Jennica Pounds Data Repub

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2nd 8 26 om raising issue

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31 REF OF CONTRACTOR ORG?

SEE TERROR BS, ANTIFA

BTB 9 26

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MMA

Laura Ingraham claims there is a leftist “plan” to “overthrow” the government. What in the world is she talking about?

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 10/22/26

Republicans are panicking and right-wing media are desperately churning out “fear porn” as polls continue to point to a devastating midterm environment for their party with less than two weeks remaining before election day. From presidential rallies to Fox News primetime, MAGA stalwarts are trying to bolster their party’s turnout by warning Republican voters that if they do not go to the polls, their freedom and very lives may be at stake.

That increasingly deranged environment is generating a level of demagoguery that at times becomes simply absurd.

Fox host Laura Ingraham, for example, announced on her show Wednesday that if Democrats win control of the U.S. House and Senate, a leftist cabal of activists, journalists, “top former staffers” in the Obama and Biden administrations, and even Democratic governors will carry out a plot to force President Donald Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act as a mechanism to “dissolve” the U.S. Constitution and “crush their enemies.”

The argument that the left is planning to destroy the federal government if and only if Democrats triumph in the midterms makes a lot of sense as an attempt to scare Republicans to the polls but none at all as a plot in its own right.

Questions abound: Why in the world is this plan only enacted after Democrats achieve actual congressional power for the first time in Trump's second term? If there is clear evidence of a sweeping plot including “top” Obama and Biden officials, why is the best example Ingraham can point to former Obama White House ethics lawyer Norm Eisen talking about protecting the Constitution with legal action? Why does the plan revolve around getting Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act — an outcome MAGA pundits like Ingraham herself have been lobbying for and Democrats have publicly opposed?

Lastly, why does Ingraham think this grand conspiracy is underway? We don’t really know — she cited no direct evidence for what on-screen Fox graphics described as “The Left’s Plan To Overthrow The U.S. Gov’t.”

But Ingraham’s claims align with a conspiracy theory that Jennica Pounds, a right-wing influencer who goes by the pseudonym DataRepublican and briefly worked for the Defense Department this year, floated over the weekend based on videos of activist meetings she obtained. Pounds’ claim of a leftist “operational plan” seems to be much less than advertised — but has nonetheless been trumpeted this week by prominent MAGA figures like Glenn Beck, Vince Coglianese, Jesse Kelly, and podcaster-turned-deputy-FBI-director-turned-podcaster Dan Bongino.

It’s the sort of wildly incendiary claim that should demand copious evidence before making it to the airwaves of a major news outlet — but Fox is a MAGA propaganda network devoted to Republican electoral victory at any cost.

Unpacking Ingraham’s evidence-free claim of a leftist plot

Ingraham built her conspiracy-minded edifice on a faulty foundation.

She began her opening monologue on Wednesday by using a deceptively cropped video snippet of Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) to allege that the former CIA officer had promised “punishment for young conservatives.”

While many on the right have tried to generate outrage based on that false interpretation, Slotkin had actually been discussing how providing “accountability” for mid-level enablers of the Trump administration’s corruption could disincentivize similar behavior in the future.

From there, Ingraham pivoted to arguing that Democratic victories would hasten the downfall of the republic. “If voters give Democrats control of the House and even the House and the Senate, the punishment that Slotkin alludes to will be severe,” she claimed, adding that such punishment would be “meted out not only against individuals and corporations that work with Trump, but against the democratic system itself.”

After explaining that an unnamed leftist “they” intend to “force Trump's hand and use Paris riots, perhaps, as their guide,” Ingraham laid out her understanding of the “plan.”

“Now, the radical left's current thinking is that if they're able to mobilize in huge numbers in the streets, President Trump, if it's nationwide, will decide to invoke the Insurrection Act, which allows him to deploy the U.S. military for domestic law enforcement,” she said. “Activists will then claim widespread abuses as the military struggles to restore law and order. Then the press will collaborate with activists, amplifying their wild claims with video snippets on social media.”

“Then blue state governors — this is their dream — seeing the chaos, will unite to try to override federal authority, take over federal functions, and eventually even rewrite our Constitution or just dissolve it altogether,” she continued.

Ingraham went on to claim that “this scenario is being openly discussed among top former staffers of Obama and Biden, former government employees of agencies like USAID, and of course community organizers” — but provided no examples of anyone actually discussing such a scheme.

Instead, Ingraham claimed that the plot’s adherents say they’re “reforming the government” rather than “overthrowing it,” adding, “former USAID staffer Danielle Reiff makes it sound like utopia.” Ingraham then played a brief clip of Reiff appearing on a December edition of Dr. Paul Zeitz’s Revolutionary Optimism Podcast and saying: “You have to reform your institutions so that it, you know, that becomes the foundational framework for society. And so, we're going to have to, if we want to live in peace and deeper democracy, reform our legal frameworks to foster collaboration across divides and unity and diversity.”

The Fox host later described Eisen as “one of the godfathers of this effort” because he “advances the fraudulent claims that democracy is in crisis.” But she provided no evidence actually linking him to the supposed “plan,” instead airing a clip in which Eisen is asked if he thinks of his work as part of a “war” and replies, “Yes — peaceful, lawful, vigorous battle, you do have to think of it in those terms to stop what Donald Trump began after the 2020 election and has continued a coup against the Constitution.”

Ingraham concluded her monologue by suggesting that “the real tyrant” is not Trump but “Democrats like Slotkin, who want to remake the government to crush their enemies.”

Ingraham then brought on Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO), telling him, “These conversations, this playbook, is real. They might not be able to get there in the next year or so, but they have that plot cooking.”

Schmitt replied in part that “their march through the institutions is almost complete” and “the goal is absolute and total control” with “no room for dissent.”

“When you go vote, there’s a lot of issues that are on the table that you’re voting on, but I think a central issue is what the Democrats are willing to do with power,” he added. “They’re telling us all over again, and I think it’s terrifying and why this election is so important.”

Video

Citation

From the October 21, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle.

What “conversations”? What “playbook”? Who is supposed to be behind this “plan,” and how developed is it?

Ingraham didn’t say.

Where we think this is coming from

Jennica Pounds is a MAGA influencer with nearly 1 million followers who posts online under the moniker DataRepublican and is perhaps best known for accusing a Trump administration official who was attempting to hand her a scoop of trying to entrap her to commit a crime. Following that August debacle, she and the Pentagon disclosed that she had been secretly working as a special government employee for the Defense Department (according to Pounds, she applied for a credential as a “journalist” in the Pentagon press corps, received a press pass in April, held it until June, and joined the administration in July).

Soon after her Pentagon role became public, Pounds launched a website mapping left-wing groups called “DSA Explorer.” And on Sunday, Pounds (“fresh off her brief stint as a Special Government Employee with the Pentagon,” according to RedState’s writeup), claimed online that she had obtained access to a vast trove of transcripts and recordings of online meetings of progressive activists.

She then laid out a narrative that closely resembled what Ingraham ran with on Wednesday:

You've heard that the DSA is proposing structural reforms to America, including abolishing the Senate and imposing term limits.

What you not have heard is - there is an operational plan to put it all into action. If the Democratic Party sweeps 2026, then DSA will become “foot soldiers” in constant clashes with the administration to cross a “red line” or invoke a “doomsday scenario” - meaning, President Trump invokes the Insurrection Act, probably sometime in 2027.

Then, a lot of coordinated responses kick off, including delegitimizing the federal government itself and handing that legitimacy to Democratic governors. 2028 then becomes a vote on whether to keep America governance as-is or to burn it all down to appease a “young and brown” demographic.

But the 1-minute video snippet Pounds appended to her post does not show anything like a well-developed “operational plan” to do anything at all, much less one involving DSA “foot soldiers” plotting to force an invocation of the Insurrection Act.

Indeed, Pounds appears to be taking a series of disaggregated remarks from different people at different calls and events and weaving them together into a single coherent apocalyptic narrative. By her own subsequent admission, “almost nobody knows the ‘grand plan’ so to speak,” the various parties “simply agree to play a role.”

The video attached to Pounds’ original post, titled “April 10, 2026 - R2T core team call,” shows Reiff and Zeitz, from the podcast clip Ingraham aired, on an online video call with three other individuals. Zeitz recounts a recent meeting he and Reiff had with more influential figures at Governors Safeguarding Democracy, described as “a forum that convenes Democratic governors,” to discuss their “work around the emergency scenario planning.”

Reiff then says that they were asked in the meeting to develop “a panel of a couple of people who could talk to the governors, who could do a briefing for the governors and walk them through like the doomsday scenario and help them think through what their options are as a response,” and adds that such an opportunity would be “a huge breakthrough for us.”

That video and others Pounds released triggered a firestorm on the right, with influencers and podcasters largely adopting her narrative.

But Tim Pool, of all people, suggested she’d gotten out over her skis.

“Many people have asked me my thoughts on this and asked me what I think is going on, and I’ve said, listen, DataRepublican, with all due respect, coming out and just saying I have this data is not enough to launch a story,” he said on his show on Tuesday. “I cannot just come out and say hey, guys, someone says they’ve seen stuff the DSA is doing.”

That’s apparently a higher standard than Fox requires — because if Ingraham were aware of hard evidence of the leftist plot to destroy the country she claimed exists, she surely would have aired it. Instead, her coverage leaves so many obvious questions unanswered that it only emphasizes just how frenzied the network has become as it tries to concoct enough “fear porn” to save the GOP from electoral devastation.

Is it possible Pounds has a recording of random activists proposing something resembling her above plan? Sure, but that wouldn't be evidence of a grand conspiracy involving people with actual power and influence — and says nothing about the plausibility of such a plot, which in this author's opinion is frankly nonsensical.

Fox News is peddling election “fear porn” about Democrats to rescue Republicans

10/16/26

Trump and Vance attack Republicans “whining” about Vivek Ramaswamy's ad against Amy Acton. Here are the conservative media personalities who criticized it.

10/22/26

Peter Navarro rails at Fox News personalities: “Turn Fox off”

10/20/26

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NEWSWEEK Aug 28, 2026 THIS IS DIFF THAN PREV NW

Dan Gooding

Associate News Editor

A Defense Department employee known online as the conservative influencer "DataRepublican" has launched a website mapping the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and a broader network of left-wing activist organizations, raising new questions about political targeting, government ethics, and the Trump administration's increasingly confrontational stance toward some activist groups.

The website, called DSA Explorer, was launched Friday and describes itself as an interactive map showing organizations and individuals connected to the DSA and what it calls a wider "anti-imperialist solidarity network." The site says it draws from publicly available information and includes a disclaimer warning that some relationships shown are based on analytical inferences rather than established affiliations.

A Pentagon official confirmed to Newsweek that Pounds works for the department as "a Special Government Employee," and said the department had nothing further to add.

Pounds was previously serving as an accredited journalist, but the Department of Defense told CBS News that she had not renewed her accreditation in June.

"This is a personal project created by myself," DataRepublican told Newsweek in a statement. "This is not a government funded or government sanctioned project. The Pentagon is not involved in any way. I’ve been doing this kind of work for some time, a fact that is not difficult to discover."

The launch has already drawn criticism from some observers, who argue that creating databases of political activists risks facilitating harassment or intimidation, while supporters are likely to characterize the project as a transparency effort built from publicly available information.

Newsweek reached out to the DSA for comment Friday afternoon.

What Is DSA Explorer?

DSA Explorer presents users with a network-style map of organizations, movements and individuals tied to democratic socialist, anti-imperialist and left-wing political causes.

According to the website, the project contains hundreds of connected nodes and more than 1,000 relationships. Users can click through organizations and view links the site says connect groups and individuals across broad ideological movements.

One connection mapped on the site, for Eugene Puryear, describes him as a founding member of the organization and a former Vice-Presidential candidate in 2008 and 2016, but also as a "potential unregistered foreign agent," with a link to Russia. He previously worked as a radio show host in the country.

Criss-crossing lines on the chart also link up individuals to organizations known to have funded DSA training or initiatives, including the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation and The People's Forum, and provide links to sources purported to back the various claims made.

The site's disclaimer stresses that it is intended for "research, educational, and journalistic purposes only" and warns users not to rely on the data without independent verification.

The website states that inferred ideological relationships are "analytical interpretations, not statements of fact" and says it does not allege unlawful conduct by any listed organization or individual.

DNC Chair Ken Martin Won’t Let DC Insiders Define the Democratic Party

Who Is Jennica Pounds?

