Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic Michigan Sen. Gary Peters are launching a whistleblower portal to combat the Trump administration, according to a letter.
Schumer issued a letter Monday to fellow senators outlining their intentions as Elon Musk’s attempts to cut down the federal bureaucracy and slash spending come under fire.
“Today, I sent a public letter with Ranking Member Gary Peters to federal civil service employees and public servants, announcing Senate Democrats’ launch of a new Whistleblower Portal for individuals to report corruption, abuses of power, and threats to public safety,” the letter reads. (RELATED: Democrats Attempt To Weaponize Funding Freeze To Halt Trump Nominee Russell Vought’s Hearing)
Today, I’m calling on our brave public servants:
I’m launching a new portal for anyone who wants to expose corruption, abuses of power, and threats to public safety with the legal protections of being a whistleblower.https://t.co/pjm1tb4VDt
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) February 10, 2025
“Unwilling to do the hard work of bipartisan governance, President Trump has handed the keys of the Presidency to his cronies, sycophants, and radicals who are hell-bent on pursuing a coordinated agenda … to hollow out the government and cut off critical services to American communities across the country,” Schumer claims in the letter. He alleges that this is intended for the rich to secure more power.
Senate Democrats plan to hold “spotlight” hearings to “expose” the actions of the Trump administration, he adds.
The letter also claims legal action will be taken if necessary. “The Courts are the first line of defense in blocking illegal action of this Administration,” Schumer writes. He points out federal courts have halted the Office of Management and Budget freeze, blocked civil service firings and have prevented access to the Treasury Payment System from members of the Trump administration.
This comes after the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Musk, has begun to gut the federal bureaucracy.
DOGE went after the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), exposing wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars. The agency appropriated more than $40 billion in foreign aid in the 2023 fiscal year, according to the Congressional Research Service.
USAID spent over $80 million on promoting human rights, civic engagement and peace in the Palestinian territories before the Israel-Hamas war began. A group of 17 Republican senators issued a letter in 2021 pressuring the Biden administration to halt funding. They said the payments “have not just failed but have been counterproductive, with the money facilitating terrorist incitement and making its way to terrorists.”
USAID also spent millions on DEI and transgender ideology programs in foreign countries. “It’s probably one out of every three grants is totally insane left-wing nonsense … USAID has always been somewhat left, but when the Biden administration started, you can clearly see a huge uptick in spending,” Parker Thayer, a Capital Research Center researcher focused on federal spending, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Agency funds have gone to sex-change operations in Guatemala, LGTQ inclusivity at Serbian workplaces and transgender clinics in India and Vietnam.
Musk has also been critical of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. He claimed on Feb. 1 that DOGE discovered Treasury officials were told “always to approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups.”
The @DOGE team discovered, among other things, that payment approval officers at Treasury were instructed always to approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups.
They literally never denied a payment in their entire career.
Not even once. https://t.co/kInoGWdw4C
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 1, 2025
The Trump administration and DOGE have also targeted the Department of Education (DOE). Trump is in the process of drafting an Executive Order to terminate the DOE in a move to ensure education is managed by the states.
One third of eighth graders, the largest percentage ever recorded, failed to reach the National Assessment of Educational Progress’ reading benchmark, according to The Nation’s Report Card. (RELATED: Trump Reminds Dems Throwing Hissy Fit Over Education Department That Student Scores Are Abysmal)
During the pandemic, students from the third to eighth grades fell behind in math by more than half a year, a study found.
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