
As I am increasingly being asked to confirm or dispel rumors or the provenance of an executive order or other document from the Trump administration, I have decided to create this omnibus archival post to Snopesify these things as I determine their truth or falsity. I will NOT be offering my own opinion or thoughts here, rather, as Joe Friday of Dragnet fame said, just the facts. I will send this out any time there is an update.
This is current as of February 15, 2025
DID TRUMP REALLY ORDER THAT THE WORD “FELON” BE BANISHED FROM ALL WHITE HOUSE CONVERSATIONS AND DOCUMENTS?
Late yesterday news of an alleged memo that reads “In light of recent events, until further notice I am directing all staff, operations personnel, cabinet members and White House visitors to stop using the word ‘Felon’ while inside the White House or on White House grounds, whether in conversation or in writing. Failure to comply with this directive will result in immediate expulsion and/or disciplinary action,” went viral.
It is not true, it is a spoof.
But the fact that so many people thought that it could be true is telling, isn’t it?
Here’s the fake memo:
This Alleged Memo is Fake
CAN TRUMP REALLY ORDER PUBLIC SCHOOLS TO END DEI PROGRAMS AND TO STOP TEACHING ABOUT RACISM AND SEXISM?
Absolutely not. Nobody in the Federal government, individual or otherwise, and no Federal agency, can dictate what a public school does or does not teach, nor what programs they can offer. What the Federal government can do is to withhold funds from schools that don’t do what they want, and reward schools that fall in line with what the administration wants with Federal funds. However, generally speaking this funding is the purview of Congress; Congress has what’s referred to as “the power of the purse”. Either way, President Trump’s executive order titled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling” does not have the strength of either law, or Federal funding.
WHY THE COURT ALLOWING TRUMP TO GO FORWARD WITH DEFERRED RESIGNATION IS NOT A LEGAL ‘WIN’ FOR THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE SAYING IT IS
Yesterday (2/12/25) a judge lifted the restraining order that had been in place regarding the Trump administration’s ‘deferred resignation’ program. The administration immediately called it a “win”. Here’s the truth: the Court essentially dismissed the case on a technicality known as “standing”. The court NEVER got to the legal merits of the case, because the plaintiffs (unions) did not have standing.
WHAT STANDING MEANS: Standing is a fairly complex legal requirement to get a case into court at all, but basically in order to be a plaintiff in a lawsuit, so that the lawsuit can proceed and the legal arguments can be presented, you first have to “show the court where it hurts you”. If you can’t show the court that you, the plaintiff, personally are hurt by the defendant’s actions, then you don’t have standing. The unions were not hurt by the deferred resignation order, thus no standing. THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WHETHER DEFERRED RESIGNATION WAS LEGAL OR NOT. So, NOT a win.
FEDERAL GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION EMPLOYEES WHO DON’T TAKE “DEFERRED RESIGNATION” THREATENED WITH HEIGHTENED SURVEILLANCE INCLUDING KEYLOGGING
GSA officials speaking to NPR on condition of anonymity, as they were not authorized to speak to the press and “feared reprisal from the Trump administration,” provided the below information which was communicated to them during emergency meetings late last week. That information includes “Deep job cuts”, and the staffers who will be retained “must meet three major criteria: 1. that their job is required by law, 2. that their work is “critical” to the mission and 3. that their work generates revenue.” In addition, staff members were told that their work will be “closely monitored” going forward, and that this would include “monitoring of when employees logged in and out of their devices, when employees swipe in and out of their workspaces and monitoring of all their work chats. They were also told that keylogger software that would keep track of everything the employees typed on their work machines would be installed on their work computers.”
AS OF 2/12/2025 THERE ARE *58* DIFFERENT LAWSUITS MAKING THEIR WAY THROUGH THE COURTS AGAINST THE ACTIONS OF THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION, WITH MANY MORE TO COME!
From Inspectors General to Federal employees to agencies affected by the freeze on Federal funds and the taking down of Federal webpages, and many, many more, there are so many lawsuits against the Trump administration now making their way through the court system. It would seem impossible to keep up with them all, but that’s exactly what the good folks over at Just Security are doing! You can see for yourself by going to their Legal Challenges to Trump Administration Actions Litigation Tracker
FIRED INSPECTOR GENERALS SUE TRUMP TO GET JOBS BACK TO START OVERSEEING FEDERAL ACTIVITY AGAIN
Inspector generals (IGs) are the watchdogs which oversee Federal agencies and actions to detect and prevent fraud, waste, and abuse. They also promote efficiency and effectiveness. (See an irony here?) Each Federal agency or office includes an inspector general charged with identifying, auditing, and investigating fraud, waste, abuse, embezzlement and mismanagement of any kind within the executive department. So, the firing of the Inspector Generals is troubling to say the least. It is also, they claim in their lawsuit, illegal, as the President is required to inform Congress and also the White House “ignored regulations around their removal that existed to protect them from political interference and retribution.”
