Career Civil Servants Resist Trump's Retaliation and Elon Musk's Coup
Plus, Trump's tariff threats are just PR, Senate confirmations, and the GOP's plan to split 9th Circuit
Career Civil Servants Resist Trump's Retaliation and Elon Musk's Coup
Since there’s a lot happening all at once, I provide a breakdown of Elon Musk’s ongoing coup of the federal government below.
It’s never been more clear that Elon Musk was the Trojan Horse the Heritage Foundation and other bad actors used to fulfill the Project 2025 agenda. He is the real occupant of the White House and he was not on the ballot. Trump was just the actor Musk and others used to take control. And we’re watching an unelected billionaire disrupt and consolidate power in rapid speed.
So it’s more important than ever to highlight the resistance by federal workers. They may not be able to stop Elon Musk, but they are doing what they can to slow him down.
I will keep this short since this is email is long enough as it is. Read on below for how civil servants are pushing back as Elon Musk infiltrates department after department.
-Stephanie
Headlines
Trump’s accidental acting FBI Director, Brian Driscoll, has been forcefully resisting demands from Trump and his allies to retaliate against FBI personnel involved in the J6 cases. It appears that Driscoll is refusing to fire the 8 senior FBI officials who worked on the federal cases against the J6 defendants and is making Trump and his allies do their own dirty work. Also, while it may appear as if he complied with Trump’s personal lawyer and acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove’s order to turn over a list of 5,000 agents and analysts on Tuesday, the FBI is only complying-ish. Driscoll found a workaround for the requested list and only shared employee ID numbers, job titles, office assignments, and when assigned agents and analysts were last involved in a J6 case. What’s unclear is whether the FBI turned over a similar list of agents involved in a case against a Hamas leader, which Driscoll mentioned in a memo was also requested by the DOJ. Elon Musk’s team was also spotted at FBI headquarters, indicating they may be trying to access the list.
In anticipation of names being leaked or shared with unauthorized individuals, two coalitions of FBI employees sued the DOJ on Tuesday for violating the Constitution and privacy laws by forcing agents to complete a survey designed to purge the FBI. The groups ask the District Court for D.C. to block the Trump regime from publishing or releasing the surveys or any information provided on them. One lawsuit by 9 unanimous agents requested the court to grant the case to proceed as a class action. The other lawsuit by 7 unanimous agents and the FBI Agents Association requested a temporary restraining order to prohibit public release of the list and accused Trump of giving the directive to purge the bureau. Both filings cite Trump’s campaign speeches promising to retaliate, as well as interviews and social media posts by pardoned J6 defendants vowing to seek revenge on agents and prosecutors. One also cites Elon Musk using X to identify other civil servants, which subjected targets to personal harm.
On Monday, the FBI Agents Association, a group representing more than 14K current and retired agents, sent a letter to congressional leaders urging them to protect the jobs of personnel who are at risk of Trump’s retaliation. The group sent a separate letter on Friday condemning the removal of 8 senior FBI officials in retaliation for working on the J6 cases.
Acting Treasury Dept director resisted unelected billionaire’s intrusion into federal payment system
Late last week, a career civil servant and acting Treasury Secretary, David Lebryk, was forced to retire because he blocked unelected broligarch Elon Musk’s attempt to breach the department’s $6T payment system. Musk first began seeking access in December 2024—before Trump re-occupied the White House. Two tech bros allied with Musk, a venture capitalist, Baris Akis, and a cloud computing executive, Tom Krause, led the effort to get access to the system that disburses 88% of all federal payments and it’s unclear if both non-government employees have retained the data. Lebryk rejected their requests multiple times and once the Senate confirmed hedge fund bro Scott Bessent, Bessent placed Lebryk on administrative leave, granted Musk access, and then forced Lebryk to retire.
This is alarming considering the system houses sensitive personal information about Social Security and Medicare recipients, federal workers, government contractors that compete directly with Musk’s businesses, etc. Now that Musk has control of the system, he has the power to cut off payments for any reason, even though funds disbursed through the system are approved and allocated by Congress each year. Needless to say, I think we’ve found the source of potential identity fraud and abuse.