Pounds became a prominent figure in conservative online circles under the DataRepublican pseudonym. She built a large social media following through posts examining nonprofit organizations, government spending and political networks.

In February 2025, Pounds publicly revealed herself as the person behind the DataRepublican account.

At the time, she was widely known among supporters of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and had attracted national attention for her online investigations into government and nonprofit institutions.

Her profile has risen again in recent days after reports revealed she is now employed as a special government employee within the Defense Department.

Pounds has also been at the center of a public dispute involving State Department Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers over documents that became the subject of an online controversy, a clash that helped draw renewed attention to her government role.

Why the Site Is Launching Now

The timing is notable because DSA Explorer arrives as the Trump administration has intensified its rhetoric toward what officials describe as radical left-wing activism.

The administration has increasingly focused attention on anti-Israel demonstrations, pro-Palestinian activism and organizations it argues support political extremism. Recent reporting has described broader efforts by federal officials to investigate or scrutinize networks associated with what some administration figures label "far-left" activism.

Against that backdrop, critics are likely to view DSA Explorer as part of a wider effort to map and monitor political movements on the left. Supporters, meanwhile, may argue that the site simply compiles information already available in public records and on organizational websites.

The website itself does not claim any connection to the federal government and contains extensive disclaimers about accuracy and interpretation.

Questions About Government Ethics

The emergence of DSA Explorer is also likely to generate questions about potential conflicts between government employment and highly visible political advocacy projects.

Is This Article Fair?Select an option to vote. You can change it anytime.

While there is currently no evidence that the site was created using government resources or as part of Pounds' official duties, her government connection may draw questions over whether government employees, particularly special government employees, should face any restrictions regarding outside political activities, public advocacy efforts or projects involving the collection and publication of politically sensitive information.

For now, DSA Explorer has added a new dimension to an already growing debate about online political intelligence gathering, government transparency and how far administrations should go in scrutinizing ideological movements in the digital age.

Polls Show 5 Democratic Socialist Positions Have Traction With Republicans

Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Jason Lemon and Gray R. Thomas

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new antifa hit list

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HACK --> TRUMPBLOG HEADER?

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GUK 9 26

Inside the US state department, critics are still attacking a shuttered office established to counter foreign propaganda. Now, some of its work is also being resumed

Joseph Gedeon in Washington

Sun 30 Aug 2026

A botched leak of purportedly explosive government files to a prominent conservative online personality was supposed to offer proof of what the Trump administration and its allies have long alleged: that a little-known office inside the US state department, created to fight foreign propaganda, had secretly become a tool for domestic censorship.

Two former high-ranking officials at the Global Engagement Center (GEC), a target of Republican ire that lost its funding in 2024 and was disbanded after Donald Trump’s return to office in 2025, say the documents show nothing of the kind.

Instead, they argue, the files are a symptom of a protracted and bitter political fight over an office that spent nearly a decade tracking and countering foreign influence operations, particularly from Russia, China and Iran.

Trump administration shutters US office countering foreign disinformation

And the state department is now resuming some of this work in other parts of its operation, including plans – laid out in a proposal reviewed by the Guardian – to pay social media influencers across south-east Asia as part of an $11m campaign to counter Chinese propaganda.

Sarah Rogers, the state department’s undersecretary for public diplomacy, provided the so-called “GEC files” to Jennica Pounds, a rightwing online data analyst known as DataRepublican – only for Pounds to claim earlier this month she was leaked the documents as part of a bid to “entrap” her.

Rogers, who denied this claim, then published the files herself, claiming officials inside the center “betrayed their stated mission”. The files included a 2022 GEC report on “gendered disinformation”, a flashpoint in the culture wars.

“These guys have consistently misrepresented what the GEC did, and this was a great example of that,” said Daniel Kimmage, who served as the center’s principal deputy coordinator and acting coordinator from its founding in 2017 until its complete dissolution in 2025. His own congressional testimony was included in the leaked files.

Kimmage and Carrie Goux, a Joe Biden appointee and the center’s former acting deputy coordinator, say nothing in the material shows the GEC, whose mandate was explicitly foreign-facing, ever turned its tools on Americans.

“If the smoking gun was a gendered disinformation report, that feels like they came up short,” Goux said. “There seems to be absolutely nothing here.”

Weaponization

The dispute is the latest chapter in a years-long campaign by conservatives to portray the GEC as part of a broader effort by the US government and technology companies to suppress rightwing speech.

Republican congressmen including Michael McCaul, former chair of the House foreign affairs committee, argued in a July 2024 letter that the GEC was “at best indifferent to, and at worst complicit in” stretching the definition of disinformation to “censor” conservative speech in the US.

Trump’s return to the presidency drew this view into the heart of the federal government. The center was abolished in 2025, and what remained of its work scattered across the state department.

Much of that Republican-led campaign centered on how the GEC had funded the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a UK-based non-profit that rates media outlets by how likely they are to spread disinformation, to help monitor propaganda in Asia. But in 2022 the GDI separately published its own study of the US media market that rated several conservative outlets, including Newsmax, One America News and the New York Post, as high-risk – a finding its critics have cited ever since as evidence that a foreign-facing office had funded a group meddling in domestic politics.

The question raised by the files leaked this month is narrower, however: whether they show the GEC itself ran a domestic censorship operation. Kimmage and Goux insist they do not.

Kimmage said his own congressional testimony, which Rogers included in the leak, had been selectively read. “If you look at the transcript, [the question was], ‘Does GEC take positions on US outlets?’ And I said, ‘No, it didn’t,’” he said.

Rogers “tried to twist that into something that it wasn’t”, according to Kimmage. “For people who talk a lot about weaponization of government, this seems a lot closer to the weaponization of government and psy-opping of the American people than anything that the emails from the Global Engagement Center show.”

‘False’ allegations

Pounds, the rightwing analyst, is not a neutral bystander. Days after the documents were released, she disclosed that she had been quietly working since July as a special government employee for the defense department.

On Friday, Pounds released a database to track US citizens in the Democratic Socialists of America. The Pentagon did not respond when asked whether the database is included in her scope of government work.

Both former senior officials, Kimmage and Goux, draw a sharp line between the accusations made by critics of the GEC and what the center actually did. “We were not ever looking at Americans,” Goux said. “We were looking at the foreign actors and what their [tactics, techniques and procedures] … are doing overseas.”

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The GEC “did what its congressional mandate charged it to do, which is to fight foreign [misinformation and] disinformation”, added Kimmage. “This allegation that it’s censoring Americans is false.”

During its almost decade-long existence, the center published eight detailed public reports on Russian and Chinese information operations and ran four major exposures of Russian disinformation campaigns – in Latin America, Africa and Moldova, and on the Kremlin-linked network RT.

Its largest such operation traced a Kremlin-backed effort called the “African Initiative”, which the center said had recruited local journalists, bloggers and public figures to spread conspiracy theories about US-funded health programs across the continent.

In January 2024, the GEC helped broker an international pact on countering foreign state disinformation that eventually drew more than two dozen government signatories, among them Moldova, Spain, Estonia, Poland and Finland – a framework its backers hoped other countries would use to build their own version of the office.

A 2022 inspector general review found the GEC “generally effective” at supporting counter-disinformation programs overall, while flagging weaknesses in its internal controls, contractor oversight and strategic planning. That record was enough to sustain bipartisan support: senators Rob Portman, a Republican, and Chris Murphy, a Democrat, repeatedly pushed to fund and strengthen the center, and its authorization survived multiple renewal fights before House Republicans, increasingly focused on the domestic-speech question, declined to extend it again in 2024.

That mandate cost roughly $61m per year. The GEC employed about 120 people before Congress declined to reauthorize it, letting the office lapse at the end of 2024. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, later folded what remained of its work into a new counter foreign information manipulation and interference office, framing the closure as an end to wasteful, censorious government overreach.

Trust exercise

Now, less than a year after the GEC shut down, a proposal reviewed by the Guardian shows the state department preparing to pay up to 30 online influencers across 11 countries in south-east Asia $2,500 apiece as part of an $11m, multi-year campaign to counter Chinese propaganda.

The project, which would be operated by the US Mission to ASEAN, has three parts: a $5m messaging campaign, a $3m program training influencers and journalists to counter Chinese propaganda, and a $3m trip bringing about 180 participants to studios in Washington and Houston “for intensive collaboration, studio production and first-hand engagement with US institutions and creators”.

The proposal’s planning materials describe the ideal recruit as starting from a “welcoming” position of what one document calls the “rejecting-affirming continuum”: someone not yet sold on the US, but not hostile either. As participants move through the accelerator, the materials say, exposure to evidence of US commitment in the region and training in spotting propaganda from China (which has reportedly invested billions of dollars in disinformation efforts globally) is meant to carry them toward the “affirming” end of that scale, publicly backing closer ties with Washington on trade, tech standards and the South China Sea.

The document cited the rightwing analyst and new Pentagon special government employee, Jennica Pounds, the DataRepublican, as an ideal model to seek out in other recruits abroad.

Contacted for comment, the state department declined to directly address questions about the documents released by Rogers, the influencer proposal, the department’s current foreign influence programs and whether other regions are being targeted as well.

A state department official said: “Undersecretary Rogers has been clear that the department will continue to confront censorship, anti-American propaganda and coercive influence directly while demonstrating the enduring advantages of freedom, accountability and open communication.”

Meanwhile, the office of policy, planning and resources for public diplomacy (R/PPR) was separately shopping for commercial help with a similar mission this spring. A government filing from May 2026 shows the R/PPR requesting information from vendors on software that can mine open-source data, map “adversarial propaganda influence networks” and detect deepfakes.

That apparent contradiction is not lost on the GEC’s former staff.

“Are they trying to re-create it? Probably,” Goux said. “But now they’re spending a lot more tax dollars doing that, trying to get contractors to do some of the stuff that we were doing.”

Goux put the broader cost in plainer terms still. “The US has lost their seat at the table to do that, and that’s unfortunate,” she said. “I hope we can gain it back, but we’re losing trust too, and that’s significant.”

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INTERCEPT 9 26

It was a bad week for the Autistici/Inventati collective.

On August 26, the State Department announced far-reaching sanctions against the Italian collective, which provides web-hosting services to a swath of the international far left. The U.S. government categorized A/I, as it’s also known, as a “specially designated global terrorist” and accused it of being an “extremist group that builds and operates the digital infrastructure for violent Antifa cells.”

A/I maintains digital infrastructure utilized by thousands of leftists and left-wing organizations across the globe, including anonymous email accounts and servers powering its NoBlogs.org hosting platform. The designation could force many of the sites offline — threatening much of what the A/I Collective has built.

Two days later, the site came under a different kind of attack. Hackers took aim at the NoBlogs site itself. A cyberattacker gained access to the platform, vandalizing its homepage and potentially accessing internal user data.

For far-right hackers and internet trolls, this was a moment for celebration. Just two minutes after the vandalized homepage was captured by an internet archive, the attack was publicized on X by someone using the handle “AstraRCE” and soon promoted by prominent far-right accounts, including “DataRepublican,” the online moniker of Jennica Pounds.

Until June, Pounds was a member of the Pentagon press corps — famous mostly for trolling the left — but allowed her credentials to expire at the end of the month. In late August, it was revealed that Pounds had been employed by the Pentagon since July, as part of a larger operation launched by the federal government to recruit right-wing influencers into jobs at President Donald Trump’s Department of War.

The relationship between DataRepublican and AstraRCE goes back through several prominent hacks of the left. The pair have a long and involved history of posting to each other about hackers’ exploits online, raising questions about the relationship between a Trump administration employee and an anonymous online personality posting real-time updates on hacks against the left.

“That is a line that is always worth noting and ringing the alarm bell when crossed.”

DataRepublican and AstraRCE are part of a wider circle with huge followings that are often the first to mention hacks against left-wing digital infrastructure. They publish screenshots, share each other’s posts, offer snide commentary, and congratulate their associates — messages that frequently verge into bestowing credit for the hacks.

The federal government’s support for an influencer who praises domestic hacking efforts would mark a major escalation in the Trump administration’s crackdown on dissent, said Harlo Holmes, the chief security programs officer at Freedom of the Press Foundation.

“It’s the difference between open-source intelligence, that is often used in surveillance, and ever increasingly used in surveillance, and actually jumping into people’s machines,” Holmes said. “That is a line that is always worth noting and ringing the alarm bell when crossed.”

Trump Goes After Anonymous Email Provider in Italy. The Real Target Is Free Speech in the U.S.

