A group backed by conservatives is compiling a list of federal workers it suspects may oppose Trump’s plans

WASHINGTON – From his home office in small-town Kentucky, a veteran political operative is quietly investigating dozens of federal employees suspected of hostility to Republican Donald Trump’s policies, a highly unusual and potentially chilling undertaking that fits into a broader conservative preparation. to the new White House.

Tom Jones and his American Accountability Foundation are investigating the background, social media posts and comments of key high-ranking government employees, starting with the Department of Homeland Security. They rely in part on guidance from his network of conservative contacts, including staffers. In a move that has some concerned, they are preparing to publish the results online.

Thanks to a $100,000 grant from the Heritage Foundation, the goal is to publish 100 names of government workers on a website this summer to highlight a potential new administration that could stand in the way of Trump’s second-term agenda – and that is ripe for scrutiny. reclassifications, transfers or layoffs.

“We need to understand who these people are and what they are doing,” said Jones, a former aide to Republican senators on Capitol Hill.

The concept of compiling and making public a list of government employees shows how far Trump’s allies will go to ensure that nothing or no one will block his plans in a potential second term. Jones’ Sovereignty 2025 Project comes as the Heritage 2025 Project lays the groundwork for policies, proposals and staff ready for the eventual creation of a new White House.

These efforts, focused on top career government officials who are not appointed within the political structure, have baffled democracy experts and shocked the civil service community in comparison to the Red Scare of McCarthyism.

Jacqueline Simon, policy director at the American Federation of Government Employees, said the language used – in a statement from the Heritage Foundation praising the group for rounding up “anti-American bad actors” – was “shocking.”

Civil servants are often former military employees and are required to take an oath under the Constitution to work for the federal government, not as a test of loyalty to the president, she and others said.

“It appears their goal is to intimidate federal workers and spread fear,” said Simon, whose union is backing President Joe Biden, a Democrat, in his re-election bid.

Trump, convicted of a crime in a secret money case and the subject of a four-count federal indictment accusing him of working to reverse his 2020 election loss, faces a likely rematch with Biden in the fall, far-right conservatives have vowed that in order to strike something, what they call the deep state bureaucracy.

The Trump campaign emphasizes that outside groups do not speak on behalf of the former president, who sets his own policy priorities.

Conservatives believe the federal workforce has overstepped its role and become a power center that can direct or thwart the 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 peculiar and even illegal proposals.

While Jones’ group will not necessarily recommend firing or reassigning the federal workers it mentions, the work is consistent with the 2025 Heritage Project’s long-range plan for a conservative administration.

The Heritage 2025 Project proposes reviving Trump’s Schedule F policy, which would reclassify tens of thousands of federal workers as political appointees, which could enable mass layoffs — although Biden administration policies are intended to make that more difficult. The Heritage Project aims to recruit and train the next generation to travel to Washington, D.C. to fill government positions.

In announcing the $100,000 innovation award last month, Heritage said it would support the American Accountability Foundation’s “investigative research, detailed reporting and educational efforts to alert Congress, the conservative administration and the American people to the presence of anti-American bad actors embedded in the nation.” administrative and ensuring that appropriate action is taken.”

Heritage President Kevin Roberts said the “weaponization of the federal government” was only possible because of a “deep state of entrenched leftist bureaucrats.” He said he was proud to support the work of the American Accountability Foundation staff “in their fight to hold our government accountable and rid it of bad actors.”

The federal government employs about 2.2 million people, including Washington-area residents and workers whom unions say many Americans know as friends or neighbors in communities across the country.

About 4,000 cabinet positions are considered political appointments that routinely change from one presidential administration to the next, but most are professionals – from landscape architects at Veterans Administration cemeteries to economists at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Public compilation of lists is associated by some with the era of Joseph McCarthy, a senator who conducted exhaustive interrogations of suspected communist sympathizers during the Cold War. The hearings were arranged by top employee Roy Cohn, who became a confidant of the younger Trump.

Skye Perryman, CEO of the group Democracy Forward, said it was deeply disturbing and a reminder of “the darker sides of American history.”

Publicly naming government employees is “an intimidation tactic designed to cool the work of these government officials,” she said, and is part of a broader “retaliation program” being implemented in this election.

“They want to undermine our democracy,” she said. “They want to undermine the way our government works for the people.”

Jones, sitting at his desk overlooking the rickhouses storing barrels on the Bourbon Capitol in Bardstown, scoffed at comparisons to McCarthyism as “nonsense.”

He is a former employee of the then senator. Jim DeMint, a conservative Republican from South Carolina who later headed Heritage and now heads the Conservative Policy Institute, whose mailing address is the American Accountability Foundation. Jones also worked for Sen. Ron Johnson, D-Wis., and conducted opposition research for Sen. Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential bid.

Jones’ team of six investigators works remotely across the country, analyzing information about federal employees at the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State and other agencies dealing with immigration and border issues.

They are focusing on the highest levels of civil servants – GS-13, GS-14 and GS-15 workers and those in senior management positions who could disrupt Trump’s plans for tighter borders and more deportations.

“I think it’s important for the next administration to understand who these people are,” Jones said.

He dismissed the risks that publicly releasing names, salary information and other details about federal workers have some level of privacy, or that his group’s work could threaten workers’ livelihoods.

“You can’t set a policy and then say, ‘Hey, don’t test me,’” he said.

He admits that part of the job is often “gut checking” or “instinct” that might lead federal employees to suspect they are trying to block a conservative agenda.

“We wonder if there are the wrong people on the bus right now, you know, openly hostile to the effort to secure the southern border?” – he said.

His own group came under scrutiny when it first interviewed Biden’s nominees.

Biden repealed Trump’s Schedule F executive order in January 2021, but a 2022 Government Accountability Office report shows agencies believe a future administration could reinstate it.

The Biden administration has since issued a rule that will make it harder to fire workers. The new administration could order the Office of Personnel Management to repeal the regulation, but that process would be time-consuming and vulnerable to legal challenges.