Federal worker unions sue Trump regime over broligarch breach of Treasury
On Monday, federal employee unions sued to revoke Musk and his tech bros’ access to the Treasury’s payments system. In the lawsuit, they accurately allege that the broligarch’s breach may have illegally exposed the personal data of millions of federal employees, contractors, and others who do business with the U.S. government to unauthorized non-federal workers. They also accurately accuse the Trump regime of violating federal laws that protect taxpayer data and agency records by granting DOGE, an unauthorized advisory panel, access to the Treasury system. The complaint states, “The scale of the intrusion into individuals’ privacy is massive and unprecedented,” adding, “Because Defendants’ actions and decisions are shrouded in secrecy, individuals will not have even basic information about what personal or financial information that Defendants are sharing with outside parties or how their information is being used.”
House Democrats open inquiry into DOGE over Treasury breach
On Monday, House Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee opened an investigation into DOGE’s breach of the Treasury payments system. The inquiry will review whether Elon Musk’s advisory panel violated taxpayer privacy laws by accessing a federal system. They cite Section 6103 of the tax code prohibiting government officials from disclosing confidential tax information. Note that only Congress has the authority to create new federal agencies; DOGE was not authorized by the legislative branch and the team working under DOGE are not vetted federal employees.
Treasury Secretary usurps consumer protection watchdog and shuts agency down
On Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, took over as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and ordered an immediate stoppage on all pending regulatory activities. This follows the ousting of former CFPB director Rohit Chopra on Saturday. Bessent emailed his directive Monday morning and the agency’s litigation teams complied, informing appeals courts they were ordered to seek pauses in proceedings.
Similar to USAID, Elon Musk’s lackeys hostilely captured the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the federal human resources department, and locked senior career personnel out of the agency’s systems last week. The dept’s systems include a database that contains Social Security numbers, birth dates, appraisals, home addresses, pay grades, and length of service of 2.3M federal workers. It was reported that Musk’s team took over the OPM on January 20, changed access to the floor where the director’s office is located, requiring a security badge or escort, and relocated the office of the department’s chief management officer to a different floor. One OPM official told the press, "We have no visibility into what they are doing with the computer and data systems. That is creating great concern. There is no oversight. It creates real cybersecurity and hacking implications."
Shortly after taking control of the department, acting director of the OPM Charles Ezell sent a "fork in the road" buyout offer in a memo to federal workers, encouraging them to resign with a promise they will continue to be paid through Sept. 30. The offer is marketed as a "deferred resignation program" that allows workers in “low productivity public sector jobs” to take a vacation to a “dream destination” while they seek private sector jobs. The contract dangling this illegal and definitely fraudulent carrot was emailed to agencies alongside the memo with a deadline of tomorrow, February 6. When asked about the scheme, the Trump administration called it “misinformation” and told the press that pay is not guaranteed, but 3 separate emails about the offer have been sent by OPM with the newest one explicitly stating that those who accept offers are entitled to backpay under the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act.
Republican lawmakers who are too coward to speak publicly have spoken anonymously with journalists, acknowledging the offer violates the Anti-Deficiency Act, a law prohibiting the government from promising or spending money that exceeds what Congress has authorized. Congress has only funded the government through mid-March. The offer extended to all federal workers to pay salaries for over 6 months past Congress’ approved appropriations amounts to roughly $50B that the government is obligated to fulfill. This puts Congress on the hook to approve that money in the next appropriations bill.
On Tuesday, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee sent a letter to Ezell demanding answers by Feb. 18 about the equipment installed, a list of those involved in the installation and authorization, as well as a list of those involved in the resignation offer and email distribution, among other items. In the letter, Democrats raised concerns that the resignation email sent by OPM “may have subverted cybersecurity controls in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) email system leading to the agency’s 13,000 employees receiving a flood of inappropriate and spam email.” These idiots can’t even send mass emails competently.
