Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is pushing back on President Donald Trump’s “deferred resignation” offer for federal workers, demanding agency heads provide the Senate with all communications from the Trump team regarding the plan.
Trump officials have told federal employees they could submit a September resignation now and still collect pay and benefits while doing little or no work — part of Trump’s broader effort to push out workers and shrink the federal government. Lawmakers and unions have said the offer violates federal law because Congress hasn’t appropriated money beyond March 14.
In a letter obtained by HuffPost, Sanders asked that an agency’s leaders respond to a slew of questions about the deferred resignation proposal — including whether they think the Office of Personnel Management, or OPM, has the authority to offer it, how many employees they expect to accept it and how they would protect against service cuts due to lost manpower.
“President Trump has issued a slew of executive orders with seemingly one goal in mind: to gain complete authoritarian control of our federal government.”
– Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)
Sanders, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, wrote that he was “deeply concerned” by the OPM email outlining the offer, which was titled “Fork in the Road.”
“This email comes after President Trump has issued a slew of executive orders with seemingly one goal in mind: to gain complete authoritarian control of our federal government,” said the letter, which was signed by Sanders and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.).
A federal employee, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of being targeted by the Trump administration, told HuffPost they were heartened to read the letter, believing it was meant to put Trump’s agency appointees on notice.
“I was glad to see this — that someone is actually pushing back,” said the employee, who’s been underwhelmed so far by Democrats’ response to Trump’s attacks on the federal workforce.
HuffPost confirmed that variations of the Sanders letter went out to many, though not all, federal agencies. However, since Sanders is now on the committee’s minority, he has no way to enforce his demands for the information through a subpoena.
The OPM told employees they have until this Thursday to accept the offer. Workers who wanted to resign were instructed to simply reply to the “Fork in the Road” email with the word “Resign.”
Citing a Trump administration official, Axios reported Tuesday that so far 20,000 federal employees, or about 1% of the workforce it applies to, had signaled they intend to accept the early resignation offer. Many of the workers presumably had expected to retire in the coming months anyway and might see this as an opportunity to get paid without working.
NBC News reported that the White House had been shooting much higher, expecting 5 to 10% of workers would accept it.
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Meanwhile, unions and Democrats have urged federal workers to be cautious with the offer.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said on CNN Tuesday that the early resignation proposal had “all the hallmarks of a scam,” noting it was short on details and came with a “time pressure” to commit quickly.
“If you’re a federal employee, be careful,” Tong said. “Because as far as we can tell, there is no authority for this action, no guarantee you will get paid through September 30, and no guarantee this is real.”