Some
US Agencies Tell Workers Not to Reply to Musk's 'What Did You Do Last Week'
Email (Connecting the Dots: The Federal Deposit
Insurance Corporation (FDIC), The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau &
Soro Funding, All Networking)
Newsmax.com
Sunday,
23 February 2025 02:04 PM EST
Multiple
U.S. federal agencies told employees not to respond immediately to a demand by
President Donald Trump's adviser Elon Musk to list their accomplishments in the
last week or be fired, as a chaotic campaign to cull the bureaucracy pushes
forward.
Trump
administration-appointed officials at the FBI and State Department sent their
staff emails telling them not to respond outside their chains of command, in a
possible sign of tension between members of the Republican administration and
the world's richest person in his campaign to cut down the government's 2.3
million member civilian workforce.
"The
FBI, through the office of the director, is in charge of all our review
processes," said FBI Director Kash Patel, a Trump appointee, in an email
to staff seen by Reuters.
Musk
leads the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which in the first
weeks of Trump's administration has laid off more than 20,000 workers and
offered buyouts to another 75,000, across wide swaths of the government from
the Defense Department - long a top Republican priority - to the Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau, where all staff have been ordered to halt work.
The
frantic pace has led the federal government in some cases to rush to rehire
workers who perform critical functions like securing the nation's nuclear
arsenal and trying to fight the worsening bird flu outbreak, which has caused
egg prices to spike higher.
While
there is bipartisan agreement that the U.S. government, which carries $36
trillion in debt, would benefit from reform, Musk's tumultuous approach has
drawn widespread criticism, including from voters in some Republican areas.
Federal
workers on Saturday evening received an email instructing them to detail the
work they did during the previous week by 11:59 p.m. ET on Monday (0459 GMT
Tuesday), shortly after Musk posted on his X social media site that failing to
respond would be taken as a resignation.
The
subject of the email read, "What did you do last week?" and came from
a human resources address in the Office of Personnel Management, but did not
include Musk's threat of termination.
Workers
at the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Education and Commerce, as
well as at the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation, the National
Institutes of Health and the Internal Revenue Service also were told not to
respond pending further guidance, according to sources and emails reviewed by
Reuters.
"To
be clear – this is irregular, unexpected, and warrants further
validation," a senior executive at the National Centers for Environmental
Information, an agency that manages environmental data and is part of the
Commerce Department, wrote.
Some
officials welcomed the move. Ed Martin, Trump's nominee for U.S. Attorney in
Washington, D.C., who is serving in an interim capacity, praised Musk and DOGE
in an email response.
But
other offices within the Justice Department, including the executive office
that supports all U.S. attorneys and the department's civil division, told
employees not to reply pending additional information.
Employees
at the Drug Enforcement Administration, part of the Justice Department, were
told to respond, according to an email seen by Reuters.
UNION
QUESTIONS MUSK'S AUTHORITY
The
largest federal workers' union, the American Federation of Government
Employees, wrote on X on Sunday that it did not believe Musk had the authority
to fire employees who did not respond and would formally request that OPM
rescind the message.
Meanwhile,
the union advised members to ask their supervisors directly whether to reply
and to follow their guidance.
The
email left some employees even more frustrated and worried after weeks of
uncertainty about their futures.
"I
really wonder when someone is going to say enough," one IRS employee told
Reuters.
Media
offices at the Commerce, Justice, Education and Treasury departments, as well
as at the FDIC and NIH, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. An
FBI spokesperson declined to comment, and a State Department spokesperson
referred questions to the White House.
Musk
on X on Sunday called the email "a very basic pulse check."
Senator
John Curtis, a Republican from Utah, said he supports the Trump
administration's efforts to reduce government spending but that Musk should
take a more humane approach.
"If
I could say one thing to Elon Musk, it's please put a dose of compassion in
this," Curtis said on CBS News' "Face the Nation." "These
are real people. These are real lives. These are mortgages. It's a false
narrative to say we have to cut and you have to be cruel to do it as well. We
can do both."