Though members of the A/I Collective weren’t able to attribute the hack to anyone, the cyberattack would eventually achieve its apparent aim. Beset by the pressure of terrorism sanctions, a hostile cyberattack, and continued scrutiny from the U.S. government, the group announced on September 6 that, after 25 years, it would disband.

“We cannot engage in a fight or expose ourselves to manipulations that threaten the lives of these people and their loved ones, leaving them at the mercy of autocrats, fascists, and agencies that take extra-legal courses of action,” the group wrote in a statement. “The Autistici/Inventati collective is shutting down and will soon discontinue all of the services we provide.”

Publicizing NoBlogs Hack

DataRepublican frequently publishes reports, visualizations, and data leaks that target leftist groups involved in protests and activism across the country.

Before Pounds’s assignment at the Department of War, DataRepublican regularly posted inside information about hacks, nodding to the involvement of other far-right social media personalities, among them AstraRCE.

DataRepublican and AstraRCE were the first people to publicize the NoBlogs hack online. Taking a celebratory tone, they linked to and replied to one another’s post. In one instance, AstraRCE claimed apparent inside knowledge about the federal government’s possession of internal user data from NoBlogs. DataRepublican confirmed the claim.

AstraRCE’s initial X post about the hack showed a screenshot of the vandalized NoBlogs homepage, which now displayed a message that said, “All user data has been saved and given to the United States government” — alongside an altered banner that read “TRUMPBLOGS.” AstraRCE later offered a mocking congratulations to NoBlogs for its “rebrand.”

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Just four minutes after AstraRCE pointed to the screenshot of the hack, DataRepublican’s X account reposted the image, alongside a caption characterizing NoBlogs as a “platform shared by Antifa and far-left Marxists.”

“The State Department designed them as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist group yesterday,” DataRepublican wrote. “And now … they’re TrumpBlogs.”

Later, DataRepublican’s website published a visualization tool that allows users to view thousands of NoBlogs sites dispersed across a map, naming the tool Trumpblogs, in what appears to be a reference to the hack. Shortly after the tool went online, AstraRCE posted on X to say that the trumpblogs.org domain would now be redirecting to DataRepublican’s site.

The Pentagon has thus far declined to reveal what assignment Pounds or other right-wing media influencers have been given, and it’s unknown if activities like producing the visualization tool would be part of these duties. (The Department of War did not reply to a request for comment.)

They’re “trying to identify their enemies and build dossiers on them.”

“They’re hiring people who have a history of sort of dirt digging,” said David Greene, who serves as legal counsel at the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation. “And they’re digging for information about their enemies, and both trying to identify their enemies and build dossiers on them.”

Holmes, of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said that determining responsibility for cyberattacks like the one that targeted NoBlogs can be incredibly difficult, especially for smaller organizations.

“Attribution is really hard to prove definitively,” Holmes said. “But, also, there are a lot of imbalances there because the folks at Autistici don’t necessarily have the ability to perform the type of forensics and response that normally leads to successful attribution, or at least not quickly.”

Partners in Posting

DataRepublican and AstraRCE steer clear in their posts of explicitly claiming responsibility for hacks. They frequently, however, offer kudos to fellow travelers. Sometimes they post claims of insider access to information about the hacks or, in a few cases, show information that reveals access to the hacked systems themselves.

In at least one instance, a post by DataRepublican appeared to take direct responsibility for a cyber operation. Writing on X in July, the DataRepublican account claimed credit for a honey-pot scheme against a Nigerian hacker, which DataRepublican said had gone after right-wing media personality Hugh Hewitt.

“It’s true,” DataRepublican wrote, attaching a screenshot of the hackers’ location and IP address. “@astrarce and I honeypotted the Hugh Hewitt hacker.”

Even though DataRepublican and AstraRCE don’t take credit for cyberattacks, the far-right web heaps praise on them for the exploits.

The Feds Want to Unmask Instagram Accounts That Identified Immigration Agents

Seeking to disrupt a database collecting information on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicles, a January hack overrode images of license plates with a meme saying, “ALL YOUR LOGINS, LOCATIONS, PASSWORDS, AND PHONE NUMBERS HAVE BEEN GIVEN TO FBI AND ICE.”

After sharing the image and tagging AstraRCE, DataRepublican was asked by an online fan how it happened. The account replied, “I don’t know, but an unrelated tip is that it’s a bad idea to make your encryption/decryption script readable to the world.”

Several X accounts in the right-wing milieu responded to DataRepublican’s initial post with congratulations. A spokesperson for Turning Point USA said, “Well done, patriots.”

In another case, a Fox News article purported to expose the network of organizers behind protests at ICE’s Delaney Hall detention center in New Jersey. Summarizing its report, Fox News credited, among others, DataRepublican and AstraRCE with infiltrating the group: “The activities of this network have motivated a group of tech sleuths on the X — @DataRepublican, @Astrarce, @bitchuneedsoap and @gunshymartyr — to penetrate these groups, their Signal chats and their operations like a digital Avengers squad.”

In February, following a cyberattack on Siembra NC, a North Carolina-based immigrant rights organization, DataRepublican claimed the group operated two active websites responsible for “doxxing ICE.” Citing AstraRCE, DataRepublican suggested hackers had taken over the nonprofit’s notification system.

“Per @astrarce,” DataRepublican wrote, “the 1000+ users signed up to both sites have received a text alert with the meme attached” — a photo of FBI Director Kash Patel with meme text that says, “FEDS HAVE ALL YOUR DATA.”

“They Want People Scared”: Former Palestine Action Member Blasts Trump’s Terror Sanctions

DataRepublican then posted what appeared to be a screenshot of the organization’s internal notification dashboard, claiming that more than 2,000 users had received push notifications. The notification text visible on the dashboard suggested users received a message urging self-deportation and claimed their personal information had been sent to federal authorities.

During a similar hack of StopICE.net, an ICE tracking website, DataRepublican claimed to have insider knowledge of data from a hack being sent to the authorities.

“I can personally testify,” DataRepublican posted, “that the names, logins, passwords, locations (down to coordinates), and phone numbers of 100K+ users were all sent to FBI, ICE, HSI” — ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations division — “and more.”

Like the cyberattack targeting NoBlogs, in other cases DataRepublican and AstraRCE were also quick to celebrate cyberattacks against leftist groups and post screenshots of the incursions. In many of the cases, the webpages of the sites were vandalized and a message was left behind claiming to have accessed and sent internal data to the federal government.

Read our complete coverage

Chilling Dissent

Claiming Inside Info

The NoBlogs hack became one of the instances where DataRepublican and AstraRCE alluded to both having insider information about the provenance of materials from the hack and their transmittal into the hands of the authorities — all while Pounds was firmly ensconced at the Pentagon.

“Can confirm the authorities have everything that was on the NoBlogs servers.”

The episode, in the immediate wake of the NoBlogs hack, was telling. AstraRCE echoed the claim made on the vandalized NoBlog homepage: that the federal government was in possession of the site’s internal user data.

The episode was set off when the A/I collective issued a statement acknowledging the hack and that the “attacker may have had access to the users database.” The collective warned that the hackers could have accessed the “list of email addresses of the people who manage the blogs and their passwords.”

The password information for the user accounts, however, was stored “hashed,” A/I said, rather than in plain text, making it substantially harder to access.

Shortly after A/I published its statement about hashed passwords, AstraRCE posted an image of the statement alongside a caption suggesting that they had direct knowledge of the data that was breached.

“Yep,” AstraRCE wrote. “The government has their emails and dehashed results.”

One minute later, DataRepublican verified AstraRCE’s statement: “Can confirm the authorities have everything that was on the NoBlogs servers.”

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yahoo [cda] actually nexstar BS

A Utah software engineer, who runs a massive pro-President Trump social media account that has drawn attention from the likes of Elon Musk, made a sinister declaration in a post on Aug. 21.

The "Deep State" was setting her up to "commit a crime."

"I have never been more angry in my life," Jennica Pounds, who is behind the DataRepublican account that has nearly 1 million followers on social platform X, wrote in a recent thread.

Over the past week, the resulting saga around Pounds's allegations has become an obsession of right-wing social media circles, exposed the blurred lines in Pentagon public relations and raised questions about other MAGA-friendly influencers in the military space.

It all started with an offer from a senior State Department official to Pounds. Did she want to publish documents about allegations of censorship under the Biden administration?

"I wanted to give you the option of 'breaking' the story as sort of a gift," Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers wrote to Pounds.

Pounds initially seemed up for cooperating but later decided the markings on the documents "would have gotten me in big big trouble."

In a post to her X account, Pounds wrote Friday that "they tried to entrap me" while sharing a screenshot of the text exchange.

Rogers replied to Pounds's thread that Friday, revealing herself as the official involved.

"lol, these are my text messages and documents. The 'markings' are FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] redactions required even for voluntary disclosure. To prove this isn't a 'trap,' I will happily disclose the documents myself," she wrote, posting the documents in an ensuing thread.

Pounds had earlier concluded the documents "were nothingburgers that did not benefit them at all to release in public."

Once the exchange went public, the aggregators got to work. Right-wing news aggregator AF Post summarized the back-and-forth between the two women, adding further intrigue by writing that Pounds was an active employee at the Pentagon.

Horror as MAGA ally gushes over tracking tool that could ' ...

Raw Story

https://www.rawstory.com › jennica-pounds

Jennica Pounds, the data scientist known online as DataRepublican, is drawing fire once again after unveiling an interactive database that critics warn could be used to track Americans by their political ties.

Pounds, a former DOGE volunteer who was publicly identified in 2025 after years operating anonymously, announced on Thursday what she calls the DSA Explorer, a clickable map of the Democratic Socialists of America and what she described as the "wider anti-imperialist solidarity network." She said it draws on more than a year of research.

"Click any org, person, or project and walk the network one tie at a time," Pounds wrote on X. "Start at DSA and see where it leads."

ALSO READ: 'I'm shocked': Chris Christie's telling Trump moment among revelations in new Russia files

The tool lets users trace links between organizations, individuals and projects connected to the socialist group. Pounds billed it as a preview of a wider relaunch, DataRepublican v2.0, timed ahead of her book UNELECTED, written with Joshua Lisec and due Oct. 13. She added that she could build similar maps for "the Soros network, democracy organizations, and much more."

The launch set off immediate alarm bells.

Max Blumenthal, editor of The Grayzone, called it a "McCarthyite database tracking Americans based on party affiliation," and noted Pounds "idiotically outed herself as a secret Pentagon employee last week."

Writer Pedro L. Gonzalez went further, describing Pounds as "a special government employee creating tools that will be used to intimidate the public and go after dissenters under the pretext of fighting a domestic terror threat." His warning came as the administration faces accusations of inventing a terror threat to target charities.

Will Sommer of The Bulwark added: "A secret Dept of Defense employee has built a database to track American citizens by their political affiliations. The Pentagon still refuses to say what her job description is."

Another user mocked the project as "just helping my government do the thing that right wingers have been saying is their biggest fear for decades."

The alarms also come amid reports that a data firm was building "detailed portraits of Americans" on Trump's order, and that DOGE turned AI loose on federal workers to flag hostility to the president.

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MAY 30 TRAVIS GETTY RAW Data firm is building 'detailed portraits of Americans' on Trump's order: report

The data analytics firm Palantir is building a master list of personal information on Americans that could give president Donald Trump immense surveillance power.

The president signed an executive order in March calling for the federal government to share data across various agencies, and while he hasn't publicly spoken about the effort since, officials have been putting the plan into place with the help of the publicly traded tech firm Palantir, which the government has paid at least $113 million since Trump took office, reported the *New York Times*.

"The push has put a key Palantir product called Foundry into at least four federal agencies, including [the Department of Homeland Security] and the Health and Human Services Department," the newspaper reported. "Widely adopting Foundry, which organizes and analyzes data, paves the way for Mr. Trump to easily merge information from different agencies, the government officials said. Creating detailed portraits of Americans based on government data is not just a pipe dream."

ALSO READ: 'I'm shocked': Chris Christie's telling Trump moment among revelations in new Russia files

"The Trump administration has already sought access to hundreds of data points on citizens and others through government databases, including their bank account numbers, the amount of their student debt, their medical claims and any disability status," the report added.

The company has received also new contracts from the Pentagon and is speaking to the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service about buying its technology, according to six government officials and knowledgable Palantir employees, and Democratic lawmakers have warned that Trump could use the personal information to target immigrants and punish his critics.

