The White House is close to implementing a new rule that would effectively eradicate congressionally approved whistleblower protections.
Congress has passed several laws since the 1970s extending protections to federal workers that call out governmental wrongdoing. But the Trump administration is planning on chipping away at that by updating its policy on accountability, which would “exclude senior employees from legal protections that prohibit U.S. government agencies from retaliating against whistleblowers,” reported Reuters Tuesday.
Federal employment attorneys noted that the new policy would make targets out of the people most likely to find themselves in positions to uncover serious corruption.
“Translation: Trump can fire federal employees who point out that he’s broken the law. That’s pretty damn dark,” wrote Miles Taylor, an ex-Homeland Security official who drew national attention in 2018 when he anonymously penned an op-ed for The New York Times claiming to be part of the internal “resistance” against Trump’s first term agenda.
It would follow through on Donald Trump’s April proposal to create a new federal employee category to “enhance accountability.”
“This rule empowers federal agencies to swiftly remove employees in policy-influencing roles for poor performance, misconduct, corruption, or subversion of Presidential directives, without lengthy procedural hurdles,” reads a White House fact sheet from the time on the proposed changes.
The Office of Personnel...
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