Donald Trump’s administration reportedly started sending emails to over 2 million federal workers on Saturday asking them to justify their jobs else they would be forced to resign from their jobs. The directive marked the latest move taken by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency in an attempt to restructure and downsize federal agencies.
However, Justice Department supervisors are now instructing employees to hold off on replying to the email. The email asked employees to describe their recent job achievements or face the risk of being fired from their roles, reported Bloomberg.
Citing sources in the know, the report said that at least five DoJ office leaders responded to the HR email and told their staff to not share any details about their work until they receive more clarity on the matter.
Musk Threatens Resignation If Employees Don’t Respond
The authorities at the DoJ are reportedly concerned that the latest directive will end up triggering ethics violations. Among those who replied, two US attorneys messaged the staff that the support office for all 93 US attorneys was trying to seek more guidance from DoJ leadership about how they can comply or if the email was even legitimate.
The email from the government’s HR office asked employees to submit five bullet points of their achievements in the workplace last week within two days. On Saturday, Musk took to social media and said a ‘failure to respond will be taken as a resignation’.
Meanwhile, DoJ managers rushed to give assurance to their workers about the directive. The DoJ lawyers expressed their concern that disclosing nonpublic investigation details, such as evidence before a grand jury, would result in attorney misconduct, the report said.
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Federal Employee Unions Express Their Anger
Meanwhile, the decision from Musk and Trump administration has drawn criticism from employee unions. The report noted that the head of one federal employee union called the email ‘cruel and disrespectful’. Everett Kelley, President, American Federation of Government employees, called the billionaire an ‘out of touch privileged, unelected billionaire who has never performed one single hour of honest public service in his life’.
