Politics

The leader of the largest union for federal employees has warned a congressional committee that Donald Trump’s campaign to dramatically downsize the government amounts to “the biggest assault” on its workforce in American history.

“In just the past week, we have seen the administration issue a legally dubious policy to drain departments and agencies of experienced and dedicated professionals, clearly with the objective of crippling the ability of federal agencies to do their jobs and setting them up to fail in the eyes of the American taxpayer. What is happening today is not a drive to streamline government but to destroy it,” Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said in a statement submitted today to the House oversight committee, which is holding a hearing focusing on Trump’s government reform campaign.

Kelley pointed to Trump’s order to reclassify tens of thousands of nonpartisan government employees in a way that will make them easier to fire, calling it “the biggest assault on the federal workforce in American history.”

“Make no mistake about it: if the assault that the Trump Administration initiated last month continues unchallenged, every member of Congress will soon hear from angry or confused constituents about why their VA claims have not been processed or why their Soc