Federal workers sue to block the broligarch from OPM servers
On Tuesday, 2 anonymous federal workers sued the Trump regime, alleging the unelected broligarch Elon Musk and his private company employees are operating an illegally connected email server from OPM systems. The civil servants filed an emergency motion with the DC District Court as part of an existing class action lawsuit seeking a temporary restraining order that prohibits the OPM from operating the email server until the completion and public release of a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA). The complaint argues that the email server’s continued operation violates federal laws and may be exposing personal information of federal workers via unencrypted email.
The class action lawsuit was filed on January 27, claiming that the department’s failure to conduct and publish PIA’s for the new email server and any linked systems violates the E-Government Act of 2002, which requires such assessments before implementing “substantial changes to existing information technology.” The complaint also accuses the OPM of intentionally and/or willfully violating federal laws, including the Administrative Procedure Act, which prohibits agencies from taking actions “not in accordance with the law.” And that Musk’s lackeys connected the new server for the express purpose of harvesting information about federal employees.
The emergency motion notes that before Musk installed the HR@opm.gov server, the department did not have the capability to send emails to the entire federal workforce from a single account. It writes, “[A]t some point after 20 January 2025, OPM allowed unknown individuals to simply bypass its existing systems and security protocols,” adding that this enabled the OPM to communicate directly with federal employees “without involving other agencies.” It also cites that acting Homeland Security Secretary Benjamine Huffman sent an email on Jan. 23 to DHS employees that told them the email soon coming from HR@opm.gov “can be considered trusted.”
Trump’s Tariff threats are really just tiny jazz hands
It’s looking more and more like Trump’s tariff threats are nothing more than empty showmanship and U.S. allies are not fooled by it. On Monday, Trump made concessions to Canada and Mexico, the United States’ two largest trading partners, and agreed to a 30-day suspension on tariffs in exchange for cooperative efforts on border and crime enforcement. Neither Canada nor Mexico necessarily agreed to any new terms.
Canada already agreed to a $900M deal with the Biden administration to enhance technology and coordinate with U.S. law enforcement on curbing fentanyl. Canadian surveillance drones and Blawk Hawk helicopters began patrolling the Canada-U.S. border in December. What Canada “conceded” to Trump was to appoint a “fentanyl tsar,” list drug cartels as terrorist organizations, and allocate an additional $140M for intelligence toward Canada’s effort. It’s noteworthy that the amount of fentanyl seized coming from Canada into the U.S. is about 0.2 percent of the U.S. total. The problem is coming from the U.S. into Canada; roughly 80 percent of fentanyl seized in Canada was smuggled in by U.S. citizens.
Mexico also previously agreed to a deal with the Biden administration in 2021 to station 10K National Guard members at its southern border. In this renewed agreement, Mexico consented to send 10K National Guard members to reinforce the northern border. It’s unclear if Mexico will re-assign the existing 10K members or if it will send additional resources. In exchange, Mexico got Trump to commit to preventing the trafficking of high-powered weapons from the U.S. into Mexico.
Trump’s next tariff target is the European Union, claiming once again that raising prices on American consumers was necessary to stop immigration and narcotics. EU leaders convened on Monday promising to retaliate if he follows through on his threats. Meanwhile, China retaliated late Monday by levying 15% tariffs on U.S. coal and liquified natural gas imports and 10% duties on crude oil, farm equipment, and some automobiles beginning Feb. 10. China also threatened to impose sanctions on U.S. companies, including Google, Illumina, and PVH Corp., a clothing monopolist. Trump’s across-the-board 10% tariffs on Chinese imports went into effect on Tuesday.
Trump regime crushes civilian foreign aid agency with help of Idaho Republican
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the world’s largest donor of civilian foreign aid and development assistance and a bedrock of U.S. diplomatic standing, is under siege by forces aligned with the interests of the world’s greatest adversary, Russia. Over the weekend, two senior USAID security officials were placed on “administrative leave,” including the agency’s Director of Security John Voorhees, for physically blocking Elon Musk’s DOGE team from accessing restricted areas. Hours later, Musk took control of the building’s access system, allowing them to lock out employees and breach their email accounts. Musk’s team also has access to personnel files and turnstile data.
By Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared himself the acting administrator of the agency as staffers received a directive to not report to work and the White House announced the State Department would absorb the USAID. That same day, Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) asked for unanimous consent to pass a resolution that affirmed the USAID’s role in protecting national security, but octogenarian GOP Sen. from Idaho Jim Risch blocked it. Risch, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, claimed that he blocked the resolution because the U.S. needs to reduce the national debt. But Congress already appropriated funds for the agency and has done so since the chamber established it during the Kennedy administration. Risch also admitted that he is advising Rubio on merging the agency that provides $72B of assistance worldwide—42% of all humanitarian aid tracked by the United Nations—into the State Dept.
On Tuesday, the State Dept began processing the immediate withdrawal of thousands of USAID personnel stationed overseas—a costly and logistically challenging project. A memo was sent Monday night requesting overseas missions to provide the number of USAID employees and dependent family members at their locations.
Democratic Senator from Hawaii, Brian Schatz, told the Wall Street Journal that he would hold up Trump’s state department nominees, stating that the administration must cease its “authoritarian behavior” and reinstate USAID.
Elon Musk’s hostile takeover and X Corp makeover of General Services Agency
Another agency under siege is the General Services Administration (GSA), which manages federal government buildings. An email sent last week instructed regional managers to begin terminating leases on roughly 7,500 federal offices nationwide. WIRED magazine reported last week that Musk’s DOGE team, led by Elon Musk stooge Nicole Hollander, attempted to use White House security credentials to access GSA infrastructure to install AI software and plan to redesign the office aesthetic in replication of his private tech company, X.
It appears that Musk’s team has also breached GSA’s system, including internal monitoring software, enabling non-federal workers to surveil agency employees, and access to procurement-sensitive information about government contracts. It’s unclear if they have access to Public Buildings Service (PBS) applications, which owns and leases office space to government agencies, or GSA records, including accounting data, vendor payments, purchase orders, and revenue.
WIRED also reported that Musk’s team plans to sell GSA real estate properties and terminate leases, cancel convenience contracts, and force federal agencies to implement AI, including Google Gemini and Cursor, as well as cloud computing software, Google’s Telemetry API.
Musk’s private employees begin infiltrating the Depts of Education and Labor
On Tuesday, reporting indicates that Elon Musk’s private employees have began taking over two more departments: Education and Labor. This is in anticipation of Trump’s next executive order to eliminate the Dept of Education, which is illegal as only Congress has the authority to create and/or terminate federal agencies. Many expect Trump to acknowledge Congress’ authority in the EO as reporting notes that Trump plans to direct his education secretary to submit a proposal to Congress to defund the department. But Congress is not obligated to pass legislation just because Trump issues an executive order demanding they do so. That’s not how this works.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s lackeys have already taken over the department to dismantle it from within. Last week, they took control of the department’s systems, which include databases containing personal information for student loan recipients and applicants. At least 74 employees have also received notice they were being placed on administrative leave as others are being pressured to resign. This is all taking place before Trump’s nominee, Linda McMahon, has appeared for her confirmation hearing.
A similar takeover is just beginning at the Department of Labor as employees protested management giving Musk’s team the keys on Wednesday. One employee told the press, “Lower-level IT supervisors were basically asked to plan to stay late after the 4pm meeting to assist with getting Doge folks set up on our systems.” Musk’s infiltration of the DOL highlights a big conflict of interest as his private companies face lawsuits brought by the NLRB for violating federal laws. If Musk breaches the DOL’s systems, he will have access to access to confidential information, including details about whistleblowers, economic data with the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), and personnel information. A lawsuit was filed to block Musk from accessing the department’s systems.
