President Donald Trump signed a memo last week requiring, in his words, “radical transparency.” The week before, Elon Musk claimed “all of our actions are maximally transparent.”
But the News4 I-Team found the White House and federal agencies have been anything but transparent when it comes to saying how many federal workers they have terminated since Jan. 20.
The White House said a total of 75,000 federal workers said they will take the “Fork in the Road” deferred resignation offer. But it’s still unclear which agencies these employees work for or how many of the resignations were accepted by agencies.
The I-Team went looking for answers. We asked every Cabinet-level agency how many employees in the agency took the deferred resignation offer; how many they laid off; how many of the layoffs were of workers who were not probationary employees and how many layoffs were of employees in the D.C. area.
We've got the news you need to know to start your day. Sign up for the First & 4Most morning newsletter — delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up here.
In these times of “radical transparency," we haven’t received many answers; of the 16 agencies we contacted, 11 didn’t respond at all.
Here’s what the four agencies that responded to the I-Team said
The Defense Department, which said it’s cutting more than 5,000 jobs, told the I-Team to ask the Office of Personnel Management for details. A spokeswoman there had no direct answers and referred us to individual agencies.
The State Department said they’re “fully complying with all executive orders” but would not offer any numbers, saying they don’t speak about personnel matters.
The Department of Health and Human Services told the I-Team they’re taking action to support the president’s efforts. They didn’t say how many people were laid off or retired but said even after layoffs and resignations, the department still has more people than it did when President Joe Biden was in office.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was the only department to give the I-Team an actual number. They said 405 people were laid off and almost all were probationary employees. They said the cuts will “result in roughly $50 million in savings for American taxpayers and incalculable value toward accountability and cutting red tape.”
Firing those 405 people cut DHS’ budget by 0.05%.
We have some idea of the number of employees who lost their jobs only because the media is trying to keep count. The New York Times is reporting as many as 28,000 people have been fired, laid off or are expected to be. The Associated Press put that number at 4,000.
The I-Team will keep pressing the offices ordering these job cuts for the final tally.
To share what’s happening at the agency where you work, you can send us an email at tips@news4iteam.com or message the I-Team on Signal at TedNBC4.06.
Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.
