By FATIMA HUSSEIN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The height of tax season was the height of turmoil at the IRS.

The agency shuffled through three acting directors over the course of a week. It’s preparing to lose tens of thousands of workers to layoffs and voluntary retirements. And President Donald Trump is weighing in on which nonprofits should lose their tax-exempt status, an incursion into the agency’s typically apolitical stance that threatens to further erode trust in federal institutions and weaponize enforcement efforts.

Just three months into Trump’s second term, the government’s fly-under-the-radar tax collector has become the latest platform for the Republican administration’s vision to cut and control the federal bureaucracy. Tax policy experts fear that taxpayer services and collection efforts will face prolonged delays as a result of the rapid changes.

The quick turnover in leadership and other changes are likely to dampen employee morale at the IRS and hurt the agency’s ability to serve taxpayers in a timely manner, says Janet Holtzblatt, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.

“Leadership sets the tone, particularly in this environment,” she said.

Already, she notes, the agency has lost decades of institutional knowledge from nonpartisan career civil servants who have left over policy disagreements and layoffs.

Chaos embroils agency amid leadership turnover

The upheaval unfolded as Americans dutifully filed their taxes ahead of the April 15 deadline and as a legion of IRS employees undertook work to process returns and dole out refunds. The latest filing season data shows the agency accepted more than 117 million returns this tax season and issued $228.7 billion in refunds.

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“We’re committed to improving the efficiency of the Internal Revenue Service,” said the agency’s newest acting commissioner, Michael Faulkender. “For the last 35 years, we’ve been five years away from the IRS being modernized. Under the direct leadership of Treasury, the modernization will be done in two years at a fraction of the cost.”

Meanwhile, the IRS, like other federal agencies, is hemorrhaging employees over cuts spearheaded by the Department of Government Efficiency, all while the agency churns through acting leaders as it awaits the installation of a permanent leader.

Douglas O’Donnell, the Trump administration’s first acting IRS commissioner, announced his retirement in February as furor spread over DOGE gaining access to IRS taxpayer data. Melanie Krause, the second acting commissioner, resigned early this month over a deal between the IRS and the Department of Homeland Security to share immigrants’ tax data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Gary Shapley, an IRS whistleblower who testified publicly about investigations into Hunter Biden’s taxes, was acting commissioner for a matter of days before being replaced by Faulkender, who was elevated just last week. The New York Times reported that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had complained to Trump that Shapley had been installed without his knowledge and at the behest of Trump adviser Elon Musk.

Trump’s nominee for IRS commissioner, former U.S. Rep. Billy Long of Missouri, is still waiting for a confirmation hearing but faces controversies of his own. Most recently, Senate Democrats have called for a criminal investigation into Long’s connections to alleged tax credit loopholes. The lawmakers allege that firms connected to Long duped investors into spending millions of dollars to purchase fake tax credits. Long did not respond to an Associated Press request for comment.

Punishing enemies and rewarding friends

Among other concerns at the agency are fears that Trump will weaponize the IRS against his enemies — and reward his friends.

Some of the Democratic Party’s core political institutions, including fundraising platform ActBlue and the protest group Indivisible, are preparing for the possibility that the federal government may soon launch criminal investigations against them.

Trump said last week at the White House that the administration is looking at the tax-exempt status of Harvard University, which has defied the government’s attempts to limit activism on campus, and environmental groups. He also mentioned the ethics watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

“It’s supposed to be a charitable organization,” Trump said of CREW. “The only charity they had is going after Donald Trump. So we’re looking at that. We’re looking at a lot of things.”

Jonathan S. Masur, an administrative law professor at the University of Chicago Law School, said it’s unlawful for the president to unilaterally take away organizations’ tax-exempt status.

“It’s illegal for starters. The Supreme Court has established that that step is not allowed,” he said, adding that he anticipates that the court system will “very quickly block” any such move from the president.

The Trump administration is also watching out for allies of the president.

Treasury official David Eisner sent an email in March to a top IRS official regarding Mike Lindell, the founder of MyPillow and one of the chief proponents of the lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.

“The ‘My Pillow guy’ and a high-profile friend of the President recently received an audit letter, from what I understand, his second in two years,” Eisner wrote in the email, which was viewed by the AP. The president “is concerned that he may have been inappropriately targeted,” Eisner wrote.