Project 2025 author opens federal investigation into PBS, NPR sponsorships
Brendan Carr, the Federal Communications Commission’s chairman and Federalist Society member who wrote the chapter on weaponizing the agency in Project 2025 while serving on the FCC, opened an investigation into both NPR and PBS member station’s sponsorships. Last week, Carr sent a letter to the public broadcasting networks, accusing them of airing advertisements in violation of federal law and notifying them of a federal review of their underwriting announcements—an acknowledgment of brand sponsors. (FCC guidelines allow stations to share a sponsor’s name, a general description of the company, and the sponsor’s location without providing a “call to action” to viewers/listeners.) Carr refuses to share a copy with the FCC commissioner’s office even after multiple requests to do so.
A separate chapter in Project 2025 focuses on defunding public broadcasting networks so Carr is using this action as a pretext to request Congress to revoke the 1967 Public Broadcasting Act. NPR only receives about 1 percent of its annual budget from the federal government and its member stations receive about 10 percent of their funds from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. PBS receives 16 percent of its budget from the federal government.
This follows a concurrent action by Carr on Trump’s third day re-occupying the White House when he refiled 3 complaints against ABC, CBS, and NBC for alleged conservative bias in their 2024 election news coverage. The complaints were made by the dark money-backed legal group, Center for American Rights, which was founded by Daniel Suhr, another FedSoc member who served as former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s policy director and chief of staff to WI Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch. The previous FCC chairwoman, Jessica Rosenworcel, dismissed the complaints before leaving office, stating that the filings aimed to “weaponize the licensing authority of the FCC in a way that is fundamentally at odds with the First Amendment.”
Republicans seek to split 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to create another federal circuit
On Friday, LegalDive—a legal trade outlet—reported that Senate Republicans plan to redo the party’s effort to split the “liberal” 9th Circuit. Republicans, with pressure from Leonard Leo, aim to dilute the largest federal circuit court by dividing the 9 states and U.S. territories within the judicial district—Alaska, Arizona, California, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, the Northern Mariana Islands, Oregon, and Washington state—to create a 12th, more ideological, circuit. The renewed effort is led by Idaho Senator Mike Crapo who first raised splitting the circuit in 2019 and, in 2021, introduced the Judicial Reorganization Act. He has not provided the estimated cost for splitting the court, which DOGE may not find very hardcore or cost-saving.
The Senate has introduced 5 dozen bills to split the circuit since 1963. In 1997, a commission chaired by then-Supreme Court Justice Byron White studied the circuit’s size and structure. It concluded that it operated successfully and that a new circuit would not improve the administration of justice. The last time Congress reorganized a federal circuit was in 1980 when it split the 5th Circuit.
Senate Confirmation Watch
On Monday, the Senate confirmed Big Oil executive Chris Wright as director of the Department of Energy in a 59-38 vote. Democratic Sens. Michael Bennet (CO), Ruben Gallego (AZ), Maggie Hassan (NH), Martin Heinrich (NM), John Hickenlooper (CO), Ben Ray Luján (NM), and Jeanne Shaheen (NH), as well as Independent Sen. Angus King (ME) voted in favor. Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) did not vote. Wright is a Trump megadonor who gave $175K to Trump’s campaign and $53,990 to the Trump 47 joint fundraising committee.
On Tuesday, the GOP-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee advanced former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination as director of national intelligence. All Democrats on the committee voted no. Also, the GOP-controlled Senate Finance Committee advanced RFK Jr.’s nomination as Secretary of the Dept. of Health and Human Services (DHHS). All Democrats on the committee voted no.
Also on Tuesday, the GOP-controlled Senate confirmed Pam Bondi as Attorney General in a 54-46 vote. Senator John Fetterman was the only Democrat to vote in favor of the election denier.
The GOP-controlled Senate also confirmed former Georgia Congressman Douglas Collins as Secretary of Veterans Affairs in a 77-23 vote. Collins also served as Trump’s personal lawyer as he attempted to steal the 2020 election.
I hope you can full transition to this platform