"Palantir’s selection as a chief vendor for the project was driven by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, according to the government officials," the Times reported. "At least three DOGE members formerly worked at Palantir, while two others had worked at companies funded by Peter Thiel, an investor and a founder of Palantir."

"Some current and former Palantir employees have been unnerved by the work," the report added.

"The company risks becoming the face of Mr. Trump’s political agenda, four employees said, and could be vulnerable if data on Americans is breached or hacked. Several tried to distance the company from the efforts, saying any decisions about a merged database of personal information rest with Mr. Trump and not the firm."

Privacy advocates, student unions and labor rights organizations have challenged the company's data access in court, and 13 former employees signed a letter this month urging Palantir to end its work for Trump, saying that combining that private data poses a significant risk of misuse – and current employees expressed the same concerns to the Times.

"The goal of uniting data on Americans has been quietly discussed by Palantir engineers, employees said, adding that they were worried about collecting so much sensitive information in one place," the Times reported. "The company’s security practices are only as good as the people using them, they said. They characterized some DOGE employees as sloppy on security, such as not following protocols in how personal devices were used."

Linda Xia, a former Palantir engineer who signed the critical letter, said current employees are "raising questions internally" about their work for the Trump administration, while others have already left in protest, such as Brianna Katherine Martin, a former strategist who posted that she left over the data firm's work with ICE.

“For most of my time here, I found the way that Palantir grappled with the weight of our capabilities to be refreshing, transparent and conscionable,” Martin wrote. “This has changed for me over the past few months. For me, this is a red line I won’t redraw.”

-=-=

REF 2 DOGE team uses AI to track hostility to Trump and Musk among government workers: report APR 2025 TRAVIS GETTY

Elon Musk's DOGE team has been using artificial intelligence to conduct surveillance on at least one federal agency's communications for signs of disloyalty to President Donald Trump and his agenda, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation.

Trump administration officials have told some U.S. government employees about the surveillance, the sources told Reuters.

Employees with the Department of Government Efficiency could also be in violation of federal record-keeping rules by communicating through the non-secure the Signal app, which can be set to automatically delete messages.

ALSO READ: 'I'm shocked': Chris Christie's telling Trump moment among revelations in new Russia files

“If they’re using Signal and not backing up every message to federal files, then they are acting unlawfully,” said Kathleen Clark, a government ethics expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

Nearly 20 people with knowledge of DOGE operations spoke to Reuters, and two sources said some managers at the Environmental Protection Agency were told by Trump appointees that Musk's team was using AI to monitor workers for criticism of Trump or his billionaire adviser.

“We have been told they are looking for anti-Trump or anti-Musk language,” said a third source familiar with the EPA.

Trump officials told EPA managers that Musk's team was looking for individuals whose work did not align with the administration's mission, the sources said.

“Be careful what you say, what you type and what you do,” a manager told employees, according to one of the sources.

The EPA confirmed, after publication of the Reuters report, that it was using AI "to better optimize agency functions and administrative efficiencies” but disputed that the tool was being used to make personnel decisions in concert with DOGE,” although agency officials did not directly address the AI surveillance issue.

"[It] sounds like an abuse of government power to suppress or deter speech that the president of the United States doesn’t like,” said Clark, the ethics expert.

DOGE staffers are also sidestepping standard vetting processes and chains of custody for official government documents by working simultaneously out of Google Docs, a source told Reuters, instead of circulating single copies of drafts, which the source said allowed the team to work quickly.

“There's multiple people in one Google Doc editing things simultaneously,” the source said.

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tnr

An internet troll on the Pentagon’s payroll has made a database to track Americans based on their political affiliation.

Jennica Pounds, the Utah woman behind the prominent right-wing account DataRepublican, launched a public tool Friday called DSA Explorer, which she described as an “interactive map of the Democratic Socialists of America and the wider anti-imperialist solidarity network.”

The truth came to light after Pounds falsely accused Sarah B. Rogers, the State Department’s undersecretary for public diplomacy, of attempting to get her to leak sensitive information. The DOD later confirmed that Pounds, who was posing as an independent journalist, was actually on the government’s payroll, but refused to explain what her job was or what office she worked in.

The release of the evidently government-funded DSA Explorer comes amid a broader effort to label left-wing activists and organizers as domestic terrorists.

In a lengthy disclaimer on the database website, Pounds warned that her data may not be 100 percent accurate. “Inferred, ideological, and patron/sphere associations are analytical interpretations, not statements of fact, and nothing here alleges unlawful conduct by any named person or organization,” the disclaimer states. “Do not rely on this material without independent verification.”

ref 16 pp

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/2026-USCT-Strategy-1.pdf

toc

Presidential Foreword ................................................................. 3 Introduction | Good versus Bad Counterterrorism...................... 4 The Threat................................................................................... 5 Our Counterterrorism Strategy ................................................... 6 Our CT Principles .................................................................. 6 Our CT Priorities.................................................................... 6 The Goals of Our CT Strategy ............................................... 7 Counterterrorism Resources........................................................ 8 Counterterrorism and Presidential Diplomacy....................... 9 Counterterrorism by Region ..................................................... 10 Terrorists and Weapons of Mass Destruction........................... 15 America First Counterterrorism……………………………….16

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joe my god

New Republic reports:

An internet troll on the Pentagon’s payroll has made a database to track Americans based on their political affiliation. Jennica Pounds, the Utah woman behind the prominent right-wing account DataRepublican, launched a public tool Friday called DSA Explorer, which she described as an “interactive map of the Democratic Socialists of America and the wider anti-imperialist solidarity network.”

The project is a disgusting attempt to target Americans for their political affiliations, but it’s a particularly inappropriate project for a federal worker. Pounds has been listed as a “special government employee” of the Defense Department since July, The Bulwark reported Thursday. The release of the evidently government-funded DSA Explorer comes amid a broader effort to label left-wing activists and organizers as domestic terrorists.

Read the full article. The cult is applauding.

-=-=

3 days ago — Jennica Pounds, the data scientist known online as DataRepublican, is drawing fire once again after unveiling an interactive database that ...

New Pentagon Database Tracks Membership Of DSA

Joe.My.God.

https://www.joemygod.com › 2026/08 › new-pentagon...

1 day ago — Jennica Pounds, the Utah woman behind the prominent right-wing account DataRepublican, launched a public tool Friday called DSA Explorer ...Read more

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8 26

'VERY weird situation': Hegseth EXPOSED for building army of INTERNET TROLLS to boost himself online

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Trump Pentagon secretly amassing ‘troll army’ as report exposes 'scandal of the century'

raw ref blwk

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has quietly assembled an online army of MAGA influencers — including some who work for the Pentagon or have nearly landed jobs there, according to a new report.

It came to light this week that Jennica Pounds, a right-wing influencer better known as “Data Republican” on X, has worked as a temporary Pentagon special government employee since July. The Defense Department confirmed her employment but refused to explain what specific duties Pounds performs.

But Pounds appears to be only one member of a “Pentagon troll army” Hegseth is assembling, The Bulwark revealed Thursday.

ALSO READ: 'I'm shocked': Chris Christie's telling Trump moment among revelations in new Russia files

“The defense secretary’s MAGA influencer allies aren’t merely cheering him on - some work for him,” The Bulwark’s Will Sommer told readers.

Sommer pointed to several other pro-Trump online personalities with connections to the Pentagon, including retired Col. Thomas R. Anderson, known online as “Cynical Publius,” as well as active-duty Army Lt. Col. Adam D. Ortona, another pro-Hegseth influencer.

Anderson has repeatedly promoted Hegseth’s agenda and stepped in recently to defend Pounds, saying she had “no obligation” to disclose her government role, The Bulwark reported. The Pentagon did not respond to questions about whether Anderson also works for it.

Meanwhile, Ortona has attacked Democrats and vowed to help Hegseth battle the bureaucracy inside the Pentagon, the report said.

Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) called the revelations the “scandal of the century.”

“How many more people that are blue checkmarks on X, that are putting out information on behalf of the federal government and Donald Trump and the Republican party . . . are actually special government employees being paid by your tax dollars?” Kinzinger asked in a social media video.

-=-=

WILL S

PRO-TRUMP INTERNET SLEUTH Jennica Pounds—better known as “Data Republican” to her nearly one million followers on X—made a grim announcement on Friday. Deep-state operatives embedded within the Trump administration had tried to entrap her into committing treason.

“It’s not okay when the Deep State sets you up to commit a crime,” she wrote in a now-deleted thread. “I have never been more angry in my life.”

In Pounds’s portentous telling, an unnamed official—soon after revealed to be Sarah B. Rogers, the undersecretary for public diplomacy at the State Department—had offered to leak her government documents about Cuba to publish as an “exclusive.” While Pounds was initially enthusiastic, markings on the documents prompted her to panic that she was being set up. Had she published the documents, Pounds felt, she would’ve exposed herself to criminal prosecution. She took the news of her supposed entrapment directly to her audience.

The idea that Trump administration officials would conspire to send Pounds to prison is bizarre on its face. After all, Pounds is an administration favorite. Her tweets claiming to have data to justify Elon Musk’s cuts aimed at USAID and other government agencies made her an out-of-nowhere star during the DOGE era, even though she didn’t seem to have a solid grasp of how government spending actually worked.1

Pounds’s accusations against Rogers—who is also beloved in the MAGA movement for her efforts to support free speech for far-right extremists in Europe—confounded right-wing media figures. Was Rogers really

...$

ref deseret

By Brigham Tomco

Brigham is a staff writer on the politics team covering Utah politics and the conservative movement.

https://challenges.cloudflare.com/cdn-cgi/challenge-platform/h/b/turnstile/f/av0/rch/zh61b/0x4AAAAAAAA2pgcWAmjzIY_M/auto/fbE/new/invisible?lang=auto

KEY POINTS

Utah resident Jennica Pounds is 'DataRepublican,' which was revealed recently by the Rolling Stone even though Pounds was anonymous.

Pounds built AI tools she's used to help DOGE in its effort to root out waste, fraud and abuse.

Pounds told the Deseret News what she thinks is the biggest problem in Washington, and explains why it isn't all about spending.

The Utah software engineer drawing attention from the White House, the media and the world’s richest man will tell you the political potential of artificial intelligence is best summed up by 1 Samuel Chapter 17.

By her reading, AI is not an uncontrollable threat to humanity, it’s the slingshot in the hands of David that defeats a government Goliath — and it’s the gift that will save America.

“AI gives us the ability to take on massive, entrenched systems that would otherwise be impossible to untangle,” Jennica Pounds told the Deseret News. “Without it, we’d be fighting blind.”

Pounds, a Utah resident who up until two weeks ago was known only by her X account, “DataRepublican,” burst onto the scene this year as the most viral pioneer of Elon Musk’s AI-driven takeover of Washington, D.C.

With the creation of a powerful government-spending database, and a pithy online personality, Pounds has taken conservative social media by storm and attracted her own fair share of critics in the process.

As some have accused Pounds of copying Musk’s unorthodox auditing practices — which recently yielded an 83% reduction of USAID, thousands of federal layoffs and a disputed $105 billion in savings — Musk, in turn, appears to have occasionally taken cues from Pounds.

On Jan. 21, Pounds flagged Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, with “a quick billion for you to cut!” that included $229 million to Global Refuge, a faith-based immigrant charity, that is 95% taxpayer funded. Musk, who has the world’s largest following on X, of nearly 220 million, responded to her message with one word: “Noted.”

Less than two weeks later — after he encouraged users to follow DataRepublican — Musk announced that the DOGE team was “rapidly shutting down” federal payments to Global Refuge.

Pounds told the Deseret News that while Musk has not reached out privately, DOGE representatives have messaged her multiple times over the past two months.

But since a Rolling Stone article revealed her identity, and other personal information, to the world on Feb. 26, Pounds’ life as a Salt Lake City business owner, wife and mother of two has been turned on its head.

The couple’s local distillery has been targeted with bad reviews and the family has been forced to take their elementary-age sons out of school to stay in Florida until things calm down, Pound said.

In her first official news interview since her identity became public, Pounds told the Deseret News that despite the stress of public life, she has redoubled her commitment to apply her big tech background to mapping out the web of government connections that she believes has led to unresponsive leadership and wasted taxpayer dollars.

The AI revolution

For someone who describes herself as deaf and nonverbal, Pounds says AI technology has transformed her relationship with her children by increasing their ability to communicate. Pounds also believes AI has the power to revolutionize the relationship between citizens and their government.

