WASHINGTON (AP) — From his home office in small-town Kentucky, a seasoned political operative is quietly investigating scores of federal employees suspected of being hostile to the policies of Republican Donald Trump, an effort that dovetails with broader conservative preparations for a new White House.
Tom Jones and his American Accountability Foundation are digging into the backgrounds, social media posts and commentary of key high-ranking government employees, starting with the Department of Homeland Security. They’re relying in part on tips from his network of conservative contacts, including workers. In a move that alarms some, they’re preparing to publish the findings online.
With a $100,000 grant from the influential Heritage Foundation, the goal is to post 100 names of government workers to a website this summer to show a potential new administration who might be standing in the way of a second-term Trump agenda — and ripe for scrutiny, reclassifications, reassignments or firings.
“We need to understand who these people are and what they do,” said Jones, a former Capitol Hill aide to Republican senators.
The concept of compiling and publicizing a list of government employees shows the lengths Trump’s allies are willing to go to ensure nothing or no one will block his plans in a potential second term. Jones’ Project Sovereignty 2025 comes as Heritage’s Project 2025 lays the groundwork, with policies, proposals and personnel ready for a possible new White House.
The effort, focused on top career government officials who aren’t appointees within the political structure, has stunned democracy experts and shocked the civil service community in what they compare with the red scare of midcentury McCarthyism.
Jacqueline Simon, policy director at the American Federation of Government Employees, said the language being used — the Heritage Foundation’s announcement praised the group for ferreting out “anti-American bad actors” — is “shocking.”
Civil servants are often ex-military personnel and are required to take an oath to the Constitution to work for the federal government, not a loyalty test to a president in the White House, she and others said.
“It just seems as though their goal is to try to menace federal employees and sow fear,” said Simon, whose union backs President Joe Biden, a Democrat, for reelection.
As Trump, who has been convicted of felony charges in a hush money case and is under a four-count federal indictment accusing him of working to overturn his 2020 election loss, faces a likely rematch with Biden this fall, far-right conservatives have vowed to take a wrecking ball to what they call the deep-state bureaucracy.
The Trump campaign has said outside groups don’t speak for the ex-president, who alone sets his policy priorities.
Conservatives view the federal workforce as overstepping its role to become a power center that can drive or thwart a president’s agenda. Particularly during the Trump administration, government officials came under attack from the White House and Republicans on Capitol Hill, as his own Cabinet often raised objections to some of his more singular or even unlawful …read more
Source:: The Denver Post – Politics
