Federal Bureaucrats Fear, Resist Trump Changes
The change in power has provoked trepidation and anxiety among career federal bureaucrats.
Before Donald Trump’s first full week as president was finished, the federal firings had already begun. On Monday, Acting U.S. Attorney General James McHenry fired dozens of Justice Department officials who “played a significant role in prosecuting President Trump” and therefore could not be trusted “to assist in implementing the President’s agenda faithfully.” Over at the Department of Labor, Kamala Harris aide Elizabeth Peña was fired from a three-year position after reporters discovered she had “secretly burrowed into the government” post-Election Day.
These are just an initial salvo of dismissals in what may become a recurring theme of the second Trump administration. Trump announced plans to purge at least 1,000 appointees from President Biden’s administration.
The change in power has provoked trepidation and anxiety among career federal bureaucrats, who trend overwhelmingly progressive. Some are seeking out private employment, while public sector unions have already begun filing lawsuits against the president’s executive orders.
Perhaps one employee spoke for many when he expressed “a level of distrust with how things are working.” That happens when the American people execute a hostile takeover of a government that no longer works for them. Indeed, “a level of distrust with how things are working” is what most Americans feel about the federal government most of the time. Perhaps a shake-up is the appropriate remedy.
Meanwhile, some federal employees have opted to stubbornly defy administration orders, trusting in bureaucratic inertia to derail the Trump Train. At the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Acting Administrator Jason Gray placed 56 senior officials on administrative leave Monday after identifying “several actions within USAID that appear to be designed to circumvent the President’s Executive Orders.” On January 20, President Trump ordered a 90-day freeze on all foreign aid funding, much of which is dispensed through USAID. The employees will remain on paid leave “until further notice while we complete our analysis of these actions,” said Gray.
The federal workforce has also griped about Trump’s order for federal employees to resume in-person work five days a week, finally putting the lax protocol adopted for the COVID-19 pandemic in the rearview mirror. “Nobody is liking that,” complained Department of Labor Budget Analyst Kyra Toland. Another employee, concerned about space, whined melodramatically, “I guess we will all be sitting cross-legged on the floor.”
The appeal of a flexible work location is understandable, as well as the aversion to sitting in D.C. commuter traffic. But if workers really prize the convenience of working in their pajamas over the importance of public service, there are many other jobs willing to offer that flexibility. The American people have certain expectations of their federal government, and having career employees — with precious little accountability as it is — report to work in person seems like the bare minimum.
One would think that federal bureaucrats who were really anxious to keep their jobs would strive diligently to please their new bosses and demonstrate that they can implement the Trump administration’s agenda faithfully. This is accomplished best by those employees who are actually seen daily at their place of employment.
Perhaps by inserting this discomfort — this ever-so-slight, first-world-problem type of discomfort — into the lives of federal employees, the Trump administration hopes to nudge many out the door of their own accord. The Trump administration has already placed a temporary hiring freeze on new federal employees, and the Office of Personnel Management is seeking lists of probationary employees who are easier to fire by law.
These moves seem calculated either to reduce the size of the federal workforce or to free up space for new hires, which may be an effort to construct a more politically balanced federal government. Either would be a step towards “draining the swamp.”
Whatever its ultimate goal, the Trump administration seems eager to find some bureaucrats to fire. While federal bureaucrats may be unhappy about the Trump agenda, brazenly opposing it, especially by defying direct orders, seems like a good way to get the axe. Unelected bureaucrats may disagree with the choice American voters made, but they will have to live with it.
Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.
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