New York (AP)-the most essential US agencies, including the FBI, the Foreign Ministry and the Pentagon, have instructed their employees not to follow the demand for cost lowering.
This resistance has intensified an ubiquitous feeling of chaos and confusion and at the same time emphasizes a potential power struggle among the allies of President Donald Trump, who affects the federal employees across the country because a up-to-date working week will begin.
The Musk team sent an e -mail to hundreds of thousands of federal employees on Saturday and gave them around 48 hours to report five specific things they had reached last week. In a separate message on X, Musk said that every employee who did not answer after the deadline – would lose their job in the e -mail as 11:59 p.m. EST on Monday.
Democrats and even some Republicans criticize Musk’s unusual guidelines, which only “became more aggressive” on social media after Trump encouraged him to reduce the size of the government by its so -called Ministry of Government Efficiency or Dog. The day before, Musk celebrated his up-to-date position by waving a huge chainsaw during a appearance at a conservative conference.
Senator John Curtis, R-Utah, was one of the members of Trump’s own party who had concerns. Utah has 33,000 federal employees.
“If I could say Elon Musk one, it is like please give a dose of compassion in it,” said Curtis. “These are real people. These are real life. These are mortgages. … it is a wrong story to say that we have to cut and you have to be cruel to do it. “
MP Mike Lawler, Rn.Y., also questioned the legal basis that the Trump administration had for the dismissal of tens of thousands of employees because she had refused to observe Musk’s recent demand, although the e -mail was not The threat of employees contained losing their work.
The unions have threatened complaints, while several agency guides, including Trump -Northern, encouraged their workers to work together.
The newly confirmed FBI director Kash Patel, a pronounced Trump allied, instructed the office worker to ignore the request from Musk at least for the time being.
“The FBI is responsible for all of our review processes via the director’s office and will carry out reviews according to the FBI procedures,” Patel wrote in an e -mail confirmed by the Associated Press. “When and if further information is required, we coordinate the answers. Please make all the answers for the time being. ”
Ed Martin, the preliminary US lawyer of the District of Columbia, who was nominated for the job by the Republican President, sent his employees a message on Sunday that could cause more confusion. Martin noted that he himself answered the request for the services of the past week.
“Let me make it clear: We will comply with this OPM request whether you will not answer by answering or making a decision,” Martin wrote in the e -mail received from the AP and referred to the office of personnel management
“Please try to answer and list your activities (or not, as you prefer), and, as I mentioned, I will go back to confusion.
The night before, Martin had instructed the employees to comply with Musk’s command. “Doge and Elon do a great job. Historical. We look forward to participating, ”wrote Martin at that time.
Officials from the state departments and defense, both of the recent Trump candidates, were more direct.
Tibor Nagy, acting underground secretary for management, informed the employees in an e -mail that the management of the department on behalf of the employees would answer.
“No employee is obliged to report their activities outside of their command chain of the department,” Nagy wrote according to an e -mail received by the AP.
Pentagon Leadership instructed the employees to “pause” every answer to the Musk team.
“The Ministry of Defense is responsible for reviewing the performance of its staff and will carry out each review in accordance with its own procedures,” says Anads an e -mail by Jules Hurst, the deputy sub -state secretary of the defense for personnel and willingness. “When and if necessary, the department will coordinate answers …”
Trump appears undeterred.
The president has published a meme in his social media network that mocked the federal assistant. The Sunday contribution contained a cartoon character that wrote a list of achievements from last week, led by “Wid via Trump”, “cried via Elon”, “once made it to the office” and “Read some e -mails”.
Thousands of government employees were already made out in the first month of Trump’s second term from the federal government – either by dismissal or by a “postponement” – forced to reject up-to-date workers and career areas and to exclude agency, plan executives “large -scale gaps in strength”.
So far there is no official number for the entire shots or layoffs, but the AP has overtaken hundreds of thousands of employees who are affected. Many work outside of Washington and the cuts include thousands in the departments of Veterans Affairs, Defense, Health and Human Services as well as in the IRS and in the National Park Service.
Musk described his latest request “A very simple pulse check” on Sunday.
“The reason for this is that a considerable number of people who are supposed to work for the government do so little work that they do not check their e -mails at all!” Musk wrote about X. “In some cases we believe that non -existent people or the identity of dead are used to collect salary checks. In other words, there is a direct fraud. “
He has not presented any evidence of such fraud. Regardless of this, Musk and Trump have wrongly claimed in the past few days that tens of millions of dead people have received over 100 years of social security payments.
In the meantime, thousands of other employees are preparing to leave the federal agent in the coming week, including civil workers in the probationists in the Pentagon and in the contractors of the US Agency for International Development, which have not made no termination letter from no names over the weekend received.
The USASID move escalates a month -long attack on the international humanitarian agency, which frozen its financing, closed its headquarters in Washington and has completed thousands of US aid and development programs worldwide.
A judge who temporarily blocked freezing for foreign lend a hand said that the administration continued to hold the lend a hand and at least had to temporarily restore the funds worldwide. Another judge, however, solved the way for the administration to move from the job with the pulling of the thousands of USAID employees.
The blanket type of notification letters to USAID contractors, except the names or positions of those who receive them, could make it tough for the dismissed employees to obtain unemployment benefits, as the employees stated.
The Democrats accused the Republican President of sowing chaos in order to distract the Americans from his failure, to take into account their economic concerns and lower inflation.
“You have that Elon Musk brings a chainsaw for the federal government and important services, and there is no article 4 in the constitution that Elon Musk gives this authority,” said Senator Chris van Hollen, D-MD.
He said Musk’s actions were illegal and “we have to close this illegal operation.”
Curtis and van Hollen were published on CBS ‘Face the Nation “and Lawler appeared in ABCS” this week “.
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Associated press authors Byron Tau, Ellen Knickmeyer, Eric Tucker and Tara Copp in Washington contributed to this report.
