On February 17, 2026, President Donald Trump’s Department of Veterans Affairs announced it is ending the long-standing practice of reporting certain veterans to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).
Two of the nation’s most critical executive departments—the Department of War and the Department of Veterans Affairs—are leading the federal government in unresolved recommendations for reform.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) plans to eliminate 80,000 jobs by August 2025 as part of an aggressive reorganization to reduce its workforce to pre-2020 levels of just under 400,000 employees.
