Week in Review

IN THE NEWS

• The U.S. Department of Justice launched an investigation of Jerome Powell, Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The investigation reportedly centers on Powell’s testimony about renovations to Federal Reserve office buildings—a pretext, according to Powell. Powell denounced the investigation as a retaliation by the Trump Administration for the Federal Reserve’s refusal to lower interest rates. In a public statement, 13 former officials, including three former Federal Reserve chairs, condemned the investigation as an attack on the Federal Reserve’s independence.
• Senate Republicans blocked a war powers resolution that would have required President Donald J. Trump to obtain congressional authorization before undertaking additional military operations in Venezuela, with the measure failing on a 51–50 vote after Vice President J.D. Vance broke the tie. The resolution’s defeat followed assurance from the Trump administration that there are no U.S. troops in Venezuela and that Congress would be consulted in advance if major military action were contemplated, prompting senators who had previously supported advancing the measure to reverse their positions.
• U.S. Representative Randy Fine (R-Fla.) introduced a bill that would authorize the annexation of Greenland, which Fine called a “vital national security asset.” President Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to absorb Greenland into the United States, either through negotiation or military force. In response, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a bill that would prohibit the use of federal funds to invade NATO allies, while the Prime Minister of Greenland denounced the idea of joining the United States and stressed Greenland’s ties to the European Union.
• The state of Minnesota and cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security over its deployment of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.. The lawsuit requests the removal of 2,000 ICE agents currently in the state and seeks to block the deployment of additional agents. In the lawsuit, Minnesota claimed that the Trump Administration is violating the Tenth Amendment’s protection of state sovereignty. In response, ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons reportedly said ICE’s actions in Minnesota were part of a “lawful law enforcement mission.” Minnesota’s suit follows the killing of Renee Nicole Good, a Minneapolis resident, by an ICE agent last week.
• President Trump stated that he would invoke the Insurrection Act in response to ongoing protests in Minneapolis following the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good. The statute allows the president to deploy military forces domestically to suppress domestic rebellion and violence. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison responded by stating he would challenge such an action in court. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz wrote to President Trump to “stop this campaign of retribution.” Unlike here, in prior uses of the Insurrection Act, deployment occurred at the request of state authorities.
• The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed a lower court decision that ordered the release of Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent U.S. resident and Columbia University graduate who was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ruling 2–1 that federal immigration law stripped the district court of jurisdiction over his challenge to detention. The court held that Khalil must raise his claims through the immigration court system and, if necessary, in a petition for review after a final removal order, rather than through a separate federal lawsuit. Civil liberties groups have criticized his detention as part of a broader crackdown on pro-Palestinian speech.
• A federal judge ordered the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to restore funding to the American Academy of Pediatrics after several grants were terminated last month. These grants represented almost two-thirds of academy’s federal funding and supported programs that include preventing sudden unexpected infant death and improving pediatric care in rural areas. U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell concluded that HHS likely had a retaliatory motive for terminating the grants, noting the academy’s public opposition to the department’s positions on issues such as pediatric vaccines and gender-affirming care. Mike Stuart, the HHS General Counsel, had previously claimed that the academy’s funding no longer aligned with HHS’s “mission or priorities.”
• The Department of Health and Human Services terminated, then reinstated, nearly $2 billion in grants through the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration that support mental health and addiction programs across the country. One termination notice reportedly claimed the reason for the cuts was “to better prioritize agency resources.” The grants supported programs including youth overdose prevention and treatment for substance use disorder. On the day after the cuts, U.S. Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the ranking member of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations, confirmed the grants had been reinstated. No officials from HHS or the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration offered an explanation for the reinstatements.

WHAT WE’RE READING THIS WEEK

• In a recent Brookings Institution article, Scott R. Anderson, a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies Program, and several coauthors assessed the global consequences of the United States’ January 2026 military operation in Venezuela. Anderson and his coauthors warned that the operation creates uncertainty over control of Venezuela’s overseas oil assets, and they contended that the unilateral use of force sidelines Congress and could influence domestic politics ahead of midterm elections. The Anderson team also explained that U.S. economic sanctions alone failed to produce leverage over Venezuela’s regime, emphasizing the limits of economic measures without a broader diplomatic strategy.
• A recent report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) examined oversight by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of medical device recalls. GAO noted that FDA monitors the safety of about 200,000 medical devices, nearly 4,000 of which were recalled between 2020 and 2024. The office observed that using recalled medical devices poses hazards of serious injury or death. GAO found that staff constraints at FDA delayed the termination of recalls. GAO recommended that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services work with FDA to manage staffing for recall oversight more effectively and to assess if FDA should request the authority to require manufacturers to follow its recommendations for certain recall strategies.
• In a recent report, GAO evaluated the potential for artificial intelligence (AI) tools to help federal agencies combat financial fraud. GAO identified various applications of AI: comparing data across federal datasets to identify inconsistencies; recognizing behavioral patterns to predict fraud; and flagging suspicious data for human review. The report, however, identified “mission-critical gaps” in technical AI expertise across agencies that could undermine the effective implementation of these tools. GAO did not list its recommendations for each agency but emphasized that AI tools’ effectiveness depends on high-quality data.

EDITOR’S CHOICE

• In an essay in The Regulatory Review, Timothy D. Lytton, a law professor at Georgia State University, proposed reforms to reduce the spread of pathogens through agricultural water. Lytton explained that FDA, although legally required to establish “science-based minimum standards” of water quality, lacked the necessary data to set a firm threshold. Instead, the agency charged farmers themselves with assessing the need for water quality improvements. Lytton advocated reforms to generate better data and establish a firmer water quality standard, but he also challenged regulators to consider other solutions: for example, vaccinating livestock to stop pathogens from reaching crops or using new sanitation technologies to kill pathogens after crop harvests.