By Steve Contorno, CNN
(CNN) — In mid-September, as tech billionaire Elon Musk intensified his efforts to elect Donald Trump as president, a wave of letters arrived on the Division of Transportation, asking the company to show over any emails and textual content messages that federal employees despatched in regards to the world’s wealthiest man and his sprawling expertise empire.
The requests have been like 1000’s of others despatched previously two years by Trump-allied teams in search of to determine perceived partisans throughout the federal authorities. Some have centered on range, fairness and inclusion applications, others on staff who shared “off the record” info with reporters and on emails referencing “climate change.”
It’s a large fishing expedition that has already despatched a chill by federal businesses bracing for Trump’s second time period.
With Trump set to return to the White Home with a promise to shrink the federal authorities and eradicate civil servants seen as obstacles to his agenda, the groundwork laid by these teams may function a highway map for a mass purging of personnel.
Unclear is whether or not the incoming Trump administration intends to make the most of the work of those teams because the president-elect pursues a long-standing objective of eliminating disloyal profession bureaucrats. A spokesperson for his transition staff didn’t reply to a request for remark.
“We have a pretty good handle on where the problem sectors are, who the problematic individuals are and what the problematic tactics are,” mentioned Mike Howell, govt director of the Heritage Basis Oversight Venture, which is accountable for a considerable share of the requests. “We’ve been planning for some time what to do if there’s turnover in the administration.”
Howell estimates his group has submitted round 65,000 requests to federal businesses below the Freedom of Data Act, a legislation that governs public entry to data produced by the federal government. And he’s not alone. America First Coverage Institute, a bunch with shut ties to Trump’s transition staff, has additionally requested businesses flip over coaching supplies about range applications and any data that define all senior stage positions.
One other conservative group, the American Accountability Basis, not too long ago revealed the names of 60 “targets” within the Division of Homeland Safety who the group believes would stand in the way in which of Trump’s plans for large-scale deportation and different sweeping immigration insurance policies. The checklist consists of senior-level staff who donated to Democratic candidates or causes, beforehand labored for teams that advocate for extra liberal immigration insurance policies or posted on social media about their efforts to help immigrants who arrived within the US in search of authorized standing.
“If the president wants to be able to execute on the agenda that the American people told them they want, they can’t have liberal activists in (Senior Executive Service) positions,” mentioned Tom Jones, the conservative activist and former Capitol Hill aide behind the American Accountability Basis.
Howell and Jones mentioned they haven’t had direct conversations with both Trump’s marketing campaign or individuals concerned within the transition, however each expressed confidence that the incoming administration is clued in on their work. America First Coverage Institute didn’t reply to requests for remark.
“We run in similar circles, and they’re aware of what we’re doing,” Jones mentioned.
Trump as a candidate vowed to reinstate a 2020 govt order generally known as Schedule F, which gave him energy to start mass firings of federal staff who could possibly be impediments to his agenda. Neither his marketing campaign nor his transition staff have mentioned how he intends to place Schedule F in place and what impact it may have on the nation’s 2 million federal staff working within the US and overseas.
Whereas Trump distanced himself from the Heritage Basis in the course of the marketing campaign over Venture 2025 – the group’s much-maligned blueprint for a second time period – the group stays a key useful resource for the transition staff as it really works to workers 1000’s of positions in Trump’s new authorities.
America First Coverage Institute additionally has shut ties to Trump’s transition. The chair of the group’s board is Linda McMahon, the pinnacle of the Small Enterprise Administration below Trump and the co-chair of his transition staff. McMahon can be a possible candidate to function commerce secretary in a second Trump time period.
On Wednesday, Trump stopped by an occasion held by the group at his Mar-a-Lago membership and briefly addressed the group, in accordance with a go to posted on-line, and he spoke the subsequent day on the AFPI gala.
The efforts have alarmed company officers and unions representing federal employees. One supply for a union representing Environmental Safety Company employees characterised the trouble because the potential weaponization of inside company emails. In response, the supply mentioned that EPA staff are “putting as little as possible in any written form.”
The union for EPA staff has submitted its personal requests for info to get names of EPA staff who could also be in danger, but it surely has not obtained a response as a result of the company’s FOIA workplace has been inundated with requests from Trump allies.
In some businesses, submissions from Howell’s group make up the overwhelming majority of the data requests they’ve obtained. The Division of Transportation, for instance, has obtained about 1,600 FOIA requests by the primary 9 months of 2024, and about 1,075 got here from three individuals all tied to the Heritage Basis Oversight Venture, in accordance with a CNN assessment of the company’s FOIA logs.
In his hunt for alleged partisans, Howell has requested from a number of businesses data that may uncover conspiracies to subvert the president-elect’s anticipated purging by asking for emails that embody “Trump” and “reduction in force.”
Most of the data requests stay unfulfilled, logs present. Howell mentioned that businesses have stonewalled or delayed a lot of their FOIA letters, however that might change when a brand new administration is available in.
The EPA union supply mentioned their counter technique now could be a public relations marketing campaign. They’re forging alliances with members of Congress and outdoors teams in hopes of bringing to mild how Trump-aligned teams are already focusing on federal staff and hoping public shaming and outrage might defend them.
“Make no mistake: our union will not stand by and let any political leader – regardless of their political affiliation – run roughshod over the Constitution and our laws,” Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Authorities Staff, a union representing about 800,000 employees, mentioned in a current assertion.
The Heritage Basis Oversight Venture has launched scores of paperwork and emails associated to varied controversies which have animated conservatives lately, together with names of a whole bunch of individuals concerned. Nonetheless, it to this point has not revealed an inventory of federal staff for the Trump administration to focus on, although Howell didn’t rule it out.
“It’s not our decision who gets hired and fired, and what we aim to do is make it transparent,” Howell mentioned. “It’s my hope they’re subject to termination, and if you have shown a proclivity to hard left positions, you shouldn’t be working for the government.”
CNN’s Rene Marsh contributed to this report.
The-CNN-Wire
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