“He’s hellbent on illegally abolishing the Education Department,” Warren warns — and now she wants a watchdog probe

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is escalating her fight over the Trump administration’s push to shrink — and ultimately eliminate — the U.S. Department of Education, arguing the White House is trying to “dismantle” the agency in ways that Congress never authorized. In a new letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Warren, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and other Democrats asked the nonpartisan watchdog to investigate a series of interagency agreements that move Education Department grant responsibilities to other federal agencies.

Here’s the core of what they’re mad about: the Department of Education was created by Congress, so it can’t be abolished by a president acting alone — but presidents can try to hollow it out by shifting duties elsewhere, cutting staff, and narrowing what the agency does day-to-day. Warren and Sanders say the administration’s latest moves are exactly that: a workaround that functionally weakens the department while sidestepping Congress.

What are the “documents” Warren is pointing at?

Warren’s complaint isn’t about one secret dossier — it’s about a paper trail of agreements and transfers that change who runs major federal education programs.

In the letter to GAO dated Feb. 19, 2026, the senators ask for an investigation into an interagency agreement (IAA) that transferred “significant responsibilities” for career and technical education (CTE) and adult education grant administration from the Department of Education (ED) to the Department of Labor (DOL). They also ask GAO to examine six more IAAs announced in November 2025 that involve moving grant administration responsibilities for “dozens of programs” out of ED.

Warren’s office and ABC News describe this as part of a broader “dismantling” strategy: move the work, then argue the original agency is no longer necessary.

Why would people want to read them? Because these agreements help answer questions voters care about in plain English:

• What programs are being moved?
• Who is running them now?
• Will funding get delayed?
• Does moving the work change oversight and enforcement — like civil rights investigations or how grant rules are applied?

Are these about Trump personally?

They’re not about Trump’s personal life — they’re about Trump administration policy and how far the executive branch can go to reshape a cabinet department without Congress. Warren’s framing is that it’s not just “reform,” it’s an attempt to make the department collapse from the inside.

The backdrop matters: Trump signed an executive order in March 2025 directing the Education Secretary to “return authority over education” to states and local communities — language supporters argue is about decentralizing education, while critics say it’s a roadmap for dismantling the department.

So… is this “backhanded,” like he’s hiding something?

What’s fair to say based on what’s public:

• There’s a real separation-of-powers fight here. Congress created ED, so formally eliminating it requires Congress. Multiple analyses note a president can’t just erase the department with an executive order.
• But the administration can still shift functions and shrink capacity, which is why lawsuits and court fights have followed the “dismantle ED” push. Reuters previously reported the administration asked the Supreme Court to let it proceed after a lower-court order blocked layoffs/shutdown steps.
• Whether this is “hiding something” is a political interpretation. The stronger, documentable claim is: critics believe these transfers reduce transparency and accountability because programs get scattered across agencies that don’t specialize in education — and because people have to chase information across more bureaucratic lanes.

What the administration says

The Education Department has pushed back hard on the idea that these transfers are illegal. In the ABC News report, a department spokeswoman defended interagency agreements as common and lawful, accusing Democrats of prioritizing bureaucrats over students.

That’s the split in a nutshell:

• Warren/Sanders: transferring statutory responsibilities looks like an end-run around Congress and is harming programs through delays/inefficiency.
• Administration/ED: IAAs are a normal tool; the goal is streamlining and shifting power closer to states.