone else. To his wife he is. And she needs to make that case. But when the country sees Kshama leading these actions -- fifty-plus Kshama who should worry herself about deportation because she was fully honest on her paperwork -- and they see her leading campuses to rally for this one person, it puts people off.
As for the legal strategy, stop saying this is First Amendment case. It's not. It may become one. Noor should be doing interviews emphasizing the concern she has for her husband, how she misses him, how it's stressful due to her pregnancy.
And that's what her attorneys should be doing plus -- "WHY! Why are they doing this to a young family."
There are no charges filed yet. If Chump had a brain, he'd let this one go while he and his team regroup to figure out how to do it more effectively. But they don't have a brain. Their failure to announce charges so far makes it look as though they don't have any and don't know what to charge him with. Which may indicate that they are combing through every response he filled out in paperwork to find one that is false.
If indeed that is the case and they announce they are deporting him because he lied on his paperwork, the whole defense they tried to mount in the media falls apart.
They've done nothing but waste time.
Which brings us to our young and old idiots on YOUTUBE.
We're not going into their nonsense of platforming an Islamaphobe -- we covered that last night -- but let's deal with their stupidity on Bernie Sanders.
Look, Keith Edwards is platforming Islamaphobia and the nonsense of 'great Bernie!' He did it in a 24 hour period -- apparently on a sugar rush.
Wasn't working with the brains, that's for sure.
He stupidly states of Bernie threatening to walk out on an interview (I believe with ABC), "This is just a continuation of Democrats all around the country finally finding their voice."
You are so damn stupid, so far beyond stupid, in fact. "The news used to be news," Keith lies. He can't be that stupid to think the news is worse today. It's always been this way.
The offensive question? He was asked if he thought AOC belonged in the Senate.
Keith keeps wanting to pretend that horse race nonsense. No, it's not. AOC and Bernie are speaking around the country and people are showing up with buttons as them as running mates in 2028. If you don't know that grasp that Kshama Sawant's followers do because they spent the weekend trashing them both and declaring that they wouldn't vote for them. It's amazing that the cowards like Keith want to pretend they're protecting the righteous but, as Kshama and her followers spent the weekend doing to AOC and Bernie what they did to Kamala, Keith says nothing.
I'm sick of it. This wasn't horse race.
Bernie didn't like the question.
How is this different from the disdain that Chump shows the media?
There's one way. Chump says he's going to walk, he walks.
He doesn't stay after he says he's walking.
He looked like a hot head and an idiot. When MR CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM mocked him in portrayals on SNL, idiots ate it up. Idiots who supported Bernie ate it up.
That thought it was 'good funnin'' but it wasn't. It was portraying him as an out of control crank.
And his hissy fit on ABC yesterday fed into that.
And if you think a politician attacking the press is going to help them, you're in the fright-wing. That's why is so easy for Socialist especially to cross over to the fright-wing. They are just like them. That's why Keith wrote that stupid article two weeks ago about how it was time for Democrats to stop calling out people for -- be honest -- hate speech. And it was not a good look for the White boy. He needs to look at himself and figure out who he is and what he believes in.
We don't have time for s**t.
In the same video where he's praising Bernie, he's also praising another politician and insisting that they won on FOX "NEWS." Maybe they did. If so, it's because the network pulled punches. Maybe they're waiting until closer to the mid-terms to bring that man back on and to ask him about how he's a Socialist and whether most of the voters in his Texas district are aware of that?
(They're not.)
Keith, what did you do Sunday to push back on Kshama Sawant efforts to torpedo Bernie and AOC? The answer is -- and this was true when Kamala was running for president as well: NOT ONE DAMN THING.
Stop pretending you're helping when you're ot.
We'll wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:
Leases Trump and Elon have said they are terminating include office where Yakama Nation members can get in-person assistance from BIA staff; Service centers in Puyallup, Renton, and Dayton where farmers can get in-person assistance on USDA programs; SBA office in Seattle, and much more
Leases Trump and Elon are threatening to offload include Jackson Federal Building in Seattle that houses Social Security and VA offices where people can get in-person help with benefits; Vancouver Federal Building where taxpayers can get IRS assistance; and much more
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, released the following fact sheet on the Trump administration announcing lease terminations of critical federal offices and agencies in Washington state and threatening to potentially offload many others, including the Jackson Federal Building in downtown Seattle.
Senator Murray also released the following statement:
“Two billionaires with no clue what the federal government does are right now pushing to sell dozens of federal properties in Washington state—with absolutely zero consideration for how it will hurt the people who rely on the services provided from these buildings.
“Thoughtlessly selling off these properties will mean veterans in Seattle won’t have an office to go to for help navigating their benefits and eligibility, taxpayers in Southwest Washington will have fewer options for in-person help on their taxes, members of the Yakama Nation won’t have a local Indian Affairs office they can walk into—to name just a few examples.