DOES IMMUNITY PROTECT PRESIDENT TRUMP IF HE DEFIES A COURT ORDER?
President Trump and Vice President JD Vance have indicated that they will simply refuse to comply with court orders with which they don’t agree. I’m getting a lot of questions asking “Doesn’t the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on presidential immunity allow Donald Trump to refuse to follow court orders?” In a word, no. First, in the history of our country this has never been tested, because that enhanced presidential immunity from the Supreme Court isn’t even a year old. So while I am a lawyer, law professor and dean emeritus, and I author and construe legislation, nobody, including me, can do anything but offer an educated opinion about this. Got that? Ok, I’ve devoted an entire article to it, which you can read here.
JUDGE ORDERS TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TO RESTORE WEBPAGES AND HEALTH DATA AT CDC, HHS, AND FDA
Finding that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits (meaning likely to win their case), Federal District Judge John D. Bates ordered the Trump administration to restore the webpages and health data that the administration had stripped from the Health and Human Services (HHS), CDC, and FDA websites. Said Judge Bates, “It bears emphasizing who ultimately bears the harm of defendants’ actions: everyday Americans, and most acutely, underprivileged Americans, seeking healthcare.
CAN TRUMP REALLY ORDER PUBLIC SCHOOLS TO STOP TEACHING ABOUT RACISM, SEXISM, CRITICAL RACE THEORY, AND DEI?
In a word, no. He can’t. Public schools are not Federal entities and so are therefore not under Federal or the president’s control. Public schools are created and governed by state and local entities. A president has zero authority over what public schools do. However, what he can do is withhold Federal funds from public schools who don’t toe the party line. And, in fact, that’s exactly what his executive order does. You can read that executive order here.
This is actually a very good example of the need to separate facts from misinformation, and why this article exists. There are a lot of rumours flying around saying that the administration is ordering public schools to stop teaching about certain things “by dictating what they can and cannot teach about topics such as systemic racism, white privilege, and gender identity.” (That misleading quote is from Chalkbeat.) See how that works? The Federal government cannot “dictate what they can and cannot teach.” The Federal government can choose to withhold funds.
JUDGE THREATENS MUSK AND TRUMP WITH CRIMINAL CONTEMPT FOR VIOLATING ORDER TO UNFREEZE FEDERAL FUNDS
Said the judge: “Persons who make private determinations of the law and refuse to obey an order generally risk criminal contempt even if the order is ultimately ruled incorrect.”
We knew he would violate the courts’ orders. It’s a game of legal chicken. However, violating an order of a Federal court is very serious, and if Trump and the administration continue to fail to follow the courts’ orders, the next step is them being charged with contempt – maybe even criminal contempt, which carries with it severe penalties, including jail time. And even if the administration appeals these court orders, the restraining order ordering them to unfreeze the Federal funding remains in effect during the pendency of the appeal.
Did a Judge Really Order Elon Musk and DOGE to Stop Accessing Americans’ Personal Information and to Destroy Any Data That They Already Had?
Yes, as you undoubtedly already know, Elon Musk’s DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) went full speed ahead with diving into the data at the U.S. Treasury, including, it is alleged, the private personal information (PII or ‘personally identifiable information’) of the American people. Friday evening, February 7th, 2025, a Federal judge put a temporary halt to this (temporary until a full hearing could be held), ordering Musk and DOGE to a) cease accessing all such information, and b) to immediately destroy any such data they may have already accessed.
Here’s the judge’s order:
Order to Musk Doge Cease Accessing DestroyDid Trump Really Order the Disbanding of USAID and the Layoff of 2200 USAID Employees, and Did a Judge Really Stop It?
Yes, and yes. On January 20, 2025 Trump issued an executive order, “ReEvaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid” which had the effect of stopping USAID work, and laying off approximately 2200 USAID workers. On February 7, 2025 a Federal judge issued an injunction, temporarily stopping the layoff of the 2200 workers until the court could hear the full case and rule on it.
Did Trump Create a Sovereign Wealth Account for Musk to Drain the Treasury’s Funds Into?
