The main American agencies, including the FBI, the State Department and the Pentagon, asked their employees not to comply with the cost chief The last request that federal workers explain what they accomplished last week – or may lose their jobs.
The decline of people appointed by the president Donald Trump Marked a new level of chaos and confusion in the besieged federal workforce, just a month after Trump’s return to the White House and quickly started making campaign promises to shrink the government.
Administration officials rushed throughout the weekend to interpret Musk’s unusual mandate, who apparently has the support of Trump despite certain legislators who claim that he is illegal. The unions want the administration to cancel the request and apologize to workers and threaten to continue.
Some officials resist. Others encourage their workers to comply. In some agencies, there were contradictory advice.
Sunday morning, a message from the Ministry of Health and Social Services, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., asked its 80,000 employees with around 80,000 employees. It was shortly after the interim general councilor, Sean Keveney, asked not to do it.
“I will be frank with you. After having done more than 70 hours of work last week, advancing the priorities of the administration, I was personally insulted to receive the email below, “said Keveney in an email referred to in the ‘Associated Press which recognized a wide sense of “uncertainty and stress” within the agency.
Keveney presented security problems and stressed that some of the work carried out by agency employees can be protected by the lawyer-client privilege: “I have not received any assurance that there are appropriate protections in place for Protect the answers to this email. “
The Musk team sent an email to hundreds of thousands of federal employees on Saturday by giving them about 48 hours to report five specific things they had accomplished last week. In a separate message on X, Musk said that any employee who had not responded to the deadline – set in the email at 11:59 p.m. on Monday – would lose his job.
Democrats and even some Republicans criticized Musk’s ultimatum, who came only a few hours after Trump encouraged him on social networks to “become more aggressive” by reducing government size through his self- Saying Department of Government Effectiveness, or DOGE. The day before, Musk celebrated its new position by waving a giant chainsaw during an appearance during a conservative conference.
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Senator John Curtis, Rutah, was one of Trump’s own members who had concerns. Utah has 33,000 federal employees.
“If I could say one thing to Elon Musk, it’s like, please put a dose of compassion on this subject,” said Curtis. “They are real people. These are real lives. These are mortgages…. It is a false story to say that we have to cut and you must also be cruel to do so. »»
Representative Mike Lawler, RN.Y., questioned the legal basis that the Trump administration would have to reject tens of thousands of workers for refusing to take into account Musk’s last request, although the E- Mail did not include the threat concerning workers who lose their jobs.
For Senator Chris Van Hollen, D-MD., There was no doubt: “The actions he undertakes are illegal and we must close this illegal operation.”
Trump made fun of workers affected in a meme he published on Sunday on his network of social media. The post presented a cartoon character writing a list of achievements of the previous week led by “Cried About Trump”, “Cried About Elon”, “entered the office for once” and “Read some emails” .
The director of the newly confirmed FBI, Kash Patel, an ally Trump Franc, asked the office employees to ignore the Musk’s request, at least for the moment.
“The FBI, through the director’s office, is in charge of all our examination processes and will carry out examinations in accordance with the FBI procedures,” Patel wrote in an e-mail confirmed by the AP. “When and if additional information is necessary, we will coordinate the answers. For the moment, please suspend all the answers. »»
Ed Martin, American acting lawyer in the Columbia district, sent a message on Sunday to his staff who could cause more confusion. Martin noted that he had answered the order of Musk.
“Let me clarify: we will respect this OPM request, whether by responding or deciding not to answer,” wrote Martin in the e-mail obtained by the AP, referring to the office of management of staff.
“Please make an effort in good faith to respond and list your activities (or not, as you prefer), and I will, as I mentioned, have my back concerning any confusion,” continued Martin. “We can do it.”
The previous night, Martin had asked the staff to comply. “Doge and Elon are doing a great job. Historical. We are happy to participate, ”wrote Martin at that time.
The officials of the state and defense departments were more consistent.
Tibor Nagy, an acting state under Security for Management, told employees in an email that the department’s management would respond to the name of the workers. “No employee is forced to report his activities outside their department channel,” Nagy wrote in an email.
Pentagon’s leadership asked employees to “take a break” in any response to the Musk team. “The Ministry of Defense is responsible for revising the performance of its staff and it will produce any exam in accordance with its own procedures,” according to an email from Jules Hurst, deputy defense under Security for staff and preparation. “When and if necessary, the ministry will coordinate the answers.”
Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government employees of 800,000 members, said on Sunday in a letter to the administration that she should cancel the request for original Musk email and apologize to all federal workers By the end of the day.
“We believe that employees have no obligation to respond to this clearly illegal email in the absence of another legal orientation,” he wrote, describing Musk as “unlist and disarticulated”.
Thousands of government employees have already been forced to leave the federal workforce – either by being dismissed, or by an offer of “deferred resignation” – during the first month of the second term of Trump.
So far, no official figure has been available for layoffs or layoffs, but the AP has counted hundreds of thousands of affected workers. Many work outside Washington.
Musk called on Sunday his last request “a very basic pulse verification”.
“The reason why this counts is that a significant number of people who are supposed to work for the government do so little work that they do not check their email at all!” Musk wrote on X. “In some cases, we believe that non -existent people or the identity of the dead are used to collect payroll checks. In other words, there is pure and simple fraud. »»
He has provided no evidence of such fraud. In addition, Musk and Trump have falsely affirmed in recent days that tens of millions of deaths over 100 years old receive social security payments.
Meanwhile, thousands of other employees are preparing to leave the federal workforce next week, including probationary civilian workers and entrepreneurs from the American agency for international development. The move of the USAID degenerates an administrative assault for one month at the international humanitarian agency which embarrassed its funding.
Curtis and Van Hollen were on CBS Face the nation And Lawler appeared on ABC This week.
The writers of the Associated Press Byron Tau, Ellen Knickmeyer and Tara Copp contributed to this report.