Some
federal judiciary employees, including judges, also received the Saturday email
from OPM, even though the court system is not part of the executive branch, the
Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts confirmed.
The
judiciary advised employees that no action should be taken in response to the
message, according to an email reviewed by Reuters.
In
some cases, employees were left unsure how to respond even if they chose to do
so.
Some
lawyers, for instance, expressed concern that their work is confidential.
Workers
at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau also received the email, according
to people with knowledge of the matter, even though they were all ordered to
cease working since early this month, leaving them with little to do.
Former
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Republican, said the email was "a
complete overstep" that would be defeated in court.
"From
a management perspective, you can see what a clown car this is right now,"
Christie said during ABC News' "The Week" on Sunday. (Reporting by
Jonathan Landay and Sarah N. Lynch in Washington and Joseph Ax in Princeton,
New Jersey, Additional reporting by Marisa Taylor, Kanishka Singh, Brad Heath,
Valerie Volcovici, Ted Hesson, Karen Freifeld, Timothy Gardner, Pete Schroeder,
Nathan Layne and Nate Raymond; Editing by Scott Malone and Andrea Ricci)
Connecting
the Dots:
Martin J.
Gruenberg is the chairman for the Federal Deposit
Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and Paul S. Sarbanes was
his senior counsel.
Paul S. Sarbanes was Martin
J. Gruenberg’s senior counsel and is a governor at the Roosevelt
Institute.
Jonathan Soros is a senior
fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and George Soros’s son.
George Soros is Jonathan Soros’s father
and was the chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society.
Foundation to Promote Open Society was a funder for
the Roosevelt Institute.
Cantwell
F. Muckenfuss III is a director at the Roosevelt Institute,
was a comptroller for the Comptroller of the Currency and a
counsel to the chairman for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
(FDIC).
John C. Dugan was
a comptroller for the Comptroller of the Currency, director at
the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and is a
partner at Covington & Burling LLP.
Eric H. Holder Jr. is
a partner at Covington & Burling LLP, was the attorney general
at the U.S. Department of Justice for the Barack Obama
administration, a board member for the American Constitution
Society and an intern at the NAACP Legal Defense &
Educational Fund.
Open Society Foundations was a funder
for the American Constitution Society.
George Soros is the founder
& chairman for the Open Society Foundations and was the
chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society.
Foundation to Promote Open Society was a funder for
the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund and the Brookings
Institution (think tank).
A.W. Clausen was
an honorary trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank) and
the chairman & CEO for the Bank of America Corp. (Bailout Company).
Donald E. Powell was
a director at the Bank of America Corp. (Bailout Company) and
the chairman for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
John L. Douglas was
an attorney for the Bank of America Corp. (Bailout Company) and
the general counsel for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
(FDIC).
Robert W.
Scully was a director at the Bank of America Corp. (Bailout
Company) and is a director at KKR Management LLC.
KKR
Management LLC is a general partner with KKR & Co. LP.
John M. Keane was
a senior adviser for KKR & Co. LP and is a friend of David
H. Petraeus.
David H.
Petraeus is the KKR Global Institute chairman for KKR
& Co. LP, a friend of John M. Keane and married to Hollister
K. Petraeus.
Hollister
K. Petraeus is married to David H. Petraeus and helped
establish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau is a bureau for the Federal
Reserve System.
Resources:
Past Research
FDIC
Sets up Office to Hear Discrimination, Sexual Harassment Claims (Past Research
on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), The Bank of America Corp,
Jonathan Soros & Soros Funding, All Networking) (Past
Research on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC))
Friday,
August 9, 2024
https://thesteadydrip.blogspot.com/2024/08/fdic-sets-up-office-to-hear.html
Chicago
is an Economic Machine (Past Research on the Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau)
Friday,
April 4, 2014
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