Yes, Trump did sign an executive order to create a “sovereign wealth fund”. That term is not as scary as it sounds – sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) are routinely used in many countries! They are funded by budget surplus, as a way to invest excess capital, the interest of which goes back into the sovereign wealth fund. In fact President Biden worked for several months in an effort to create something very similar.
No, it is not so that Elon Musk can move the entire money content of the treasury into the sovereign wealth fund and then do whatever they want with it. It very specifically is for budget surplus, i.e. excess funds. Now, it is quite possible that after slashing a lot of expenditures, there will actually be excess funds. In fact, they are quite likely counting on that. Whether those funds, if any, are really surplus (or a function of robbing Peter to pay Paul) and will really qualify to go into a sovereign wealth account will likely be a matter for the courts to decide.
Is Trump or Elon Musk Going to Stop Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare payments or other payments to individuals?
No.
Despite the effort at freezing Federal funds, payments to individuals were never part of the attempted (and failed) freeze on Federal funds. And reports I am receiving are that everybody received their payments this week just as always. It is true that the websites for these services were down for a while.
Did DOJ Lawyer Ed Martin Really Deliver a Letter to Elan Musk via Twitter (X) Pledging Protection for DOGE Workers and Saying They Indicted a Communist Chinese Economist Working at the Fed
Yes. On Monday, February 3, 2025, DOJ lawyer “Eagle Ed” Martin posted a letter on DOJ stationary, on his Twitter / X account saying that and more. You can read that letter at the link above, and here it is in PDF form.
ed-martin-letter
Did the Trump Department of Transportation Really Say that the Amount of Federal Transportation Funding to the States Would be Tied in Part to Birth Rates?
Yes.
You can read the PDF below, and you can read my explanation on it here.
Signed-DOT-Order-re_Ensuring-Reliance-Upon-Sound-Economic-Analysis-in-Department-of-Transportation-Policies-Programs-and-Activities
Did Elon Musk Really Gain Access to Everybody’s Social Security Numbers and if so Does it Violate Federal Law USC 522a?
This assertion comes from a Facebook page called “Feminist News” (it may be shared on other social media accounts, the Feminist News one is the one that I was asked about).
First, as of the writing of this, there has been no credible confirmation that Elon Musk actually has or had access to our actual social security numbers, and also, if he did, that our social security numbers were not encrypted. (If anybody can point me to a credible, authoritative source who is in a position to actually know the facts, please let me know!)
Second, the assertion that if he did gain access to our SSNs that it violates USC 522a is likely incorrect. USC 522a deals with Records maintained on individuals, which would cover social security numbers. 522a requires:
(b) Conditions of Disclosure – No agency shall disclose any record which is contained in a system of records by any means of communication to any person, or to another agency, except pursuant to a written request by, or with the prior written consent of, the individual to whom the record pertains, unless disclosure of the record would be
(1) to those officers and employees of the agency which maintains the record who have a need for the record in the performance of their duties.
(2)required under section 552 of this title;
(3)for a routine use as defined in subsection (a)(7) of this section and described under subsection (e)(4)(D) of this section;
(4)to the Bureau of the Census for purposes of planning or carrying out a census or survey or related activity pursuant to the provisions of title 13;
(5)to a recipient who has provided the agency with advance adequate written assurance that the record will be used solely as a statistical research or reporting record, and the record is to be transferred in a form that is not individually identifiable;
(6)to the National Archives and Records Administration as a record which has sufficient historical or other value to warrant its continued preservation by the United States Government, or for evaluation by the Archivist of the United States or the designee of the Archivist to determine whether the record has such value;
(7)to another agency or to an instrumentality of any governmental jurisdiction within or under the control of the United States for a civil or criminal law enforcement activity if the activity is authorized by law, and if the head of the agency or instrumentality has made a written request to the agency which maintains the record specifying the particular portion desired and the law enforcement activity for which the record is sought;
(8)to a person pursuant to a showing of compelling circumstances affecting the health or safety of an individual if upon such disclosure notification is transmitted to the last known address of such individual;
(9)to either House of Congress, or, to the extent of matter within its jurisdiction, any committee or subcommittee thereof, any joint committee of Congress or subcommittee of any such joint committee;
(10)to the Comptroller General, or any of his authorized representatives, in the course of the performance of the duties of the Government Accountability Office;
(11)to the Director of the Congressional Budget Office, or any authorized representative of the Director, in the course of performance of the duties of the Congressional Budget Office;
(12)pursuant to the order of a court of competent jurisdiction; or
(13)to a consumer reporting agency in accordance with section 3711(e) of title 31.
There are any number of those situations under which, in a court, it would likely be found that the action was legal.