Bringing immigration enforcement to the IRS

Among other changes in recent weeks are concerns about the IRS’ engagement with the Department of Homeland Security over enforcing a new data-sharing agreement signed earlier this month by Bessent and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. The agreement will allow ICE to submit names and addresses of immigrants inside the U.S. illegally to the IRS for cross-verification against tax records.

That agreement is being litigated in federal court.

U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich will soon decide whether to refuse or grant a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit filed by nonprofit groups. The groups argue that immigrants in the country illegally who pay taxes are entitled to the same privacy protections as U.S. citizens and immigrants who are legally in the country.

The Treasury Department says the agreement will help carry out Trump’s agenda to secure U.S. borders and is part of his larger nationwide immigration crackdown, which has resulted in deportations, workplace raids and the use of an 18th-century wartime law to deport Venezuelan migrants.

Holtzblatt said the agreement is indicative of the turmoil at the IRS.

“There’s an emphasis on improving technology and sharing information,” but it’s unclear for what reason, she said.

By MATT O’BRIEN, Associated Press Technology Writer

Former employees of OpenAI are asking the top law enforcement officers in California and Delaware to stop the company from shifting control of its artificial intelligence technology from a nonprofit charity to a for-profit business.

They’re concerned about what happens if the ChatGPT maker fulfills its ambition to build AI that outperforms humans, but is no longer accountable to its public mission to safeguard that technology from causing grievous harms.

“Ultimately, I’m worried about who owns and controls this technology once it’s created,” said Page Hedley, a former policy and ethics adviser at OpenAI, in an interview with The Associated Press.

Backed by three Nobel Prize winners and other advocates and experts, Hedley and nine other ex-OpenAI workers sent a letter this week to the two state attorneys general.

The coalition is asking California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings, both Democrats, to use their authority to protect OpenAI’s charitable purpose and block its planned restructuring. OpenAI is incorporated in Delaware and operates out of San Francisco.

OpenAI said in response that “any changes to our existing structure would be in service of ensuring the broader public can benefit from AI.” It said its for-profit will be a public benefit corporation, similar to other AI labs like Anthropic and tech billionaire Elon Musk’s xAI, except that OpenAI will still preserve a nonprofit arm.

“This structure will continue to ensure that as the for-profit succeeds and grows, so too does the nonprofit, enabling us to achieve the mission,” the company said in a statement.

The letter is the second petition to state officials this month. The last came from a group of labor leaders and nonprofits focused on protecting OpenAI’s billions of dollars of charitable assets.

Jennings said last fall she would “review any such transaction to ensure that the public’s interests are adequately protected.” Bonta’s office sought more information from OpenAI late last year but has said it can’t comment, even to confirm or deny if it is investigating.

OpenAI’s co-founders, including current CEO Sam Altman and Musk, originally started it as a nonprofit research laboratory on a mission to safely build what’s known as artificial general intelligence, or AGI, for humanity’s benefit. Nearly a decade later, OpenAI has reported its market value as $300 billion and counts 400 million weekly users of ChatGPT, its flagship product.

OpenAI already has a for-profit subsidiary but faces a number of challenges in converting its core governance structure. One is a lawsuit from Musk, who accuses the company and Altman of betraying the founding principles that led the Tesla CEO to invest in the charity.

While some of the signatories of this week’s letter support Musk’s lawsuit, Hedley said others are “understandably cynical” because Musk also runs his own rival AI company.

The signatories include two Nobel-winning economists, Oliver Hart and Joseph Stiglitz, as well as AI pioneers and computer scientists Geoffrey Hinton, who won last year’s Nobel Prize in physics, and Stuart Russell.

“I like OpenAI’s mission to ‘ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity,’ and I would like them to execute that mission instead of enriching their investors,” Hinton said in a statement Wednesday. “I’m happy there is an effort to hold OpenAI to its mission that does not involve Elon Musk.”

Conflicts over OpenAI’s purpose have long simmered at the San Francisco institute, contributing to Musk quitting in 2018, Altman’s short-lived ouster in 2023 and other high-profile departures.

Hedley, a lawyer by training, worked for OpenAI in 2017 and 2018, a time when the nonprofit was still navigating the best ways to steward the technology it wanted to build. As recently as 2023, Altman said advanced AI held promise but also warned of extraordinary risks, from drastic accidents to societal disruptions.

