A top EPA attorney warned of considerable blowback if the agency dished out discipline to employees publicly critical of the Trump administration.
Political leaders at EPA punished those staffers anyway.
Internal emails shed more light on last summer’s episode when the agency was rocked by an open dissent letter that castigated the administration’s disrespect for science and intimidation of staff. EPA suspended many and removed some who signed the letter — a move being appealed by fired staffers.
Yet before the agency sanctioned those employees, one of its own lawyers advised EPA to stand down.
Nate Nichols, assistant general counsel of the employment law practice group at EPA, said “my legal advice” was the agency should not take “personnel actions” or make any move that could be considered “retaliatory” or have “a chilling effect” on other staff.
“Taking any such action would present significant legal risk, as the letter is likely protected speech under the First Amendment,” Nichols said in an email sent July 2 last year.
He cited Pickering v. Board of Education, a Supreme Court decision reached almost 60 years ago that found the government has an interest in regulating its employees’ speech. But that ruling established “a balancing test” to protect First Amendment rights, which was if the workers speak as private citizens about “a matter of public concern” and it doesn’t interfere with their government jobs.
“The document appears to meet the Pickering test and the...
Stalin was referring to a video put out by a leading English newspaper titled ‘The false political narratives around Vijay and TVK’ in the message on X: Reports CHENNAI: You can fool some people fo...