Confidential Source Witness to Confusion and Missteps of Federal Agencies

By JW August / Special to the OB Rag

From the trenches

Keeping up with the turmoil in Washington, D.C. is an insider who works for a large federal agency and is witnessing the confusion and missteps up close.

Identified only as “S,” given that this person is not authorized to speak publicly, this is what our source says are a number of different actions that are creating fear in D.C.

Trump is trying to block a ruling from a federal judge in California ordering the administration to rehire fired workers who had been on probationary status.  He is asking the Supreme Court to knock out lower court resistance to his actions.  Source “S” tells me President Trump’s staffers have instructed agencies to put the probationary workers on administrative leave to give his attorneys time to overturn the court’s injunction.

The Office of Special Counsel is now saying that  all probationary workers who were fired now must go through the Merit System Protection Board to make sure the firings were legal. A NFFE (National Federation of Federal Employees) lawsuit led to the Special Counsel making this request. Trump’s people will not like this development.

Trump late last week gave the Office of Personnel Management  the power to fire federal workers outright, overriding the authority of the agency they work for. Instead of agencies deciding who to fire, OPM can fire anyone it so chooses. “This would allow Elon Musk  to fire employees at will” is how our source sees it.

“S” says Trump’s team is demanding there be no notes, no recap emails of any kind in senior staff level meetings.  Any senior executives opposing any of this are now being forced out the door. “S” warns, “There is a lot of institutional knowledge walking out the door,” and there will be no one to advocate for programs they oversee and the value they have for Americans.

Agencies themselves have now been told to create ‘reasonable accommodations review boards’ (RA)-normally an HR function and a physician.  These RAs will be made up of senior executives within the agency, to review all workers who have remote work or telework as part of their accommodation.  These boards have clear instruction from the Trump administration to deny as many of these accommodation requests as possible by making “corporate decisions” on behalf of the agency. This is taking place despite physicians earlier recommending the employee be allowed to work from home due to disability.