“Trump and Elon are rich enough that they’ve never had to rely on any of the services the federal government provides and they have no idea what it’s like for people who do—they’re just trying to break government and enrich themselves, and they don’t give a damn about the consequences for regular people.
“I am demanding answers from the Trump administration on what exactly their plans are—right now it is far from clear—and I am pressing for information on how they will ensure continuity of service for the millions of Washingtonians who rely on the services provided in these federal offices and buildings.”
FACT SHEET: The Trump administration has, without providing advance notice and justification to Congress as is required by law, said they are terminating the following leases of federal agencies’ offices and buildings in Washington state:
KING & PIERCE COUNTIES:
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (Department of Health and Human Services), Region 10 Office in Seattle (701 5th Ave): The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has 10 Regional Offices, which serve as the agency’s state and local presence. Regional field staff work closely with Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, health care providers, state governments, CMS contractors, community groups, and others to provide education and address questions—for example, under the last administration, the regional teams conducted a lot of outreach around expanded health care and prescription drug benefits in the Inflation Reduction Act. Region 10 is based in Seattle and serves the entire populations of the states of Washington, Oregon, Alaska, and Idaho.
- Note: the CMS Region 10 Office is no longer listed on DOGE’s wall of receipts for lease terminations but was listed previously.
Small Business Administration, Main District Office, Seattle (2401 4th Ave):
This office is open to the general public and small businesses and is a place they can go for help including starting a business, applying for an SBA loan, obtaining federal grants, getting disaster assistance, and much else. This office serves nearly all of Washington state—with the exception of Clark, Cowlitz, Wahkiakum and Skamania counties, which are served by the Portland District Office—as well as 10 counties in Northern Idaho. The SBA also has an office in Spokane. According to SBA federal data, in 2024, the Seattle District Office in 2024 approved $117 million in 504 program loans for small businesses to finance real estate purchase or renovations, and over $965 million in 7(a) program loans, which provide small businesses with working capital. About $1.4 million in microloans were approved in Washington state, and the average microloan size nationwide was about $16,000. In the aftermath of a November bomb cyclone that caused millions of dollars in damage in the Seattle area, the SBA opened federal assistance applications for homeowners and businesses. Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced it would shutter the Seattle regional office because of Seattle’s protections for immigrants.
Government Accountability Office, Seattle (701 Fifth Avenue): GAO, often called the “congressional watchdog,” is an independent, non-partisan agency that works for Congress. GAO examines how taxpayer dollars are spent and provides Congress and federal agencies with objective, non-partisan, fact-based information to help the government save money and work more efficiently. In its Seattle office, GAO examines federal spending related to Coast Guard, energy programs, aviation, and the Department of Defense, among other issues. Their lease through GSA in the Columbia Tower ends December 2025. They were planning with GSA to move to the Jackson Federal Building to optimize their footprint in a secure federal space at taxpayer savings, but GSA put those plans on hold. GAO’s work yielded $67.5 billion in financial benefits for the federal government in FY 2024—a return of $76 for every dollar invested in it—as well as over 1200 improvements to federal operations and performance.
National Park Service (Department of the Interior), Seattle Unit, Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park (319 2nd Ave S): The Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park in Seattle’s Pioneer Square Historic District features a museum, visitor center, and ranger activity area to tell the story of the Klondike Gold Rush and the growth of Seattle during that time. Rangers here also staff an info desk at the REI flagship store. There is a sister park about the Klondike Gold Rush in Skagway, Alaska. This lease agreement was extended to 2030, making this lease termination likely illegal. 65,000 visitors come to the museum each year.
- Note: the Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park is no longer listed on DOGE’s wall of receipts for lease terminations but was listed previously.
Wage and Hour Division, Tacoma (949 Market Street): The Wage and Hour Division (WHD) helps protect workers and enhance the welfare of Washington state’s workers through outreach, education, and enforcement—providing workers and employers information to ensure that workers know their rights, and employers understand their responsibilities regarding federal laws enforced by Wage and Hour. This office is mainly used by Department of Labor investigators who spend time conducting investigations in the field and use the office as a work station.
Natural Resources Conservation Service (U.S. Department of Agriculture), Puyallup Service Center (1011 E Main) and Renton Service Center (941 Powell Ave SW): The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) provides technical and financial assistance to farmers, ranchers, and landowners to help conserve natural resources, soil, water, and wildlife habitats. These service centers work with landowners, communities, developers, states, local governments, and Tribes to improve natural resources, reduce erosion, degradation, and flood damage, improve water quality, protect and restore watersheds, manage agricultural waste, and provide technical assistance to help producers and communities meet their conservation and business goals. Many NRCS service centers are co-located with Farm Service Agency (FSA) and Rural Development (RD) staff, so people who come to the service centers can also get in-person assistance from USDA staff with FSA and RD programs as well.
