Doge tried to embed staffers in criminal justice non-profit, says group | Trump administration

Staff at Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) demanded to meet with an independent non-profit to discuss embedding a team within their organization, according to the non-profit, stating that refusal to take the meeting would mean a violation of Donald Trump’s executive order empowering Doge.

Doge staff member Nate Cavanaugh emailed the Vera Institute of Justice, a criminal justice reform non-profit that is independent from the government, on 11 April to demand the meeting, according to a copy of the email. Vera’s staff was confused by the request, as its government funding had been canceled a week prior, but agreed to a call which they said took place on Tuesday.

The demand to meet with an independent non-profit organization and potentially embed its staffers there represents an expansion of Doge’s already sprawling reach and coincides with Musk issuing public attacks against non-governmental organizations. Doge has previously gutted government institutions such as USAID and congressionally funded non-profit USIP, but its meeting with Vera marks a new targeting of a wholly independent organization.

“We have watched this administration try to kneecap academia, law firms, media, and now they are coming for the non-profit sector,” said Insha Rahman, Vera’s vice-president of advocacy and partnerships.

Vera’s programs focus on a variety of criminal justice issues and improving conditions for incarcerated people, as well as supporting mental health and crisis services. Its annual budget of around $45m comes primarily from private donors – although as is common with non-profits, it has also received federal grants. Vera has also been a repeated target for rightwing media outlets that attack its approach to criminal justice reform, which Rahman believes is one of the reasons that Doge staffers may have targeted the organization.

When Vera’s legal counsel then held a 20-minute phone call with two members of Doge this week, Rahman says they informed the Doge staffers that the organization had already stopped receiving government funding. The Department of Justice had abruptly canceled $5m in contracts for the non-profit earlier that month. The Doge staffers did not know Vera’s funding had been canceled, according to Rahman, and took back their request for information on Vera’s contracts while refusing to answer questions on what gave them the authority to investigate Vera in the first place.

“Doge staffers Nick Cavanaugh and Justin Aimonetti informed us of its plan to assign a Doge team to the Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) as part of its larger plan to assign Doge teams to ‘every institute or agency that has congressional monies appropriated to it’,” Vera said in a statement. “When asked about the legal standing for Doge to investigate an independent nonprofit, Aimonetti, who is an attorney, deferred.”

Musk has claimed without evidence that there is widespread, pervasive fraud among NGOs receiving government contracts and that leaders of “fake NGOs” should be thrown in prison. Vera stated that it is going public with the incident out of concern that the Trump administration and Doge is planning to target other non-profits that do not conform to their ideology.

“The Democrat government-funded NGO scam might be the biggest theft of taxpayer money ever,” Musk posted on X last month.

Although Doge walked back its attempt to question and potentially embed staffers in Vera after learning that its funding had been cut, the organization is warning other non-profits that receive funding to prepare for similar incursions into their operations.

“We are sharing this information broadly with other nonprofits that receive federal funding – so they can be aware of Doge’s plan to assign teams to investigate their operations,” Vera’s statement said. “We also are exposing this latest intimidation tactic targeting private, independent mission-driven organizations and undermining civil society.”

The White House denied that Doge plans to embed within non-profits, according to a statement given to the Washington Post, which first reported Doge’s meeting with Vera. Instead, a White House spokesperson told the Post that Doge plans to “specifically look” at non-profits that receive large amounts of federal funding.