In recent years, however, Hedley said he watched with concern as OpenAI, buoyed by the success of ChatGPT, was increasingly cutting corners on safety testing and rushing out new products to get ahead of business competitors.

“The costs of those decisions will continue to go up as the technology becomes more powerful,” he said. “I think that in the new structure that OpenAI wants, the incentives to rush to make those decisions will go up and there will no longer be anybody really who can tell them not to, tell them this is not OK.”

Software engineer Anish Tondwalkar, a former member of OpenAI’s technical team until last year, said an important assurance in OpenAI’s nonprofit charter is a “stop-and-assist clause” that directs OpenAI to stand down and help if another organization is nearing the achievement of better-than-human AI.

“If OpenAI is allowed to become a for-profit, these safeguards, and OpenAI’s duty to the public can vanish overnight,” Tondwalkar said in a statement Wednesday.

Another former worker who signed the letter puts it more bluntly.

“OpenAI may one day build technology that could get us all killed,” said Nisan Stiennon, an AI engineer who worked at OpenAI from 2018 to 2020. “It is to OpenAI’s credit that it’s controlled by a nonprofit with a duty to humanity. This duty precludes giving up that control.”

The Associated Press and OpenAI have a licensing and technology agreement that allows OpenAI access to part of AP’s text archives.

Twenty-five years in, and the state of Texas has only elected two governors in the 21st Century, two lieutenant governors, and two attorney generals. The current governor was elected AG in 2002 to succeed the first GOP attorney general since Reconstruction, who himself ascended to the United States Senate and has remained in that seat ever since. Today’s attorney general, who succeeded the now-governor, is now ramping up for a likely primary campaign to oust said U.S. senator. 

Such is the age of Republican domination in Texas, largely marked by remarkable entrenchment in the statewide power structure interrupted by occasional bursts of incestuous conflict.  

There are no term limits for these offices in the Lone Star State, but that didn’t prevent a healthy level of churn among the top ranks of statewide office throughout most of Texas’ political history—even in the bygone era of Democrats’ one-party rule.   

John Cornyn and Mitch McConnell in 2018 (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call, CQ Roll Call via AP Images)

Not so much with Republicans. Under red rule, Texas has not just returned to a one-party state; it’s a one-party state controlled by just a very few politicians, who’ve used their longevity to consolidate unprecedented levels of power. Governor Greg Abbott has methodically expanded the once-limited realm of gubernatorial authority and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has reshaped the once independent-minded Senate into a body of one. 

For those top two, this is a time for cementing legacies, and they seemingly have no intent of leaving anytime soon. Abbott is singularly focused on passing school vouchers into law—a policy goal that eluded his two GOP predecessors. And if he wins a fourth term in 2026, he’ll be on the precipice of surpassing his predecessor Rick Perry as the state’s longest serving top executive. 

Patrick, who was at various times rumored to be considering a primary challenge against Abbott, appears to have grown content with mastering his green-carpeted domain in the Texas Senate. The lite guv, 75, also claims to be all in on running for a fourth term. While he’ll almost certainly be unable to surpass Lieutenant Governor Bill Hobby Jr.’s record 18-year reign, Patrick surely has a few things up his sleeve to cap his career. 

The logjam at the top has also extended to the lesser statewide positions such as the comptroller, land commissioner, and agriculture commissioner. Those relatively entry-level positions have long served as a training ground for higher office. But with such entrenchment, the only way for ambitious Republicans to move up is to try to take out one of their superiors—a dicey option. Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush tried to do it with an imperiled Attorney General Ken Paxton in 2022; he failed miserably, and now his political career is all but over. (His replacement, Dawn Buckingham, seems to be using the office as a launch pad for future higher office as well.) 

Comptroller Glenn Hegar, who was long harboring aims for governor or lieutenant governor, apparently grew tired of waiting. In March, he accepted a post as chancellor of the Texas A&M University System—replacing John Sharp, another former comptroller. 

Within hours of that news, GOP candidates were already rolling out their campaigns to take the open office in the 2026 elections. The former tea-party state senator and failed guv challenger Don Huffines is promising to wield the comptroller’s office as a DOGE-like weapon. Longtime Railroad Commissioner Christi Craddick, a more traditional conservative and heir to her ex-speaker father’s political fortune, has also jumped at this rare opportunity for a promotion. 

