Watchdog Agency ‘in a Coma’ Faces Uncertain Future Under Trump

A lingering leadership vacuum has left the federal government’s whistleblower and public employee protection agency hobbled during a historically busy time, prompting government accountability groups to look to make it easier for federal workers to bring their complaints to the courts.

The US Office of Special Counsel in the 10 months since President Donald Trump fired its last permanent leader Hampton Dellinger has experienced a record number of complaints and seen flagging employee morale over whether the agency can remain an independent auditor and whistleblower protector, according to whistleblower advocates and two current agency officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“I view them as in a coma,” said Tom Devine, legal director for the Government Accountability Project, which represents federal complainants. “The whistleblower coalition I work with, we’ve pretty much written OSC off.”

Federal workers alleging wrongdoing against government officials are limited to the OSC and the Merit Systems Protection Board, which until recently lacked a quorum. The three-member board needs at least two members to decide appeals.

Devine said he’s now working with multiple congressional committees to loosen the requirements for bringing federal workforce cases to court. Such a change would mean federal workers could sidestep the OSC and sue the government over complaints that officials have violated federal laws that prohibit partisan activities by government employees or punishing people who report mismanagement of public funds.

The request was prompted by frustration with the OSC under Trump, which advocates and insiders say has not done enough to aid the tens of thousands of federal workers fired this year.

Leadership

Since Dellinger’s firing, Trump has twice nominated and withdrawn someone to head the OSC. The most recent, Paul Ingrassia, withdrew amid revelations of racist texts sent to conservative activists. Trump hasn’t yet nominated a replacement.

The special counsel’s office, created under the post-Watergate wave of reforms to protect civil servants from partisan meddling, is a relatively small federal agency. It has fewer than 200 employees and a budget of roughly $30 million.

Special counsels have historically served across administrations to ensure the agency investigates misconduct regardless of which party is in the White House.

Henry Kerner, tapped to run the OSC by Trump in 2017, found that Kellyanne Conway violated the Hatch Act by criticizing Democratic presidential candidates while a presidential aide. Kerner also filed a complaint against Neera Tanden, a top aide to then-President Joe Biden, for allegedly seeking political donations from Democrats on social media.

Without a Senate-appointed head, the OSC is in the hands of US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, whose role as top trade negotiator places him at the center of Trump’s tariff wars. Agency officials and advocates say he’s been absent day-to-day.

Management of the agency has fallen to Charles Baldis, a former Republican Senate staffer.

Baldis made the decision earlier this year to drop investigations into the Trump administration’s firing of probationary workers. In an April 8 memo, he argued that the Trump administration didn’t violate civil service laws because the firing of more than 2,000 probationary workers wasn’t a “reduction in force.”

“The mass termination event was not a RIF because it targeted the specific employees and not their positions,” he wrote.

The decision prompted a legal challenge and, according to one OSC official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, disturbed many career employees. The official felt the agency’s nonpartisan mission had been indelibly tarred, and that the memo was written on shaky legal ground.

“That causes individuals to question whether or not the office has their best interest at heart,” said Ariel Solomon, a federal employment attorney who represents whistleblowers. “The concerning part was it came on the heels of the changing of the guard.”

Baldis didn’t respond to messages seeking comment for this article and hung up when reached by phone. Officials from the White House, the OSC, and Greer’s office staff didn’t respond to calls or emails for comment.

Increased Workload

The OSC broke its own annual record for new cases by April this year. The agency received more than 6,200 new cases in the first four months of 2025, more than in all of 2024, according to a budget request sent to Congress.

That threatens to stretch the agency thin and delay the resolution of complaints. In 2024 Dellinger warned in a report that having more than 6,000 cases that year “threatens to increase the number of active cases that OSC carries over to the following fiscal year.”

The OSC has 120 days to review allegations and decide whether to investigate. After that, workers can file complaints independently with the MSPB.

But the MSPB is also reportedly overloaded. It received 11,166 appeals as of late May—twice the typical workload in an entire fiscal year, according to agency records.

Federal workers can take constitutional claims to the courts. In some cases, workers can sue under the Administrative Procedure Act, if their employer didn’t follow the proper process, Solomon said.

“It would be nice, actually, to have the option of commencing an action in federal district court,” Solomon said.