Watchdog Bars Staff from Investigating Federal Staff Firings (2)

The new head of a federal watchdog tasked with protecting federal workers’ rights ordered staff to halt investigations into the Trump administration’s firings, according to memos obtained by Bloomberg Law.

Investigators and prosecutors at the Office of the Special Counsel, which prosecutes violations of civil service laws, should not communicate with federal agencies about dismissed employees, according to a memo Acting Special Counsel Jamieson Greer sent to the office’s staff on April 3.

The order shuts down a key avenue for federal workers to challenge President Donald Trump‘s cuts to the public workforce.

Federal workers can file a complaint with the OSC if they believe their employer violated civil service law, such as those that protect whistleblowers and prohibit targeting them for their political beliefs. The OSC often communicates with federal agency HR departments and interviews witnesses to investigate employees’ claims, said Joe Spielberger, counsel at the Project on Government Oversight.

Cutting off communications with other agencies effectively stops these investigations, he said.

“This really handcuffs their ability to do that,” Spielberger said.

An April 8 memo, this one from newly-appointed OSC Senior Counsel Charles Baldis, declared that the firing of more than 2,000 probationary workers wasn’t a “reduction in force” and therefore didn’t violate federal civil service laws. Whether or not these probationary workers were subject to a reduction in force or fired based on their performance is at the center of two lawsuits challenging thousands of other federal worker terminations.

The OSC under past leaders collected complaints from employees and investigated them before drawing a conclusion about whether agencies violated the law, said Michelle Bercovici, a partner with Alden Law Group who represents federal employees. Greer appears to have decided before an investigation has been completed that no laws were broken, she said.

“It’s a concerning sign that the administration’s interpretation of the law is apparently taking precedence over fact and investigative analysis,” Bercovici said.

The OSC, under Greer, will not investigate claims that agencies illegally fired workers in “probationary” status because the office’s new view is the terminations did not violate the law, according to the April 8 memo.

A spokesperson for the OSC declined to comment on the memos.

Fired probationary workers on April 21 began receiving notices stating the OSC will take “no further action” on their complaints, Bercovici said. Employees have 13 days to submit “additional evidence” before the OSC closes their cases, the letters said.

Greer replaced Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger, who was fired by Trump in February. Dellinger had been pushing back against the firing of tens of thousands of federal workers in “probationary” status, a group that includes new hires and promotions.

Dellinger challenged his own firing in federal court. He later decided to drop the litigation, after the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit allowed the removal to take effect while he pursued the case.

While Dellinger was in charge, the OSC persuaded an independent panel to order the Agriculture Department to temporarily rehire more than 5,000 terminated employees. The OSC dropped the matter after Dellinger left, freeing the department to fire those employees again.

The OSC received 2,094 complaints from fired probationary workers disputing their terminations, according to the memo from Baldis, who until recently was a Senate Republican staffer.