The headliner for the 2026 Republican primaries, though, will be an especially rare showdown between two heavyweights—Paxton versus U.S. Senator John Cornyn. It’s a battle that’s been simmering for years now, as the two have traded potshots back and forth.

Paxton has teased a potential challenge to Cornyn for some time, blasting him as an anti-MAGA establishment swamp creature who helped enact new gun laws and supported U.S. aid to Ukraine during the Biden presidency. In early April, Paxton made it official that he’s taking on Cornyn, who’s held the seat for over 20 years. Paxton-world has commissioned polls showing him well ahead of Cornyn in a primary, and the press-averse AG has gone on a media tour that includes not just his typical MAGA podcast circuit but also Washington insider outlets and even The New York Times. 

“I think I can win if I have $20 million,” Paxton told the Capitol Hill tabloid Punchbowl News. “I think it’s just time. … He’s had his chance. He hasn’t performed well, and the voters know it. You can go a long time without people paying attention. And they’re paying attention now.”

While Cornyn lost his bid for the long-coveted Republican Majority Leader position, he hasn’t lost his taste for politics. In late March, he officially announced his (fourth) reelection campaign with a video in which he firmly latched on to 47’s ill-fitted coat tails: “President Trump needs a partner who is battle-tested,” he intoned. 

It’s no less an awkward tact than his last reelection in 2020, when he remixed his old campaign jingle “Big John” to include a nod to “Big Don.” Much like his crestfallen mentor Mitch McConnell, the Corndog has struggled to navigate Trump’s takeover of the GOP. Soon after January 6th, 2021, the senior senator—in a move he likely regrets today—declared it was time for Trump to move on. 

That’s a weakness that Paxton, who is something of a cult hero in MAGA-world, is hoping to exploit. The timing may be perfect for the long-embattled AG, as he has shed himself of all his legal baggage—securities fraud charges settled, impeachment charges acquitted, a years-long Department of Justice investigation reportedly closed. 

And with Trump back in the White House, Paxton no longer even has a federal government to incessantly sue. Many of his top deputies have already been hired away by the new administration. What better time to go to Washington? 

And what, you may ask, about that long-suffering opposition force in this one-party state? Democrats’ hopes of pulling off statewide victory in Texas have been rather thoroughly decimated over the last three cycles.

But, as always, the party will start to convince itself that the next election will be different. And, of course, one can always find reason for a shred of optimism. The 2024 cycle was a disaster for Democrats all across the country. And the shellacking of Beto O’Rourke in 2022 came on highly unfavorable terrain for a Democrat in Texas.

The 2026 elections could play out similarly to the 2018 anti-Trump midterms that fueled Dems’ best performance in recent history. That made for rough sledding for junior U.S. Senator Ted Cruz. If Paxton, the GOP’s weakest statewide general-election candidate, does win the Senate primary, he could fare even worse than Cruz, should Dems field a compelling opponent (far from a given).

Paxton’s Senate bid also means that the attorney general’s office will be up for grabs. The winner of the GOP primary will all but certainly be someone with no statewide profile, quite possibly a far-right Paxton acolyte without the benefits of incumbency. Those odds could be the closest to even that a Texas Dem is going to get.

The post It’s a Long Way to the Top (if You Wanna Oust the Pols) appeared first on The Texas Observer.

By KATE BRUMBACK, Associated Press

ATLANTA (AP) — Anjan Roy was studying with friends at Missouri State University when he got an email that turned his world upside down. His legal status as an international student had been terminated, and he was suddenly at risk for deportation.

“I was in literal shock, like, what the hell is this?” said Roy, a graduate student in computer science from Bangladesh.

At first, he avoided going out in public, skipping classes and mostly keeping his phone turned off. A court ruling in his favor led to his status being restored this week, and he has returned to his apartment, but he is still asking his roommates to screen visitors.

More than a thousand international students have faced similar disruptions in recent weeks, with their academic careers — and their lives in the U.S. — thrown into doubt in a widespread crackdown by the Trump administration. Some have found a measure of success in court, with federal judges around the country issuing orders to restore students’ legal status at least temporarily.

