In October 2020, Donald Trump issued an Executive Order establishing a new Schedule F employment category for federal employees. Under this new employment classification, tens of thousands of federal workers would be stripped of most merit-based civil service protections. Without these protections – including the protection against being fired based on political ideology – federal employees could be easily removed in favor of hiring individuals more willing to develop policy institutionalizing Trump’s agenda.
The Biden administration stopped the Executive Order from taking action shortly after Biden took office. And last year, CREW wrote a letter to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in support of a proposed rule, which was approved this year, that expands protections for civil servants.
But it’s not over – Trump has pledged to reimpose Schedule F if re-elected. In fact, it’s a key part of Project 2025. That’s why we’re pushing Congress to pass legislation protecting the merit based system of civil service for good.
What is Project 2025? A 920-page extremist right-wing plan to overhaul the functioning of the federal government and implement radical policies.The way the groups pushing Project 2025 plan to do that is by ensuring that each and every person hired into the federal government is loyal to Trump and the conservative cause.
An analysis by CNN found nearly 240 people with ties to both Project 2025 and to Trump:
– Six of his former Cabinet secretaries helped write or collaborated on Project 2025.
– Four individuals Trump nominated as ambassadors were also involved – along with several enforcers of his controversial immigration crackdown.
– About 20 pages are credited to his first deputy chief of staff.
– And dozens of people who staffed Trump’s government have positions with conservative groups that advised Project 2025, including his former chief of staff Mark Meadows and longtime adviser Stephen Miller.
It can be complicated trying to hard to overstate how harmful it would be if Trump and his supporters successfully implemented Project 2025 and the loyalty purges they have promised.
While Trump has recently tried to distance himself from Project 2025, and it recently announced that it was “winding down its policy operations,” that means nothing when the plans are already out there and ready to be used.
What is CREW doing about Project 2025?
It’s a good thing that the U.S. Office of Personnel Management passed their rule to protect career civil servants. CREW supported this rule when it was first being considered last year, and we’ll continue to do everything we can to defend it and advocate for further protections.
We also requested records of all communications that federal agency employees appointed to career civil service positions by the Trump administration have had with any of the conservative organizations involved with Project 2025. We need as much transparency around Project 2025 and its supporters in our government as possible.
Just this week, we also published a new investigation breaking down Trump’s fixation on “purging” the civil service of nonpartisan experts and longtime government workings and how strongly that parallels Project 2025’s plans.
Publisher, Editor Gregg W. Morris