“AI has fundamentally changed the balance of power when it comes to government transparency and accountability,” Pounds wrote via email because she said her autism makes real-time sign language difficult in interviews.

For too long, technology has been used by government authorities to surveil and regulate the public, according to Pounds. But with unregulated AI tools in public hands, she predicts that dynamic is about to flip 180 degrees.

“Now, everyday citizens can use AI to analyze government spending, track decisions, and uncover waste and corruption on a scale that was previously impossible,” Pounds said.

And Pounds has exactly the skill set to pave the way.

As a child without the ability to hear, Pounds felt like most career paths were “cut off” from her until she discovered programming. From there, her career path became clear: she earned a graduate degree in computer science focused on “big data” and quickly secured high profile positions at Amazon, eBay, Snap Inc. and Upstart, specializing in massive datasets and machine-learning optimization.

These jobs kept Pounds in the Seattle area while her husband, Brent, served in the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Corps. But after discovering hypodermic needles used for drug injection scattered around the playground with her toddler, Pounds said she knew “we needed a different environment.”

The Pounds moved to Utah in 2019, looking for a more welcoming place to raise a family. Within a few years, Pounds found a remote job dealing directly with AI software, while she and her husband opened Spirits of the Wasatch Distillery and she began blending her knowledge of technology with her deepening interest in politics.

What started in 2020 as election analysis, creating block-by-block voting breakdowns, quickly morphed into AI “toolmaking,” creating interactive dashboards to track how political donations are made and who are the recipients.

When President Donald Trump signed DOGE into existence in 2025, Pounds decided to switch directions yet again.

What is DOGE doing?

Pounds learned that to cancel large portions of federal spending, DOGE would need specific ID numbers for grants awarded to nonprofit, nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs.

But while the data was all ostensibly public information, Pounds found there was no effective way to search for it.

“Government spending data exists, but without tools to analyze and connect the dots, it’s nearly impossible to see the full picture,” said Pounds, who has the motto, “Data does not equal transparency.”

So, Pounds created Datarepublican.com centered around a “reverse index” tool that lets users search for organizations and easily find how much federal money they are receiving. It also has features that allow users to track PAC donations, NGO officer salaries and connections between influential policymakers.

As the website went viral, Pounds said she realized there was a pattern of overlapping conflicts of interest between elected lawmakers and the private NGO boards they sit on, which she estimates are funded by upwards of $100 billion in taxpayer dollars.

“That’s when the mission evolved from simply cutting waste to taking on something much larger: restoring accountability and transparency in our democracy,” Pounds said.

In February, Pounds announced she had resigned from her job in order to devote herself “full time” to “DOGE-adjacent efforts,” while still remaining independent from the DOGE’s White House office.

But Pounds told the Deseret News that since media reports have made a return to big tech “no longer an option," she has decided that “working within the system is the right path” for her.

Pounds said she is unable to “discuss details about potential employers,” but she hinted at a future “working within the government,” and previously said she is waiting on a federal “background check.”

While she doesn’t always agree with Musk — and feels that pushback from Congress and the courts are necessary checks on executive power — Pounds said that Musk may be the only person who can take on the bloated bureaucracy because of his reputation of successfully disrupting the status quo in the fields of electric vehicles, space travel and neurotechnology.

But the “uncomfortable reality” behind DOGE, according to Pounds, is that as it seeks to trim down unnecessary spending, it will likely find a much deeper problem of ruling establishment misconduct that could be much more difficult to root out.

“It’s not just about cutting government waste — it’s about confronting the system that enables corruption and unchecked power,“ Pounds told the Deseret News. ”If we want real, lasting change — if we want a government that’s financially sustainable and accountable to the people — we have to take on the entire system that’s choking progress. That’s what makes DOGE’s work so important."

Why is this happening now?

Pounds’ ability to pull out datapoints that appear to support claims about a conspiracy among elites has made her a hero among some on the right — Musk, and one of his closest social media allies, Utah Sen. Mike Lee, have both shared or responded to her posts dozens of times over the past several weeks.

Lee has repeatedly praised “DataRepublican” on X, calling her a “gift to America,” telling his followers to follow her to be “enlightened” and coming to her defense after news outlets repeated the claims made in the Rolling Stone article.

“The concerned citizen known as Data Republican, whose research has helped root out waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars, is experiencing the sad truth that leftist organizations will go after the families and livelihoods of Americans who dare to challenge the corrupt status quo,” Lee told the Deseret News. “But, unlike the liberal media, she has millions of grateful Americans on her side — myself included.”

The Rolling Stone article in question alleges that Pounds, acting under her social media moniker, DataRepublican, sometimes accuses political actors of malfeasance on shaky grounds.

For example, last month, Pounds said that Bill Kristol, an anti-Trump conservative commentator, preferred “the deep state,” because his advocacy organization, Defending Democracy Together, received money from a nonprofit, that had received money from another nonprofit that ultimately received funds from USAID.

While Pounds has put her partisan leanings on display by arguing that “MAGA voters” need to show up in primary elections to oust incumbents in Congress, and by lobbing attacks at Democratic mega donor George Soros, she says the “Republican” in her social media handle is with a “small r” because she carries no party loyalty.

In fact, one of the biggest revelations from her deep dive into the federal bureaucracy has been just how bipartisan the conflicts of interest are, Pounds said. “Yet, instead of equal outrage from both sides, the attacks on me have been overwhelmingly one-sided.”

Pounds expressed frustration with the Rolling Stone article because it suggested she advised Musk directly and it insinuated that she was influenced by her prior company’s pushback against federal regulation and the company’s connection to Peter Thiel, a billionaire Republican donor.

282

Comments

But Pounds readily admits that her newfound-fame has come as a result of the recently reelected president who has empowered DOGE in an unprecedented way.

“The sheer scale of government spending and federal programs is too vast for any person, or even a team of people, to fully grasp,” Pounds said. “Now, with the right people in place and a renewed focus on accountability, we can finally expose what’s been hidden for so long.

As to whether her career will remain focused on government transparency beyond DOGE’s 18-month lifespan, Pounds said her future “is ultimately in the Lord God’s hands.”

For now, at least, Pounds hopes her family can return home to Utah to enjoy its “strong sense of community,” “emphasis on family,” “high standards” — and “widely available energy drinks” — in peace.

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grok

Jennica Pounds

Jennica Pounds is a deaf and nonverbal software engineer from Utah, recognized for her data-driven activism critiquing government spending inefficiencies through anonymous posts on X (formerly Twitter) under the handle @DataRepublican. She transitioned to full-time involvement with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative, spearheaded by Elon Musk, where she proposed reductions in federal funding to nongovernmental organizations. On February 25, 2025, Pounds publicly disclosed her identity after being doxxed, subsequently resigning from her role at the AI lending company Upstart; she also champions policies enhancing accessibility for the deaf community and co-owns Spirits of the Wasatch Distillery in Salt Lake City.

Professional Career

Software Engineering Role

Jennica Pounds served as a Senior Distinguished Machine Learning Engineer at Upstart, an AI-powered lending company, where she specialized in data analysis and machine learning applications for financial decision-making.^[1]^ Her role involved leveraging large datasets to develop models that enhanced lending efficiency and risk assessment.

^[1]^Pounds advanced to this senior position through demonstrated technical proficiency in data-driven methodologies, drawing from earlier experience at tech firms including Amazon, eBay, and Snap Inc., where she honed skills in big data processing and algorithmic optimization.^[2]^ These capabilities enabled her to systematically identify systemic inefficiencies in complex operations, providing a foundation for her later pivot to full-time data activism.^[3]^ She resigned from Upstart in late February 2025 to focus on these efforts.^[4]^

Resignation from Upstart

Pounds resigned from her role as a senior machine learning engineer at Upstart in February 2025, shortly after her identity as @DataRepublican was publicly revealed.^[5][1]The^ departure enabled her to commit fully to efforts supporting the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), prioritizing direct involvement in addressing government spending issues over her corporate responsibilities.^[5]^This^ transition marked a pivotal shift in her professional path, moving from private-sector AI development to high-profile public policy advocacy, with subsequent focus on data-informed recommendations for fiscal reforms.^[3][6]^

Government Efficiency Activism

Anonymous Work as @DataRepublican

Pounds operated anonymously on X under the handle @DataRepublican (small r), posting data-driven analyses that exposed inefficiencies in government spending. Her content typically featured visualizations of public federal budget data, highlighting excessive allocations to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other programs deemed inefficient. These critiques emphasized empirical evidence over opinion, such as discrepancies between reported outcomes and funding levels, to advocate for reduced waste.

The "small r" in her handle is a deliberate choice to signify that she identifies as a "small-r republican"—supporting republican principles such as limited government, fiscal accountability, and opposition to centralized power—but without loyalty to the big-R Republican Party. She has explained this as stemming from her data work revealing bipartisan waste and conflicts of interest, leading to disappointment with both parties and an emphasis on ideological independence over partisanship.^[3][7]^

The account gained traction through consistent, fact-based threads that dissected specific spending categories, amassing thousands of followers and engagements by focusing on verifiable metrics from official sources like USAspending.gov. For instance, posts revealed patterns of duplicated or low-impact grants, prompting discussions on fiscal accountability without revealing the poster's identity. This anonymous phase allowed Pounds to build influence solely on the merit of her data presentations, positioning @DataRepublican as a key critic of bureaucratic excess prior to her public identification.

DOGE Recommendations and Impact

Pounds transitioned to full-time contributions with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) following her resignation from Upstart, leveraging data analysis to propose cuts in federal spending inefficiencies.^[2]

Her efforts included identifying a "quick billion" in potential savings, focused on NGO funding streams.^[6]^Specific^ recommendations targeted organizations such as Global Refuge, which received federal allocations for immigrant and refugee resettlement services, with Pounds highlighting $229 million in one flagged instance.^[7]^ Elon Musk publicly acknowledged her submission, replying "noted," which preceded DOGE's announcement of rapidly shutting down payments to Global Refuge.^[6]^

Pounds' data submissions extended to broader reforms, informing DOGE's scrutiny of nonprofit funding, international development aid, and related federal expenditures, thereby contributing to efficiency-driven reductions across government programs.^[6]^

Identity Revelation

Doxxing Incident

On February 25, 2025, Jennica Pounds, who had been anonymously posting data analyses on government spending inefficiencies as @DataRepublican on X, was doxxed when her identity was publicly exposed by Ricky Taylor, a deaf blogger.^[5][8]Rather^ than withdrawing from public engagement, Pounds chose to confirm her identity herself through a statement on X, detailing her background as a deaf, nonverbal software engineer and her contributions to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative.^[9][5]The exposure prompted immediate professional repercussions, including her resignation from her position at AI lending firm Upstart to focus full-time on DOGE-related efforts.^[5]

Media Coverage Response

Following her identity reveal prompted by doxxing, Jennica Pounds garnered significant media attention, with profiles and analyses appearing in outlets including Newsweek, which detailed her role as a DOGE volunteer, Rolling Stone, which examined her anonymous data expertise influencing efficiency cuts, and The Salt Lake Tribune, which covered her Utah-based contributions to the initiative.^[9][1]^[6]^Coverage^ has consistently portrayed her as a pivotal DOGE influencer originating from Utah, emphasizing her data-driven input on government spending reforms amid the initiative's high-profile launch.^[9][1]^[6]^

Accessibility Advocacy

Personal Challenges

Jennica Pounds is profoundly deaf, nonverbal, and experiences expressive dysphasia and autism, which impairs her ability to construct and express language fluidly, including limited fluency in sign language.^[10][9]^ These conditions necessitate her primary use of written communication for professional and social interactions, supplemented by interpreters when verbal exchanges are required.^[10]^Despite^ these hurdles, Pounds has adapted effectively in her roles as a software engineer and government efficiency activist by leveraging text-based tools and digital platforms, where coding, data analysis, and anonymous posting as @DataRepublican allow her to convey complex ideas without relying on spoken or signed expression.^[9]^ Her work demonstrates how structured, written environments mitigate the impacts of her disabilities, enabling high-level contributions in technical and analytical fields.^[10]^

Policy Proposals

She has also called for wider policy reforms to enhance accessibility for deaf Americans, including mandates for improved interpreter funding, captioning standards, and educational support tailored to deaf needs.^[11]^

Business Involvement

Distillery Co-Ownership

Jennica Pounds co-owns Spirits of the Wasatch Distillery, a craft spirits producer located in Salt Lake City, Utah, alongside her husband Brent Pounds.^[12][13]^ The couple acquired the operation, previously known as Hammer Spring Distillers, approximately two years prior to early 2025, transforming it into a notable player in Utah's emerging craft distilling industry.^[12][14]This^ business endeavor serves as a secondary pursuit for Pounds, complementing her primary career in software engineering while leveraging the distillery's focus on innovative, award-winning spirits such as bourbon and whiskey produced through traditional methods adapted to local resources.^[15][13]^ The distillery operates within Utah's regulatory framework for alcohol production, emphasizing small-batch craftsmanship and regional ingredients to distinguish its offerings in the competitive craft market.^[3][12]^

Public Recognition

Endorsements from Figures

Pounds' contributions to government efficiency have garnered praise from several prominent figures. Nicole Shanahan, running mate to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., endorsed Pounds' DOGE recommendations, highlighting their potential to streamline federal operations. Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, acknowledged her anonymous X posts as pivotal in raising awareness about NGO funding inefficiencies.Senator Mike Lee of Utah similarly lauded her local perspective on federal overreach, tying it to her Utah roots and advocacy for fiscal responsibility. These endorsements elevated her public profile, positioning her as a key voice in efficiency reforms.

