Trump’s new plan to quash leaks

This story appeared in The Logoff, a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life. Subscribe here. Welcome to The Logoff: The Trump administration wants federal employees to sign broad new non-disclosure agreements. Why do this? President Donald Trump and members of his administration have long railed against leakers and media organizations for disclosing information about their actions, ranging from the status of the US-Iran war to FBI Director Kash Patel’s alleged drinking habits in recent months. A general NDA would create a new avenue to quash such disclosures and could deter government employees from making them. The second Trump administration has previously implemented NDAs — and in some cases, polygraph tests — at a smaller scale for employees at the Defense Department and other agencies. What would the NDA cover? Narrowly speaking, the proposed NDA doesn’t do much. According to the Office of Personnel Management, it would “document Federal employees’ acknowledgment of, and agreement to comply with, current legal obligations to safeguard non-public, confidential, or proprietary information.” In context, though, it would be another tool for the Trump administration’s crackdown on leaks. For now, the plan is still in draft form and will need to clear a 30-day public comment period before being implemented. Each agency would then decide whether to use the NDA. What’s the context? The public has often learned useful information about the government’s plans and functioning through the disclosure of the kind of material the NDA seeks to crack down on, both historically and during the current Trump administration. If implemented, it would be yet another step by the Trump administration toward less transparency. What’s the big picture? The story of Trump’s second term has been his personalization of government. His former personal lawyers in senior roles at the Justice Department, a UFC fight on the White House lawn to mark his birthday, his gilded taste overrunning the Oval Office, and much more. Potential NDAs — a fond private-sector tactic calibrated for employees Trump sees as serving him, rather than the American people — are yet another expression of the same impulse. And with that, it’s time to log off… I am not personally a New York Knicks fan — my specific basketball fandom is in abeyance until we get the Seattle SuperSonics back — but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate some sports joy from an extremely long-suffering franchise, and you can, too. I enjoyed Rodger Sherman’s newsletter on the Knicks’ dominant journey to the NBA Finals, as well as this piece from Defector’s Israel Daramola. Thanks for reading, have a great evening, and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!