President Donald J. Trump isn’t wasting any time slashing the federal workforce. Around 75,000 workers have already opted out, taking the severance package that pays them through September after the president issued an executive order nixing their work-from-home arrangements. Recently, Trump administration officials met with the Office of Personnel Management, prepping for mass layoffs of government workers. Probationary workers who have yet to qualify for certain workplace protections are on the chopping block. That’s hundreds of thousands of workers facing potential termination.
The latest target couldn’t be more deserving: the Internal Revenue Service. Thousands are expected to get the boot, which is bound to trigger a massive liberal meltdown in the coming days (via WaPo):
The Trump administration is expected to begin laying off thousands of employees at the Internal Revenue Service, six people briefed on the matter said, as billionaire Elon Musk’s team begins to target tax collections.
Treasury officials have discussed laying off roughly 9,000 employees still in their probationary period as part of broader dismissals across the government of these recently hired workers, according to the six people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal internal conversations. That number could not be immediately confirmed, and spokespeople both for the IRS and Treasury declined to comment. The cuts could start as soon as Friday.
The layoffs are likely targeting tax collection, several of the people briefed on the matter said. Indeed, associates of Musk’s team are beginning to meet with high-ranking IRS officials about what could prove dramatic changes to the tax agency. Gavin Kliger, a software engineer now working at the IRS, met with Ken Corbin, the IRS’s chief of taxpayer services, and Heather Maloy, the agency’s top enforcement official, during his first day at the agency’s headquarters Thursday, according to several of the people familiar with the meetings.
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It's not just at the IRS. The Department of Homeland Security axed 400 workers today (via CBS News):
The Trump administration on Friday moved to fire more than 400 employees at the Department of Homeland Security, the latest effort in a government-wide campaign to dramatically reduce the federal workforce.
Officials at DHS said they had fired hundreds of employees across several of its agencies after supervisors identified "non-mission critical personnel in probationary status" within the nation's top cybersecurity agency, known as CISA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which administers the nation's legal immigration system, among others.
"Under President Trump's leadership, we are making sweeping cuts and reform across the federal government to eliminate egregious waste and incompetence that has been happening for decades at the expense of the American taxpayer," DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to CBS News.
The Environmental Protection Agency also fired around 400 employees (via The Hill):
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has fired nearly 400 employees after a directive from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).
The EPA told The Hill in a written statement that it has “terminated” 388 probationary employees — meaning workers who started working at the agency within the past year.
It said the firings came “after a thorough review of agency functions in accordance with President Trump’s executive orders.”
“EPA has followed standard protocols and procedures, ensuring impacted staff received notification of their status. President Trump was elected with a mandate to create a more effective and efficient federal government that serves all Americans, and we are doing just that,” the statement said.
Workers at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the United States Department of Agriculture were also told to be prepared for cuts, though a judge has intervened, ordering the Trump administration to halt CFPB terminations (via NBC News):
A judge said in a ruling Friday that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau could not terminate employees without cause, dealing a blow to President Donald Trump’s efforts to dismantle the agency.
The court order came in response to a lawsuit by the National Treasury Employees Union and the CFPB Employee Association, among other groups, that sued the agency and its acting director Russell Vought this week. They had asked the judge to “declare unlawful and set aside the defendants’ actions and intended further actions to dismantle the CFPB.”
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson prevents any mass firings at the agency and prohibits the deletion of agency data.
We’ll keep you updated.
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