References

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media its bewARE

The Pentagon has secretly hired military veterans with massive online followings to act as conservative influencers who can disseminate Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s warrior agenda to the masses.

The Washington Post reported Sunday that although these influencers have been placed in government and some civilian roles, the Pentagon refuses to give details on their assignments, “despite the Trump administration’s claims that they are running the most transparent Defense Department ever.”

But the report made very clear that the goal was to “amplify Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s viewpoints and attack those who scrutinize the Trump administration, according to people familiar with the matter and corroborating material.”

The Post’s sources said the influencers include Rob Maness, a retired Air Force colonel; and Kurt Schlichter, a retired Army colonel.

“Pentagon records reviewed by The Washington Post show that both have active official government email addresses as of this past week and are assigned to the office of Anthony Tata, the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness. The email addresses include a ‘.civ’ suffix, meaning they are labeled as civilian employees, rather than as military personnel or contractors,” the report said.

It continued:

Both served for decades in uniform and, since retiring, have turned from the military to conservative commentary. Maness has more than 135,000 followers on X, while Schlicter has nearly 620,000. Another retired Army colonel and influencer, Thomas Anderson, was listed in Pentagon records earlier this year with a “.civ” email address and assigned to Tata’s office, according to people familiar with the matter and records reviewed by The Post. An attorney, he writes online under the pen name Cynical Publius and has more than 323,000 followers on X. He was no longer listed in Pentagon records late this past week, the people familiar with the issue said.

“Pentagon spokesman Joel Valdez declined to comment to The Post about whether any of the three are drawing a taxpayer-funded salary, what roles they have or how long those jobs are expected to last,” the report said.

Tata, Maness, Schlichter, and Anderson all declined to comment for the report.

On Saturday, The New York Times reported that Democratic and Republican politicians are paying tens of thousands of dollars for influencers on TikTok and other platforms to push their agendas.

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DONNY EVANS

THE PENTAGON gave undisclosed government assignments to several conservative military veterans who used large social media platforms to promote Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s agenda and target critics of the Trump administration, *The Washington Post* reported.

Rob Maness, a retired Air Force colonel, and Kurt Schlichter, a retired Army colonel, had active government email addresses assigned to the office of Anthony Tata, the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, according to Pentagon records reviewed by the Post. Their addresses carried a “.civ” suffix identifying them as civilian employees.

Thomas Anderson, another retired Army colonel, appeared in Pentagon records earlier this year with a civilian email address and an assignment to Tata’s office. Anderson, an attorney who writes under the name Cynical Publius, was no longer listed late last week.

The three men command a combined audience of more than 1 million followers on X. Their government status remained absent from public commentary promoting Hegseth’s positions on Pentagon personnel, military education and other policy matters. The department has not said what responsibilities they received, when their assignments began or whether taxpayers funded their work.

Pentagon spokesman Joel Valdez declined to answer the Post’s questions about their duties, compensation and expected length of service. Tata did not respond. Maness and Schlichter did not respond to requests for comment. Anderson declined to comment by phone.

The men served as special government employees or highly qualified experts, according to people familiar with the assignments. Schlichter carried an “HQE” designation in a government database reviewed by the Post.

Federal law limits special government employees to 130 working days during any consecutive 365-day period and permits compensated or uncompensated service. Pentagon employment rules for experts and consultants allow full-time, part-time or intermittent appointments, with compensation decided individually. The financial arrangements involving Maness, Schlichter and Anderson remain unknown.

Their work included a visit to the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in May on behalf of the Pentagon’s Senior Service College Task Force. Hegseth established the task force in March to examine military colleges for ideology he characterized as “toxic” or “woke” and concentrate their curricula on developing warfighters.

Maness, Schlichter and Anderson met with students and faculty members over several days, according to two people familiar with the visit. They asked participants to assess Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Some students questioned how candidly they could respond and whether unfavorable answers could bring consequences. Task force members also raised concerns about a course covering communication between military officers and Congress.

The task force has completed its research and prepared a report that has not been released, according to one person familiar with the visit.

Maness continued publishing commentary on issues within Hegseth’s portfolio. In a July 30 column for the right-wing *Daily Caller, he urged the administration to remove *“disloyal” Pentagon employees and condemned “careerists who treat the Pentagon as their permanent fiefdom.” The author biography identified him as a retired Air Force colonel and omitted a current Pentagon role.

PIX]

Rob Maness as a colonel in the Air Force. He retired in 2011. (U.S. Air Force)

Maness later wrote in an Aug. 26 article that “Secretary Hegseth’s outrage is justified” over the Army’s retreat from tougher academic requirements for Reserve Officers’ Training Corps students. His government assignment was not disclosed.

A July letter defending Hegseth’s military-education policies described Maness as a retired officer. A Post spokesperson said Maness had not disclosed a Pentagon connection before publication.

Schlichter continued writing and posting about politics and military affairs without identifying a Pentagon role. Anderson defended Hegseth’s military overhaul and wrote in an April commentary for *The Federalist* that there is “a cancer in America’s military ranks, and it must be expunged before it’s too late.”

Scrutiny of the Pentagon’s influencer relationships intensified after the department and conservative commentator Jennica Pounds disclosed that she had become a special government employee in July. Pounds, known online as DataRepublican, had held a journalist credential in Hegseth’s revamped Pentagon press corps through June after receiving the pass in April.

Former Republican congressman and Air Force veteran Adam Kinzinger said on X that the Pentagon appeared to be using taxpayer money “to hire influencers on X to put out partisan talking points.”

The Pentagon has disclosed some outside appointments. In May, the department publicly named journalist Jerry Dunleavy to a panel reviewing the 2021 U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Pentagon Quietly Brought Trump-Aligned Military Influencers Into Its Civilian Ranks

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Hillsdale College Hosts Free Market Forum

Forum addressed energy, the Federal Reserve, DOGE and the budget, and more.

HILLSDALE, Mich. — Hillsdale College hosted a Free Market Forum in Charlotte, North Carolina, Oct. 16-18. Speakers and panelists discussed a variety of topics related to markets, government, and the common good.

The forum opened with an address from James Freeman of The Wall Street Journal on “The Mamdani Phenomenon in NYC.”

Freeman argued that what Mamdani’s popularity represents is more of a fluke than a trend toward leftist politics.

“Nationwide, and even in liberal New Jersey right next door, many Democratic candidates are now doing their level best to sound like Conservatives, who oppose tax and spending hikes, and prioritize law and order,” Freeman said. “While there is still an active debate among elected Democrats on whether they want to govern like socialists, there is at least an emerging consensus that they don’t want to sound like socialists.”

The second day featured panels on energy, the Federal Reserve, and DOGE and the budget.

Panelists:

Jonathan A. Lesser of the National Center for Energy Analytics
Willie Soon, astrophysicist and geoscientist
Ronald Stein of PTS Advance
John Steele Gordon, author of “An Empire of Wealth”
Christopher Leonard, author of “The Lords of Easy Money”
Andrew Levin of Dartmouth College
Jennica Pounds of Data Republican
Mark Hemingway of RealClearInvestigations
Brady Leonard of the No Gimmicks podcast

Pounds, the founder of Data Republican, spoke on the relationship between government departments, big foundations, and the CIA and USAID.

“It’s literally all the same thing, all the same group,” Pounds said. “NGOs are not separate from the State Department. They’re not separate from the billionaires. NGOs are not separate from the Left or the communists. Their goal now is color revolutions, to kick out Trump, and this is why I say that the biggest industry in America is not tech. It’s not finance. The biggest industry in America is spreading democracy.”

The event concluded with lectures by Ken Elzinga on “Teaching Economics” and Sean McMeekin on “The Rise and Fall of Communism.”

The Free Market Forum Series, run by Hillsdale College’s Center for the Study of Monetary Systems and Free Enterprise, seeks to encourage the study of free enterprise by bringing scholars together for dynamic exchanges of ideas on topics related to free market economics.

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omfg srch tools viz

Exposing where the money flows

Discover how money flows through government grants, charities, and NGOs

Billions of dollars are spent on government grants, charities, and other organizations every year. Have you ever wondered where the money is awarded or where it ends up?

We're connecting the dots between government grants, charities, and drawing connections to expose where the money flows.

We've found some interesting connections, and we've made the data available for you to explore.

See what you can find, and if you find something interesting, please let me know on X!

DataRepublican

flynn

If you don’t follow @DataRepublican you should. Simply genius. And, oh yeah, @BillKristol go away. You’re yesterday’s news, and you’re busted. @Kash @marcorubio @PamBondi @realDonaldTrump @EagleEdMartin

===

balt banner

Elon Musk’s gutting of USAID rips through Baltimore humanitarian groupsMeredith Cohn and Jasmine Vaughn-Hall

2/5/2025

Jhpiego, headquartered in Fells Point, is in turmoil over the Trump administration’s move to gut a funding source: USAID. (Ulysses Muñoz/The Baltimore Banner)

National security experts say the country will be less safe

The work of two Baltimore organizations charged with improving the health of millions of people around the world screeched to a halt this week when they lost their main funding source, the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Johns Hopkins University-affiliated Jhpiego and Center for Communication Programs have received stop-work orders, affecting at least 4,400 employees worldwide and programs that treat people with cancer and HIV, train local doctors and ensure the health of newborn babies in poor nations.

Seeming to cement the pause, virtually the entire staff of USAID was told Tuesday night by the Trump administration’s main cost-cutter, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, that they would be off the job by Friday and workers abroad would be brought home.

“It’s frightening,” said a worker at Jhpiego, who did not want to be named. The worker said staff was still reporting to work and were told they’d be paid at least until the end of February.

Jhpiego was founded more than a half-century ago and has a focus on improving health for women and children. From its office in Fells Point, it manages hundreds of millions of dollars in grants from USAID and other federal agencies and philanthropic organizations, reaching more than 40 countries at any one time.

Humanitarian groups are in turmoil, the worker and a Washington-based USAID employee told The Banner. They did not want to be named because they didn’t have permission to comment and feared retribution by President Donald Trump’s administration.

Both said they worried about their careers — and have deeper concerns about the future of the work they have been doing in some of the most unstable and poorest parts of the world. The programs save countless lives, they said, but also aim to protect the health and security of Americans.

“The level of experience that could be lost is massive,” the staffer said, “and the effects enormous.”

Alice Payne Merritt, a former deputy director of the Center for Communication Programs, said the organization could have thousands of staff globally at any one time. There are about 150 employees at the Baltimore headquarters and nearby offices who oversee some $100 million in programs in 40 to 50 countries.

The group works with local partners to ensure that people learn about and receive HIV/AIDS medications, as well as nets to protect children from malaria, a leading cause of death among children in Africa. It trains local officials to continue that work.

Trump froze grantmaking for health research. Now Maryland is shivering.

Jan 27, 2025

There’s room but no refugees: How Trump has upended Maryland’s resettlement system

Feb 2, 2025

Other countries benefit, and so do Americans, she said.

“COVID, malaria, mpox, Ebola, all those things came here from other places. If we can contain them in one place, it stops them from spreading here,” she said. “If humanitarian aid is gutted, we can’t do anything.”

USAID’s budget of about $40 billion is less than 1% of the federal budget, and international development experts say that’s a relatively small investment for the return.

Allyson Bear, a Baltimore-based international development expert and former USAID foreign service officer, said USAID is one of the three legs in the national security stool, along with State Department diplomacy and Defense Department military power.

