{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warren-pushes-for-expansion-of-investigation-into-trumps-dismantling-of-education-department", "Warren Pushes for Expansion of Investigation into Trump\u2019s Dismantling of Education Department", "2025-11-24", "2025", "2025-11", "Democrat", "Senate", "MA", "Elizabeth Warren", "W000817", "www.warren.senate.gov", "warren", "https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases", "scraper", "Warren Pushes for Expansion of Investigation into Trump\u2019s Dismantling of Education Department\n\n\u201cThe dismantling of ED\u2014including ED\u2019s recent move to transfer a range of statutory duties to other agencies\u2014threatens devastating consequences for students, borrowers, and families. I request the ED OIG expand its investigation\u2026\u201d\n\nText of Letter (PDF)\n\nWashington, D.C. \u2014 In a new letter to the Department of Education\u2019s (ED) Inspector General, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) pushed for an expanded investigation into the Trump administration\u2019s attempts to dismantle ED and whether its recent decision to transfer many of ED\u2019s responsibilities to four other agencies violates federal law.\n\nIn April 2025, at Senator Warren\u2019s request, the ED Inspector General (IG) opened an investigation into whether the Trump administration\u2019s efforts to dismantle the department undermined its legal obligations to students and families across the country. Since then, Senator Warren has conducted her own investigation, sending eight oversight letters, in addition to having a face-to-face meeting with Education Secretary Linda McMahon in June\u2014during which the Secretary admitted she needs Congressional approval to dismantle the department.\n\n\u201c[The department\u2019s responses] largely failed to provide complete and transparent answers\u2026 [and] raised further questions about the extent to which Secretary McMahon has damaged the Department\u2019s ability to carry out its basic functions,\u201d said Senator Warren.\n\nSenator Warren asked the IG to investigate the following topics given McMahon\u2019s efforts to dismantle ED:\n\nWhen the department would restore the Income-Driven Repayment counter, as Secretary McMahon committed to do, which shows student loan borrowers their progress toward debt relief;\n\nHow the department would hold federal loan servicers like MOHELA accountable if they provide insufficient customer service to borrowers, including by penalizing servicers if they fail to meet their contractual obligations;\n\nThe department\u2019s plan to ensure that \u201cAidan,\u201d the generative AI chatbot that ED created to provide assistance with student aid, does not mislead families and borrowers or compromise their privacy;\n\nA timeline for clearing the 1.1 million application backlog for Income-Driven Repayment plans, and how ED decided to mass-deny hundreds of thousands of applications in this backlog on a contrived technicality;\n\nWhether ED has neglected its responsibility to take enforcement actions against predatory or fraudulent schools and ensure low-quality or fraudulent for-profit programs do not receive public funding, especially given the administration\u2019s decision to fire ED workers tasked with ensuring that federal funds are not used fraudulently;\n\nWhether ED is sufficiently protecting students who have encountered illegal discrimination, especially given the department\u2019s unprecedented rapid dismissal of civil rights complaints and mass firings of Office for Civil Rights staff; and\n\nHow the department determined who to fire when nearly half of ED\u2019s employees were laid off in March;\n\nWhether ED\u2019s recent agreements to transfer critical responsibilities to four other agencies are illegal.\n\n\u201cThe dismantling of ED\u2014including ED\u2019s recent move to transfer a range of statutory duties to other agencies\u2014threatens devastating consequences for students, borrowers, and families,\u201d concluded Senator Warren.\n\nSenator Warren urged the IG to expand its investigation and provide an update on the status of the ongoing investigation to \u201cshed light on the impact of the dismantling of ED on students and families in Massachusetts and beyond.\u201d\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:52:45Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warren-pushes-for-expansion-of-investigation-into-trumps-dismantling-of-education-department"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.0190179347991943, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}