Trump Begins Dismantling The Civil Service And FBI

 

Continuing to follow the Project 2025 agenda that he claimed he knew nothing about (nothing!), the Malignant Loser is deconstructing -- perhaps butchering would be a better word -- the federal government agency- by- agency to bend what will be left of the executive branch to his incompetent whims and those of his South African co-President Elon Musk and his fellow billionaire kleptocrats (so much of this has Musk's fingerprints on it, given what he did at Twitter/X):

Office of Personnel Management (OPM)

Aides to Elon Musk charged with running the U.S. government human resources agency have locked career civil servants out of computer systems that contain the personal data of millions of federal employees, according to two agency officials.

Since taking office 11 days ago, President Donald Trump has embarked on a massive government makeover, firing and sidelining hundreds of civil servants in his first steps toward downsizing the bureaucracy and installing more loyalists.

 

Musk, the billionaire Tesla (TSLA.O) CEO and X owner tasked by Trump to slash the size of the 2.2 million-strong civilian government workforce, has moved swiftly to install allies at the agency known as the Office of Personnel Management.

 

The two officials, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said some senior career employees at OPM have had their access revoked to some of the department's data systems.

, ope

 

The systems include a vast database called Enterprise Human Resources Integration, which contains dates of birth, Social Security numbers, appraisals, home addresses, pay grades and length of service of government workers, the officials said.

 

"We have no visibility into what they are doing with the computer and data systems," one of the officials said. "That is creating great concern. There is no oversight. It creates real cybersecurity and hacking implications."

 

Officials affected by the move can still log on and access functions such as email but can no longer see the massive datasets that cover every facet of the federal workforce...

Speaking of email... 

 

Government email system (OPM):

Turns out that putting underqualified kids in charge of the federal government's HR agency wasn't the smartest move. Last night, an exploit in the Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) new home-cooked email server seems to have made it possible for anyone with an email address to blast messages to vast numbers of federal employees.

As a result, over 13,000 employees with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found their inboxes bombarded with spam and messages from vulgar trolls. Some users signed the NOAA up for newsletters from entities like the Church of Scientology, or the Perfect Jean — "Welcome to Jean Perfection," a screenshot reads. One particularly vulgar email offered pointers on Trump's alleged performance at a sexual act. An "Important Weather Alert" warned that the next four years have a 99 percent chance of fecal showers. "Aren't you tired of working for a complete c***?" asked one sender. A missive from a sender identified as "Craig" simply reads "yo."

Ken Klippenstein, the national security reporter who revealed the breach, once again took the opportunity to plug his infamous newsletter with the subject line: "urgent, time sensitive."

If you feel this paints a pretty grim picture of the state of our government agencies, you're not alone. "Goes to show you how fast this [new comms system] was cobbled together," one NOAA employee told Ken Klippenstein. "No security or screening on this address."

The whole thing apparently stems from an overhaul at the OPM led by oligarch-in-chief Elon Musk. On Tuesday, Wired reported that Musk had been given free reign to replace the agency's high-level staff with lackeys from his previous ventures.

Those included a 21-year-old who had previously worked for Peter Thiel, and a summer intern from Neuralink who just graduated high school. It also included Amanda Scales — a former xAI HR staffer who is reportedly in place as the OPM's new chief of staff...

Are these those DEI hires we've been hearing about from the Malignant Fascist?  Well never fear;  there's more mischief work for them to do in dismantling the "administrative state"...

More OPM:

Trump administration officials are taking major steps to cut down the size of the workforce and federal programs at the Office of Personnel Management.

During an internal meeting Friday morning, Trump administration officials directed OPM senior career staff to begin making plans to cut the agency’s workforce and programs by 70%. Multiple sources with direct knowledge of the meeting confirmed the details of the meeting to Federal News Network.

Sources who provided information to Federal News Network on the condition of anonymity said the political leadership at the agency also directed OPM leaders to stop work on anything that is not statutorily required.

Trump administration officials told agency office leaders and associate directors at OPM to prepare briefs over the weekend detailing all of their work and programs that are statutorily required. By Monday, all OPM offices are expected to give political leaders organizational staffing charts with plans for an initial 30% reduction for both federal employees and contractors.

“People around OPM look like they have seen ghost. People are shocked,” a source told Federal News Network by email...

Mind you, these twits are operating on the basis of no authority that we're aware of, other than co-President Musk's say so.  (Can you imagine the howling headlines and outrage if Democrats sent in some random "lackeys" who weren't government employees to demand access to sensitive government communications systems?!)  But the broader point of their "shock and awe"/ "flood the zone" tactics is to force submission, to not question authority, even though there may be no legal authority for them to be doing any of this -- in fact it may be il-legal, just like this...

FBI 

The Trump administration on Friday fired a group of prosecutors involved in the Jan. 6 criminal cases and demanded the names of FBI agents involved in those same probes so they can possibly be ousted, moves that reflect a White House determination to exert control over federal law enforcement and purge agencies of career employees seen as insufficiently loyal.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove ordered the firings of the Jan. 6 prosecutors days after President Donald Trump’s sweeping clemency action benefiting the more than 1,500 people charged in the U.S. Capitol attack, according to a memo obtained by The Associated Press. About two dozen employees at the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington were terminated, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss personnel matters. 

A separate memo by Bove identified more than a half-dozen FBI senior executives who were ordered to resign or be fired by Monday, and also asked for the names and records related to all agents who worked on investigations into the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot — a list the bureau’s acting director said could number in the thousands. Bove, who was defended Trump in his criminal cases before joining the administration, said Justice Department officials would then carry out a “review process to determine whether any additional personnel actions are necessary.”  [snip]

Any mass firings at the FBI would be a major blow to the historic independence from the White House of the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency and would reflect Trump’s persistent resolve to bend the law enforcement and intelligence community to his will. It would be part of a startling pattern of retribution waged on federal government employees, following the forced ousters of a group of senior FBI executives earlier this week as well as a mass firing by the Justice Department of prosecutors on special counsel Jack Smith’s team who investigated Trump.

The FBI Agents Association said any mass firings would be “outrageous actions by acting officials are fundamentally at odds with the law enforcement objectives outlined by President Trump and his support for FBI Agents.”

“Dismissing potentially hundreds of Agents would severely weaken the Bureau’s ability to protect the country from national security and criminal threats and will ultimately risk setting up the Bureau and its new leadership for failure,” the association said in a statement...

This is going on at the FBI while their unqualified fascist slug Kash "Crazy Eyes" Patel is telling Senators at his confirmation hearing that there's no political retribution or enemies list as part of the Malignant Loser's agenda. Ummm, the purge is already taking place, you lying, two- legged rat.

This is an all- out assault on American democracy by the "drown government in a bathtub" fascists and their unqualified, un-elected billionaire bros and their bootlickers seizing opportunities to increase their wealth and power.  This is pig clone Steve Bannon's wet dream in real life.  

It should go without saying that elected Democrats need to be raising holy hell about all of this, refusing to conduct business as usual, flooding the zone (to use the MAGAts' term) with actions resisting the fascists' crippling of government, taking the bastards to court, getting in front of the cameras with your best spokespeople (not the sclerotic party leadership in the Senate) to let the American people know what the dysfunctional ramifications will be to these moves ... in other words, RESIST.  Not in a month. Not in a week.  Now.  And not for a few weeks or months, but sustained over time, for as long as necessary.

(More on the Malignant Fascist's dismantling efforts here, here, here, and here.)

(Image:  Dennis Lan; Photos: Wikimedia Commons, iStock)