In addition to the case filed in Atlanta, where Roy is among 133 plaintiffs, judges have issued temporary restraining orders in states including New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Montana, Oregon and Washington. Judges have denied similar requests in some other cases, saying it was not clear the loss of status would cause irreparable harm.

International students challenge grounds for their status revocation

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last month the State Department was revoking visas held by visitors who were acting counter to national interests, including some who protested Israel’s war in Gaza and those who face criminal charges. But many affected students said they have been involved only in minor infractions, or it’s unclear altogether why they were targeted.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio looks on upon his arrival at the Quai d’Orsay, France’s Minister of Foreign Affairs before a bilateral meeting with his French counterpart Jean-Noel Barrot in Paris Thursday, April 17, 2025. (Julien de Rosa, Pool via AP)

The attorney for Roy and his fellow plaintiffs, Charles Kuck, argued the government did not have legal grounds to terminate the students’ status.

He speculated in court last week the government is trying to encourage these students to self-deport, saying “the pressure on these students is overwhelming.” He said some asked him if it was safe to leave their homes to get food, and others worried they wouldn’t receive a degree after years of work or feared their chances of a career in the U.S. were shot.

“I think the hope is they’ll just leave,” Kuck said. “The reality is these kids are invested.”

In this image taken from video, immigration lawyer Charles Kuck speaks to reporters outside a federal courthouse in Atlanta, on April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Kate Brumback)

An attorney for the government, R. David Powell, argued the students did not suffer significant harm because they could transfer their academic credits or find jobs in another country.

At least 1,100 students at 174 colleges, universities and university systems have had their visas revoked or their legal status terminated since late March, according to an Associated Press review of university statements, correspondence with school officials and court records. The AP is working to confirm reports of hundreds more students who are caught up in the crackdown.

In a lawsuit filed Monday by four people on student visas at the University of Iowa, attorneys detail the “mental and financial suffering” they’ve experienced. One graduate student, from India, “cannot sleep and is having difficulty breathing and eating,” the lawsuit reads. He has stopped going to school, doing research or working as a teaching assistant. Another student, a Chinese undergraduate who expected to graduate this December, said his revoked status has caused his depression to worsen to the point that his doctor increased his medication dosage. The student, the lawsuit says, has not left his apartment out of fear of detention.

Tiny infractions made students targets for the crackdown

Roy, 23, began his academic career at Missouri State in August 2024 as an undergraduate computer science student. He was active in the chess club and a fraternity and has a broad circle of friends. After graduating in December, he began work on a master’s degree in January and expects to finish in May 2026.

When Roy received the university’s April 10 email on his status termination, one of his friends offered to skip class to go with him to the school’s international services office, even though they had a quiz in 45 minutes. The staff there said a database check showed his student status had been terminated, but they didn’t know why.

Roy said his only brush with the law came in 2021, when he was questioned by campus security after someone called in a dispute at a university housing building. But he said an officer determined there was no evidence of any crime and no charges were filed.

Roy also got an email from the U.S. embassy in Bangladesh telling him his visa had been revoked and that he could be detained at any time. It warned that if he was deported, he could be sent to a country other than his own. Roy thought about leaving the U.S. but decided to stay after talking to a lawyer.

Anxious about being in his own apartment, Roy went to stay with his second cousin and her husband nearby.

“They were scared someone was going to pick me up from the street and take me somewhere that they wouldn’t even know,” Roy said.

He mostly stayed inside, turned off his phone unless he needed to use it, and avoided internet browsers that track user data through cookies. His professors were understanding when he told them he wouldn’t be able to come to classes for a while, he said.

New doubts about students’ future in the US

After the judge’s order Friday, he moved back to his apartment. He learned Tuesday his status had been restored, and he plans to return to class. But he’s still nervous. He asked his two roommates, both international students, to let him know before they open the door if someone they don’t know knocks.

The judge’s restoration of his legal status is temporary. Another hearing scheduled for Thursday will determine whether he keeps that status while the litigation continues.

Roy chose the U.S. over other options in Canada and Australia because of the research opportunities and potential for professional connections, and he ultimately wanted to teach at an American university. But now those plans are up in the air.

His parents, back in Dhaka, have been watching the news and are “freaked out,” he said. His father mentioned to him that they have family in Melbourne, Australia, including a cousin who’s an assistant professor at a university there.

AP reporters Christopher L. Keller in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this story.

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.