“USAID changes hearts and minds; it’s a soft power that helps us gain allies,” she said. “We go to these countries and ask them to accept this aid for them, but it’s really for us.”

She said U.S. workers, for example, have largely prevented Ebola cases here despite multiple outbreaks in other parts of the world over the years.

Days ago, Ebola broke out in Uganda, “and we’re not there,” she said.

Leaving so abruptly can make the governments, public health workers and the public in those countries feel betrayed, she and others said. They could welcome adversaries such as China, which could gain a foothold in enough places and replace the United States as the biggest superpower.

That can play out in many ways, including when there is another pandemic, like COVID-19, and Americans can’t put themselves first in line for supplies and therapies.

“What happens when China moves into the top spot and bosses us around?” Bear said.

The moves to gut USAID was called “puzzling” by Maryland Rep. Kweisi Mfume, adding the approach to governing had “seemingly no regard for deliberate or thought-out reform.”

It was called “illegal” by Sen. Chris Van Hollen after he and other Maryland Democratic lawmakers, including Reps. Jamie Raskin and Johnny Olszewski Jr., were denied entry into USAID’s headquarters in Washington.

Lawmakers say funding is a constitutionally designated duty of Congress and there already are several lawsuits to stop the dismantling of federal agencies.

The blunt cuts also extend to other organizations in Baltimore, including academic institutions that rely on billions in funding from the National Institutes of Health for biomedical research and humanitarian nonprofits that focus on aiding refugees and those seeking asylum.

U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Rep. Gerry Connolly (R.-Va.), joined by fellow lawmakers and employees and supporters of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), hold a press conference outside USAID headquarters on Monday in Washington, D.C. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Baltimore is home to several organizations that assist refugees and asylum seekers, and officials also fear massive cuts, further threatening jobs, the area economy, and risking harms to international relationships.

One of those organizations, Global Refuge, a nonprofit formerly known as Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services that helps immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers, defended its work after Trump’s former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn called it a “money laundering operation.”

A reply from Elon Musk said DOGE was “shutting down these illegal payments.”

Global Refuge condemned the “false accusations lodged against our humanitarian work.”

The team at Global Refuge participates in a training at the office last month. (Kaitlin Newman/The Baltimore Banner)

Executive orders and memos issued by the Trump administration have canceled travel for thousands of approved refugees and ordered resettlement agencies receiving federal funds to stop providing services to refugees already here.

There is a lot of anxiety about what is coming, said Tim Young, spokesman for Global Refuge.

“It’s good to know that we are not alone in this,” he said.

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times of india

Pounds, a Deaf and nonverbal tech expert, revealed that she ..

From Utah Coder to Government Watchdog

Meet Jennica Pounds, the deaf software engineer from Utah behind the X handle @DataRepublican. She’s a driving force in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a 2025 initiative launched by President Donald Trump and spearheaded by Elon Musk. Pounds uses artificial intelligence to spotlight federal waste, a mission that’s taken her from election data breakdowns in 2020 to reshaping government spending. She said AI is like 'David’s slingshot' against bureaucratic giants, a belief tested after Rolling Stone unmasked her identity on February 26.

Building Tools to Track Tax Dollars

Pounds’ story with @DataRepublican started with mapping voting patterns, but DOGE shifted her focus to federal funds. She found grant IDs—public but hard-to-search—key to tracking nonprofit payments. Her site, DataRepublican.com, launched in 2025 with a 'reverse index' tool, tracing cash flows to groups like Global Refuge, a faith-based immigrant charity. On January 21, she flagged $229 million in payments to Global Refuge for DOGE. Two weeks later, Musk confirmed DOGE was 'rapidly shutting down' those funds, proving her tools’ real-world punch.

Facing the Fallout of Fame

Her anonymity ended with Rolling Stone’s doxxing, linked to a deaf community tip on Facebook. Pounds quit her job at Upstart, an AI lending firm, to focus on DOGE, but the exposure brought threats. Her husband's distillery, Spirits of the Wasatch, took a hit with bad reviews, forcing them to pull their sons from school and move to Florida temporarily. Yet she stands firm, saying, 'It’s about confronting corruption and unchecked power,' a resolve that defines @DataRepublican’s ethos.

AI-Powered Insights for All

At @DataRepublican, Pounds wields AI to untangle federal spending’s mess. A 2023 USAID report pegs its annual budget at $50.1 billion, but transparency is spotty. Her site maps political donations and NGO salaries, like tying Bill Kristol’s Defending Democracy Together to USAID funds through nested nonprofits—a claim Rolling Stone questioned but didn’t debunk. Musk has shared her X posts 24 times in three weeks, while Senator Mike Lee called her a 'gift to America' on X, showing her growing clout.

Making Waves with DOGE

Pounds’ data fuels DOGE’s cuts, like an 83% USAID reduction and $105 billion in contested savings. Critics have challenged DOGE’s legal footing, but Pounds sees waste as a bipartisan issue. A 2022 GAO report backs her up, noting $281 billion in improper federal payments over 10 years. Her tools give citizens what she calls a 'full picture' of spending, living her mantra: 'Data does not equal transparency.' It’s why @DataRepublican matters.

A Personal Fight for Accountability

The stakes got personal post-doxxing. Threats rolled in, but support from figures like Ed Martin, interim U.S. Attorney for D.C., kept her going. On X, she’s open about her deafness and autism, explaining expressive dysphasia shapes her words, per a February 26 social media post. She says DOGE is about a 'financially sustainable' future. Her husband's distillery rebounded after supporters fought back, a 'miraculous' win she celebrated on X on March 21.

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Published newsweek

Mar 11, 2025

Jennica Pounds

L: Jennica Pounds. R: Elon Musk | News Nation / Getty Images/News Nation / Getty Images

By Jesus Mesa

Reporter

Newsweek is a Trust Project member

For weeks, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has operated under a shroud of mystery. Led by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the initiative is linked to a network of anonymous programmers and tech-savvy staffers working to uncover what they claim is massive inefficiency and waste in federal spending.

While DOGE's influence remains a topic of debate, its members have largely remained anonymous. However, several names have recently surfaced, including Jennica Pounds, a self-proclaimed AI-driven digital detective and the latest figure linked to Musk's project.

Why It Matters

DOGE's impact has been widely debated, with critics arguing that its cost-saving claims are exaggerated. Until now, those involved have remained anonymous. But as the initiative gains attention, several staffers have been doxxed, exposing them against their will.

Among them is 25-year-old engineer Marko Elez, who had access to the Treasury Department's payment systems, and 19-year-old coder Edward Coristine.

Elez, a prominent Musk supporter and data researcher, was found to have a digital footprint that included racist remarks. Following these revelations, he was swiftly removed from DOGE, erased his online presence, and made no public statements.

What To Know

Pounds has spent months using artificial intelligence and data analysis to track government corruption, spending inefficiencies, and financial networks.

She gained popularity within MAGA circles as @DataRepublican. However, she recently became the latest figure linked to DOGE to have her identity exposed after being doxxed by a Facebook user.

Her findings have reportedly influenced DOGE's decisions, though she insists she has no direct communication with Musk.

"Honestly, I don't know—you'd have to ask him," Pounds said in an exclusive interview with NewsNation when asked how Musk discovered her work. "But I'm grateful. Since then, it's just been a whirlwind."

Rather than retreating, Pounds released a statement on social media detailing her role in DOGE and her background as a deaf, nonverbal activist.

She confirmed she had recently resigned from her job to focus full-time on DOGE-adjacent efforts, aiming to work with the administration to cut government waste and improve efficiency. She explained that what started as a side project had become a mission to expose how non-governmental organizations (NGOs) contribute to federal spending inefficiencies.

"This is not about left or right," she wrote on X, formerly Twitter. "This is about us—the people."

Pounds also opened up about her disability, explaining that she is deaf and nonverbal due to expressive dysphasia, which affects her ability to construct language fluently in real time. This impacts her signing, speaking, and writing, though writing allows her more time to correct mistakes.

"I do not believe the Deaf community should be politically aligned with any party," she wrote, adding that she has long advocated for policy changes to improve accessibility for deaf Americans. Among her efforts, she has pushed for a second interpreter camera stream on television broadcasts.

MAGA Figures Rally Behind Her

As news of her doxxing spread, prominent conservative figures and MAGA-aligned influencers voiced their support for Pounds on X.

U.S. Interim Attorney Ed Martin offered legal assistance, urging her to contact his office.

Billionaire Nicole Shanahan, who has been linked to Musk in recent months, defended Pounds, writing: "They only come after you when you're a threat to the system. Keep going—you're doing incredible work."

Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk also weighed in, telling Pounds: "We 100% got your back. Thank you for all that you do. Onward!!"

What People Are Saying

U.S. Interim Attorney Ed Martin, on X: "We are here for you, Jennica, just like you are here for America when we need you most. It is wrong and illegal to threaten anyone, and we will not tolerate a threat to a federal worker."

Larry Schweikart, historian and retired professor, on X: "I know Jennica. She and her mother came to PHX and stayed all evening for the 2020 election coverage. Remarkable talent."

Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, said on Face the Nation: "You've got Elon Musk taking a chainsaw to the federal government and important services, and there's no Article 4 in the Constitution that gives Elon Musk that authority...The actions he's taking are illegal, and we need to shut down this illegal operation."

What Happens Next

DOGE's budget cuts are expected to continue facing backlash, particularly from Democrats who have pushed back against Musk's access to Treasury payment data and his efforts to dismantle USAID. Whether that opposition translates into electoral consequences for the GOP remains to be seen.

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raw MAGA 'journalist' quietly went from covering the Pentagon to working for it

The Pentagon offered clarification Monday on how a prominent MAGA activist who previously received journalist credentials began working for the department.

Jennica Pounds, who operates the influential pro-Trump DataRepublican account on X, now serves at President Donald Trump’s Department of Defense as a special government employee, according to Pounds and the department.

“Ms. [Jennica] Pounds serves at the Department of Defense as a Special Government Employee and is no longer a credentialed journalist at the Pentagon,” the department said, according to CBS News national security coordinating producer Jim LaPorta.

ALSO READ: Mystery mires Sean Duffy road trip as IRS has no record of non-profit funding it

The Pentagon said her press credentials expired in June 2026, which Pounds herself confirmed in her own social media post.

"I began working as a Special Government Employee for the Department of War (sic) in July, to serve the country in a more hands-on way," she wrote Monday. "My press credentials at the Pentagon expired in June, and I did not seek a renewal of those credentials. I currently am not a member of the Pentagon Press Corps and no longer attend briefings or events as a journalist."

A special government employee is generally a temporary federal worker, adviser, or consultant appointed to perform duties for the executive or legislative branch.

The department’s clarification follows questions about how Pounds went from presenting herself as a credentialed Pentagon journalist to working inside the department she had been covering. Neither the Pentagon nor Pounds specified what specific duties she performs.

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THE RIGHT-WING SOCIAL MEDIA DOGE BOOSTER known as “DataRepublican” has, over the last two months, waded deeper and deeper into hot-button political issues. From Candace Owens to the six Democratic lawmakers who encouraged troops not to follow unlawful orders, DataRepublican, the nom de web of Utah mom Jennica Pounds, has been active on X, venturing far beyond the number-crunching work she did as an early Elon Musk booster.

What Pounds didn’t reveal as she grew her social media presence was that she was secretly working at the Department of Defense. Since July, Pounds has been a temporary “special government employee” for the Pentagon.

Pounds’s secret job spilled out into the open this week, after she erroneously accused Sarah B. Rogers, the State Department undersecretary for public diplomacy, of trying to entrap her for treason. Amid that flap, an X user critical of Pounds revealed that she worked for the Defense Department. The Pentagon later confirmed to me and other reporters that Pounds does work as a special government employee, but refused to explain exactly what job Pounds has or in which departmental office she works.

Pounds’s secret work for the Pentagon calls into question the motivations of several of her posts, such as when she took a jab at then-Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, a Hegseth nemesis. It also raises serious questions about Secretary Pete Hegseth’s cozy relationship with outspoken conservative social media influencers, and whether it breaches serious ethical norms.

Hegseth has gone to great lengths to limit and muzzle many members of the traditional Pentagon press corps. But secretly employing a shadowy, rabidly online personality for the apparent purpose of going after your enemies is a remarkable illustration of the kind of steps Hegseth appears willing to take to fight internecine political wars. Here’s the thing, though:

... $

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BOOK GEORGE BOE?