NRCS service enters accept walk-in meetings and provide in-person assistance for farmers, producers, and forest landowners, who can make appointments to get assistance with USDA programs. These service centers are also a working space for staff. The most common USDA programs that people reach for assistance with are the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) and the Emergency Watershed Protection (EWP) Program, an emergency recovery program that helps local communities recover after a natural disaster strikes.
OLYMPIA/OLYMPIC PENINSULA:
NOAA (Department of Commerce), Port Angeles Office (115 E Railroad Ave): The Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary’s main office is located at the Port Angeles Wharf in Port Angeles, WA. The office employs 13 NOAA employees who work across various disciplines related to preservation, conservation, and research in the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary, one of North America’s most productive marine ecosystems.
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (Department of Transportation), Olympia (724 Columbia Street NW): This is the Washington Division field office for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), which regulates and provides safety oversight for commercial motor vehicles like large trucks and buses. The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) requires intercity bus providers to register with FMCSA for authorization to interline with other private carriers, similar to federal requirements for interstate transportation services. WSDOT’s coordination with the FMCSA Washington office has been key to securing federal grants, including an FMCSA grant to outfit 11 rest areas and eight stations along I-5, and a grant that funds one employee through FY27 that WSDOT is working with FMCSA to extend. WSDOT also partnered with FMCSA on their Truck Parking Information Management System (PTIMS) project to help address freight parking challenges, including potentially installing PTIMS technology on I-90 where parking challenges have led freight trucks to dangerously park overnight on on/off-ramps and on the shoulders of the Interstate.
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (U.S. Department of Agriculture), Olympia (720 Oleary St NW): The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) protects American agriculture from pests, disease, and invasive species while promoting trade and animal welfare. Some of their most extensive programs include the National Milk Testing Strategy, which facilitates comprehensive H5N1 surveillance of the nation’s milk supply and dairy herds, and the National Animal Disease Preparedness and Response Program, which strengthens U.S. livestock disease preparedness through funding and training.
CENTRAL AND EASTERN WA:
Bureau of Indian Affairs (Department of the Interior), Yakama Agency, Toppenish (401 Fort Rd): Members of the Yakama Nation can get in-person assistance in this office, which helps to helps to ensure the federal government’s trust responsibilities to the Yakama Nation are fulfilled through the provision of direct services through the Department of the Interior. This includes natural resource management (e.g. livestock management, water and forestry resources, environmental protection), social services (e.g. financial management, assistance on Indian Child Welfare Act cases, providing General Assistance funding), recordkeeping, and administrative assistance—including Bureau of Trust Funds Administration, technical assistance, 638 contract administration, records management, local contact for government-to-government consultation, and IT services.
Drug Enforcement Administration, Yakima (2812 Terrace Heights Dr): The Drug Enforcement Administration works with federal, state, local, and Tribal partners to enforce controlled substances laws and regulations to keep our communities safe from public health threats like fentanyl and methamphetamine. There were six positions, including federal law enforcement officers, in this “resident office” as of April 2024.
Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs, Richland (303 Bradley Blvd): The Hanford Resource Center provides assistance to claimants and potential claimants of benefits under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA).
U.S. Geological Survey (Department of the Interior), Washington Water Science Center – Upper Columbia Field Office, Spokane Valley (11103 E Montgomery Dr)
This center helps collect, analyze, and disseminate hydrologic data and information to help manage water resources in the Northwest. This includes groundwater, surface water, water quality, and aquatic ecosystems. Their work helps protect endangered salmon and steelhead, ensure dam operators have the information needed to operate safely, and protects farmers and their crops.
Natural Resources Conservation Service (U.S. Department of Agriculture), Dayton Service Center (531 Cameron St): The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) provides technical and financial assistance to farmers, ranchers, and landowners to help conserve natural resources, soil, water, and wildlife habitats. These service centers work with landowners, communities, developers, states, local governments, and Tribes to improve natural resources, reduce erosion, degradation, and flood damage, improve water quality, protect and restore watersheds, manage agricultural waste, and provide technical assistance to help producers and communities meet their conservation and business goals. Many NRCS service centers are co-located with Farm Service Agency (FSA) and Rural Development (RD) staff, so people who come to the service centers can also get in-person assistance from USDA staff with FSA and RD programs as well.
NRCS service enters accept walk-in meetings and provide in-person assistance for farmers, producers, and forest landowners, who can make appointments to get assistance with USDA programs. Service centers are also a working space for staff.
