Political assaults throughout the government
by digby
Regarding that weird new State Department effort to harass former Obama officials over their supposed misuse of classified documents — which were deemed classified after the fact — I agree with Tom that people should not get bogged down in that story and should concentrate on Trump’s direct crimes. There is no criminal liability involved and it’s clearly just harassment designed to give Fox News the ability to talk about “her emails” again and let Trump lead some “lock her up chants” at his rallies.
However, for the record, it is clear that this is politically motivated:
Several of those who have been questioned said that the State Department Bureau of Diplomatic Security investigators made it clear that they were pursuing the matter reluctantly, and under external pressure.
Trump’s accomplices are all over the government executing politically motivated assaults on government employees, particularly those who are in the scientific fields. Take for instance, this story about the Trump administration abruptly moving the USDA from Washington in what they have admitted is a desire to break up the agency and its regulatory capacity:
Next month, Johnson, a 28-year-veteran of the U.S. Agriculture Department who most recently led its program on climate change, will quit her job and move away from the home she can no longer afford. She packs one box a night, more on weekends, in preparation for an upheaval she neither wanted nor expected.
The USDA will partially relocate to Kansas City at the end of September, an abrupt decision announced in June that shocked the federal workforce and meant immediate disruption for hundreds.
The relocation to Missouri, which the USDA estimates will save $300 million over 15 years, affects about 550 people at the Economic Research Service, an influential federal statistical agency, and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, which oversees a $1.7 billion portfolio of scientific grants.
In the months since the announcement, two-thirds of USDA employees decided to leave their jobs rather than move, according to data released by the department in July. Academics have lamented the cost to science, saying the talent loss will devastate the agencies.
Beyond the statistics, the move also is devastating families and forcing employees at all stages of life into wrenching decisions. Among those leaving the agency is Rachel Melnick, a married mother of two who just had a second child — and purchased a “forever home” in Virginia — when she learned her job was moving to Kansas City. And Jonathan McFadden, a researcher in his early 30s who was falling for his work, the District and a new girlfriend.
Johnson did not want to quit her job. In addition to spearheading a climate change research program, she spent her days helping forest scientists find funding.
A tree lover since childhood, when she saw how much her father enjoyed the forest, Johnson has a PhD in forest genetics and a master’s degree in forest soils. She came to the federal government after several years performing field research in Brazil and New Zealand. Though she sometimes missed being among the trees, she found supporting others’ research rewarding.
“I believed in their work,” she said. “And in the tree breeding world, we all know each other. It’s so small that it’s always friends, not colleagues.”
Chief of staff Mick Mulvaney admitted what they were doing:
Mulvaney said last week that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s plan to relocate several hundred of jobs from Washington to the Kansas City area is “a wonderful way to streamline government.” Speaking to a group of fellow Republicans in his home state of South Carolina, he said it’s “nearly impossible” to fire federal workers but added that many will not move to “the real part of the country.”
Within days of taking office, President Donald Trump declared a hiring freeze, and within months, Mulvaney, as director of the Office of Management and Budget, outlined a plan for reducing the civilian workforce. But he said in his South Carolina remarks that he’s tried to fire workers and “you can’t do it.”
The USDA said in June it would move most of the employees of the Economic Research Service and National Institute of Food and Agriculture partly to bring the two agencies closer to farmers and agribusinesses. The Interior Department has offered a similar rationale for breaking up the Bureau of Land Management’s headquarters and putting employees in 11 western states.
Mulvaney said “the quiet parts out loud,” said Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities, a Denver-based nonprofit critical of the Trump administration’s Interior Department. Weiss sees an “intentional brain drain” to “get rid of expertise across the government.”
“This is part of their grand strategy,” said Dave Verardo, president of the American Federation of Government Employees local that represents the USDA workers. “Reduce government so that people can come into power and do whatever they want without any checks and balances.”
Their donors are very happy as well. No more pesky science to interfere with their profits.
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