How the NGO-Administrative Complex Seized Power—And How to Get It Back

$200 billion for Ukraine. $50 billion a year for USAID. $9 billion for resettling refugees. Meanwhile, Americans struggle to earn a living, buy a home, and start a family. The welfare state works for everyone but employed citizens trying their best to make ends meet and pay their taxes on time. Why are the world’s most generous people financially abused by their own government?

As one scandal after another breaks, there is one question that becomes harder and harder to ignore: How did the American government and a vast network of NGOs become the vehicle for funneling American middle-class wealth to the rest of the world? The surprising answer is not financial, but philosophical, the little-known yet centuries-old ideology called supranationalism. From George Soros through George W. Bush, from the 17th century Treaty of Westphalia through the rise of President Donald Trump, a clear timeline emerges for how everyday Americans became the number-one mark for a global ruling class intent on redistributing their resources.

Barricading its backroom dealmaking behind federal departments, nonprofits and NGOs, and charitable foundations whose names we all know yet whose operations will still shock and horrify, this NGO-Administrative Complex has perfected the art of converting U.S. taxpayer money into instant-access welfare for the rest of the world.This is the story of how this machine was built, how it runs, and how it can finally be dismantled.

Drawing on Jennica Pounds’ receipt-backed analysis trusted by millions on X at @DataRepublican, together with page-turning narratives of New York Times best-selling author Joshua Lisec, Unelected maps the money, names the gatekeepers, and rug-pulls the unelected networks running the show from behind dated logos and sappy slogans to impoverish us all and usher in a new world order in which every American city is destined to become another Minneapolis.

BLURB

About the Author

Jennica Pounds (@datarepublican on 𝕏) is a software engineer and data analyst best known for her work as @DataRepublican, where she has used open-source tools and real-time analytics to expose hidden inefficiencies and spending patterns inside the U.S. federal government. Pounds built one of the most influential citizen-driven data platforms in Internet history, providing transparent public access to billions of dollars in federal grants, which catalyzed a national conversation about bureaucratic waste and government accountability that worked its way up to become White House policy. A former Big Tech engineer and current Utah small-business owner, Pounds rose to public prominence in 2025 after her federal-spending research drew national attention—and international backlash. Despite being doxxed and targeted, she continues to champion the principle that ordinary citizens can hold powerful institutions to account.

Joshua Lisec writes books of consequence. He is author alongside Jack Posobiec of the New York Times bestseller Unhumans: The Secret History of Communist Revolutions (And How to Crush Them) and the Newsmax bestseller Bulletproof: The Truth about the Assassination Attempts on Donald Trump, endorsed by Vice President JD Vance and President Donald J. Trump, respectively. Lisec is best known for his literary collaborations with controversial public figures, capturing their authentic voice and conveying the whole story. He is a New York Times, #1 Publishers Weekly, and USA Today bestselling co-author and has ghostwritten more than 110 nonfiction books on politics, business, and more that have been translated into a dozen languages. He has been featured in The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, Newsweek, The Observer, Forbes, BBC, TEDx, and TMZ. He is the world’s only Certified Ghostwriter and Certified Hypnotist. Follow Joshua on 𝕏 @joshualisec and at www.lisecghostwriting.com.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0GGLQQ5RW

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Passage Press
Accessibility ‏ : ‎ Learn more
Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 13, 2026

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biz times 8 26

The Pentagon has confirmed that prominent pro-Trump influencer Jennica Pounds, known online as DataRepublican, has been working inside the Defense Department as a special government employee, disclosing an arrangement that remained largely unknown while Pounds continued weighing in publicly on politically charged disputes.

The disclosure is drawing renewed attention to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's relationship with supportive online personalities and comes after more than a year of restrictions on the traditional Pentagon press corps. Pounds, who has nearly one million followers on X, previously held Pentagon press credentials before joining the government.

Her employment surfaced not through an official announcement but through an unusual public confrontation with State Department Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers. Pounds initially alleged that an unnamed "deep state" official had attempted to entrap her into improperly handling sensitive government material.

Rogers said she had offered Pounds Biden-era documents concerning Cuba as a potential exclusive, treating her as a friendly reporter who might be interested in the material. Pounds became alarmed after seeing markings on the documents and publicly suggested she might have been maneuvered into committing a crime.

Rogers disputed that characterization. She said the markings reflected standard redactions applied to material that could be voluntarily released under public-records procedures and offered to publish the documents herself to demonstrate that Pounds wasn't being set up.

As the dispute unfolded on X, an account critical of Pounds disclosed that she was working for the Defense Department. The Pentagon subsequently confirmed her employment to multiple news organizations.

Pounds "serves at the Department of War as a Special Government Employee and is no longer a credentialed journalist," the Pentagon said in a statement, using the Trump administration's renamed designation for the department. Officials said Pounds's media credentials expired in June and that she didn't seek to renew them before beginning her government role in July.

The Pentagon hasn't disclosed which office employs Pounds or described her responsibilities. Pounds said after her position became public that she joined the department to "serve the country in a more hands-on way."

That lack of detail has raised questions because Pounds remained an active political voice online while her government status wasn't publicly known. Her recent posts have included criticism of Democratic lawmakers and commentary involving a retired Army officer and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who has had disagreements with Hegseth.

Lauren Harper, who holds the Daniel Ellsberg chair on government secrecy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said Pounds should have disclosed her government employment to her followers. The concern centers on whether audiences could distinguish independent commentary from communications produced by someone simultaneously working inside the government.

The episode has also renewed scrutiny of Adam D'Ortona, an active-duty Army lieutenant colonel with more than 100,000 X followers who has criticized congressional Democrats and supported Hegseth's campaign against diversity and inclusion programs at the Pentagon.

D'Ortona was reported last September to have been working inside Hegseth's office. Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said at the time that he wasn't an adviser or department spokesperson, while D'Ortona this week denied that the Pentagon pays anyone to "post stories." The Army and Hegseth's office haven't provided additional details about his role.

The questions surrounding Pounds and D'Ortona come amid a broader transformation of media access under Hegseth. Beginning in May 2025, the defense secretary imposed restrictions requiring journalists to be escorted through Pentagon areas where reporters had previously been able to move independently.

The department subsequently required journalists to sign a new access policy covering the solicitation and publication of information that hadn't been authorized for release, including unclassified material. More than 30 news organizations-including The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and Fox News-refused to sign, and dozens of journalists surrendered their Pentagon credentials in October 2025.

That same month, Pentagon press secretary Sean Parnell announced that more than 60 journalists from another group of organizations had agreed to the policy. Those outlets included Gateway Pundit, Turning Point USA's media operation, LindellTV, Timcast and the National Pulse, which Parnell described as part of the next generation of the Pentagon press corps.

A federal judge later concluded that the credentialing policy was intended to remove disfavored journalists, according to the supplied account. An appeals court subsequently allowed a related requirement that reporters be escorted inside the Pentagon to remain in effect while litigation continues.

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duck 8 26

MAGA Influencer Revealed to Be Working for the Pentagon

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1 day agoJennica Pounds, a MAGA influencer who posts AI slop under the alias DataRepublican, has been secretly working for the Department of Defense this whole time. Up until June, Pounds was a member of ...

Author:@YahooNews

Times Now

https://www.timesnownews.com › world › us › us-news › who-is-jennica-pounds-aka-datarepublican-ex-pentagon-employee-she-was-set-up-to-leak-documents-article-155981198

Who Is Jennica Pounds Aka DataRepublican? Pentagon Employee She Was Set ...

1 day agoJennica Pounds, known online as DataRepublican, has become embroiled in a controversy after alleging that a senior State Department official attempted to "entrap" her by providing government documents she believed could get her in trouble if leaked. The Pentagon has confirmed that Pounds ...

Mediaite

https://www.mediaite.com › media › news › maga-influencer-outed-as-a-pentagon-employee-in-bizarre-turn-after-botching-scoop-state-dept-spox-gave-her

MAGA Influencer Jennica Pounds Outed as Pentagon Employee

1 day agoJennica Pounds has been revealed to be an employee of the Pentagon after serving as a credentialed member of the media and on DOGE's staff.

ayetv.substack.com

https://ayetv.substack.com › p › the-family-pincer-noaa-motherboard

THE FAMILY PINCER :- NOAA MOTHERBOARD Brent Pounds is documented as a ...

2 days agoTHE DETECTIVE: Jennica Pounds (DR) — physically unmasked as the clinical node used to shred "Pawns" like USAID while protecting the deeper hardware. THE OFFICER: Brent Pounds — the primary receptor used to maintain the Military-Environmental Sync within the NOAA/Navy Corps grid.

Baltimore Sun

https://www.baltimoresun.com › 2026 › 08 › 26 › maga-influencer-has-been-revealed-as-a-defense-department-special-employee

MAGA influencer known as DataRepublican was Pentagon special government ...

TodayA MAGA influencer known as DataRepublican and whose real name is Jennica Pounds, is a special government employee of the Department of Defense. This came after she botched an exclusive that was ...

International Business Times UK

https://www.ibtimes.co.uk › maga-influencer-pentagon-role-revealed-1816438

MAGA Influencer Who Accused Officials of Secretly Trying To Get Her in ...

TodayMAGA influencer Jennica Pounds accused a government official of trying to lure her into an alleged 'Deep State' trap, before her previously undisclosed Pentagon role emerged during the online feud.

Joe.My.God

https://www.joemygod.com › 2026 › 08 › maga-influencer-exposed-as-pentagon-employee

MAGA Influencer Exposed As Pentagon Employee - Joe.My.God.

TodayThe Daily Beast reports: Jennica Pounds, a MAGA influencer who posts AI slop under the alias DataRepublican, has been secretly working for the Department of Defense this whole time. Up until June, Pounds was a member of the credentialed Pentagon press corps. She had not disclosed her new gig with the Pentagon. The revelation came …

allchronology.com

https://allchronology.com › 2026 › 08 › 24 › from-reporting-on-the-pentagon-to-serving-it-a-maga-journalists-secret-journey

From Reporting on the Pentagon to Serving It A MAGA Journalists Secret ...

2 days agoThe Department of Defense is facing scrutiny following the recent transition of Jennica Pounds, a high-profile pro-Trump activist, from credentialed journalist to special government employee within the Pentagon. This shift raises questions about the relationship between media and government, particularly in the charged environment of the Trump administration. Pounds, known for her influential ...

Raw Story

https://www.rawstory.com › pentagon-2677770800

MAGA 'journalist' quietly went from covering the Pentagon to working ...

2 days agoThe Pentagon offered clarification Monday on how a prominent MAGA activist who previously received journalist credentials began working for the department. Jennica Pounds, who operates the ...

x.com

https://x.com › JimLaPorta › status › 2091970654316700056

Jim LaPorta on X: "DoD: "Ms. [Jennica] Pounds serves at the Department ...

2 days agoDoD: "Ms. [Jennica] Pounds serves at the Department of War as a Special Government Employee and is no longer a credentialed journalist at the Pentagon. Her PFAC (press credential) expired in June 2026, and she did not seek a renewal. She began working for the Department in July

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Jennica Pounds Data Repub

What Is DSA Explorer?

Who Is Jennica Pounds?

Why the Site Is Launching Now

Questions About Government Ethics

Publicizing NoBlogs Hack

Partners in Posting

The Feds Want to Unmask Instagram Accounts That Identified Immigration Agents

“They Want People Scared”: Former Palestine Action Member Blasts Trump’s Terror Sanctions

Chilling Dissent

Claiming Inside Info

Horror as MAGA ally gushes over tracking tool that could ' ...

New Pentagon Database Tracks Membership Of DSA

Jennica Pounds

Professional Career

Software Engineering Role

Resignation from Upstart

Government Efficiency Activism

Anonymous Work as @DataRepublican

DOGE Recommendations and Impact

Identity Revelation

Doxxing Incident

Media Coverage Response

Accessibility Advocacy

Personal Challenges

Policy Proposals

Business Involvement

Distillery Co-Ownership

Public Recognition

Endorsements from Figures

References

National security experts say the country will be less safe

Read More

Trump froze grantmaking for health research. Now Maryland is shivering.

There’s room but no refugees: How Trump has upended Maryland’s resettlement system

From Utah Coder to Government Watchdog

Building Tools to Track Tax Dollars

Facing the Fallout of Fame

AI-Powered Insights for All

Making Waves with DOGE

A Personal Fight for Accountability

Why It Matters

What To Know

MAGA Figures Rally Behind Her

What People Are Saying

What Happens Next

About the Author