Forest Service (U.S. Department of Agriculture), Ranger Station, Pomeroy (71 W Main St): This is a ranger station for the Umatilla National Forest. Rangers play a crucial role in protecting natural resources and managing public lands, encompassing tasks like fire prevention, law enforcement, and public support like trails maintenance, patrol duties, and other safety measures.
In addition, the Trump administration has identified a number of buildings in Washington state as “not core to government operations,” indicating it plans to offload these buildings—before abruptly deleting the list. The website now says an updated list is “Coming soon”; the Trump administration has refused to respond to repeated requests for information about the future of these buildings. The buildings listed as “Non-Core Property List” include:
The Henry M. Jackson Federal Building in Seattle (915 2nd Ave) houses many offices and services, including the below (not a comprehensive list). It is the largest federal office building in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.
Note: According to a GSA fact sheet from 2020, 1,900 people work out of the Jackson Federal Building—more recent numbers were not readily available.
- Social Security Administration: This office provides in-person help, by appointment, for people navigating their Social Security benefits, including retirement, disability, survivors, and family benefits.
- Veterans Affairs: The VA Seattle Regional Office provides a wide variety of services to help veterans navigate their benefits and eligibility, including for education, health care, pensions, memorials, and job training. VA staff provide outreach to veterans who are homeless, at risk of homelessness, and former prisoners of war. The Seattle Regional Office also houses Veterans Service Organizations such as the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Paralyzed Veterans of America, and more.
- Internal Revenue Service: The Seattle IRS office houses a number of critical services including the Taxpayer Advocate Service, Automated Collection System, and Accounts Management. At their Taxpayers Assistance Center, taxpayers can receive in-person help for a wide range of things including making payments, setting up installment agreements, assisting preparers with returns, obtaining forms, addressing missing refunds, correcting mistakes in paperwork, getting questions answered, and more.
- U.S. Coast Guard: The District 13 office is the official Coast Guard headquarters for Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon.
- National Labor Relations Board (NLRB): Individuals can file a petition for an election or a charge with the office. The Office in Seattle is the main office for Region 19 of the NLRB, which serves areas in Washington, Alaska, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana and prosecutes labor law violators.
- Department of Education: The Office of Civil Rights in Seattle enforces federal civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination for schools and covers the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, Hawaii, and Nevada.
The Seattle Federal Office Building (909 1st Ave) is across the street from the Jackson Federal Building. Built in 1933, it is on the National Register of Historic Places. GSA recently completed a $25 million exterior restoration project to preserve this historic art deco building, which included replacing the brick façade and more than 700 windows. GSA also recently completed a $13 million dollar project to consolidate and build-out new HUD/Department of Labor office space.
- Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC): This office has jurisdiction over charges from Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho. The vast majority of EEOC’s work here is the enforcement unit—investigators, supervisors, and support staff who are responsible for enforcing federal civil rights laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee because of the person’s race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related conditions, gender identity, and sexual orientation), national origin, age, disability or genetic information. Individuals can schedule an appointment with the office and receive assistance with inquiries regarding filing charges. Approximately 40 people work out of this office who help enforce workers’ rights. What is particularly troubling is that to change the jurisdiction of an office, the EEOC must hold a Commission vote—however, Trump fired two of the EEOC Commissioners, so the EEOC is currently without a quorum.
- Housing and Urban Development (HUD): The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Region 10 office—which supports Washington, Oregon, Alaska, and Idaho—is headquartered here and is co-located with its Seattle Field Office. HUD is required by statute to have at least one field office in each state. Approximately 135 staff, work out of this office and serve as the first point of contact for community concerns regarding HUD, including rental assistance programs, community development and homeless assistance, Tribal housing programs, and enforcement of fair housing laws.
The 1202 Building in Seattle (4735 E Marginal Way S) is home to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers offices serving the Pacific Northwest. The property underwent a $72 million modernization in 2009.
The Vancouver Federal Building (500 W 12th St) houses the IRS Taxpayer Assistance Center, where taxpayers can get in-person assistance and help with questions regarding their taxes. The office serves Skamania, Wahkiakum, Clark, and Cowlitz counties. The building also houses outposts of the federal bankruptcy court and the U.S. Treasury.
The Bonneville Power Administration Headquarters in Portland (905 NE 11th Ave) serves as the headquarters for the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), which employs hundreds of people in Washington state. Most of BPA’s corporate employees work out of this building including all power and power marketing operations.
FDA’s Pacific Regional Laboratory Northwest in Bothell (22201 23rd Dr SE). The FDA ensures the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs, vaccines, biological products, medical devices, food, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation. The success of FDA activities to protect the public’s health often depends on the ability of the Agency’s laboratories to quickly and accurately analyze samples. To prevent the distribution of a product that has been found to be in violation of the law or has foodborne pathogens, FDA uses its nationwide network of laboratories to analyze samples and report results for regulatory action.
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