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Dear Reader,

It’s worth pausing for a moment to take stock as we near the one-year mark of President Donald Trump’s second term.

The president has turned the immense powers of the executive branch against his perceived political enemies and the press. Law firms, legacy media organizations, universities and businesses have settled with the White House rather than continue a confrontation. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth imposed new rules requiring reporters with Pentagon press passes to pledge not to gather information — even if unclassified — that hadn’t been authorized for release. Every major news outlet rejected the policy and lost their access to the building. At few times in history, if ever, has a free and independent media been under greater pressure.

ProPublica is working hard to meet the moment.

In our newsroom of more than 150 journalists, roughly 60 reporters and editors are focusing on the administration’s efforts to expand executive power, carry out mass deportations and reshape the American economy <[link removed]>.

Our reporting is creating a well-documented record of the massive changes sweeping through every government agency. In the past year, we’ve published a searchable database <[link removed]> profiling key figures involved with the Department of Government Efficiency and exposed their potential conflicts of interest. We obtained records showing how a DOGE staffer with no medical experience used an error-prone AI tool <[link removed]> to flag Veterans Affairs contracts for cancellation — though the agency said humans reviewed the tool’s decisions — prompting congressional calls for investigation <[link removed]>. We revealed how the Trump team placed a 22-year-old with no national security expertise <[link removed]> in charge of overseeing the government’s main hub for combating violent extremism. And we broke the story of how more than a dozen high-ranking officials <[link removed]> — including Attorney General Pam Bondi <[link removed]> and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy <[link removed]> — sold stocks before Trump’s tariffs sent markets plunging, though most denied having insider information when we asked. A spokesperson for Duffy said an account manager made the trades and that Duffy had no input on the timing.

Earlier this year, we reported on how the administration has stopped gathering key statistics on issues like maternal mortality <[link removed]>, making it much harder for officials or the public to gauge the effects of Trump’s policies. Increasingly, it will be up to journalists to track the human impact of everything from tariffs to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vaccine policies to the loosening of environmental rules. The public’s need for independent, nonpartisan, fact-based investigative reporting has never been greater.

Surprisingly, investigative reporters and editors are optimists by nature. Despite being immersed in the grimy details of grift, graft and fraud, we believe that our fellow citizens will ultimately demand better if only they know the truth. Our freedom to tell that truth is rooted in our business model — which is to say we have no other business but journalism.

Thanks to supporters like you, we remain 100% independent — not beholden to shareholders, corporate interests or government funding. This freedom allows our reporters to pursue stories in the public interest and produce deep-dive, well-researched, nonpartisan journalism with moral force. No one, including our board or our donors, knows what stories we’re working on until they are published.

From the day we began publishing in 2008, we've pursued a clear mission. We are not advocates but we hope to write stories that are so grounded in verifiable facts, they spur real-world changes in behaviors, policies or laws. Despite the administration’s open hostility toward the press and facts, we will not back down. We will continue to produce investigative journalism that tracks spheres of influence and digs deep into issues that affect everyday Americans. We remain committed to cutting through the noise to show readers not just what’s happening, but what it means for democracy and your daily lives.

And we have seen our work have an impact, even in this new world we find ourselves in. Our yearslong investigative series on stillbirths <[link removed]> prompted significant federal action and resource mobilization in an increasingly austere budgetary environment: The National Institutes of Health launched a five-year, $37 million federally funded consortium <[link removed]> to reduce what it has called the country’s “unacceptably high” stillbirth rate. “There’s no question that the ProPublica reporting was intimately tied to this,” one expert said.

Reader support makes this work possible <[link removed]>. In the uncertain times ahead, your gift helps ensure that we can continue producing the accountability journalism democracy demands. Stand with us.

With gratitude,

Steve Engelberg <[link removed]>

Editor-in-ChiefProPublica

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