Service members participate in a ceremonial rehearsal at the U.S. Capitol ahead of the 60th Presidential Inauguration at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., Jan. 12, 2025. (Betty Chevalier/Department of Defense)
WASHINGTON — Top Democrats overseeing national security policy are raising alarm that President Donald Trump’s actions against federal employees are threatening and politicizing thousands of non-partisan jobs in the Pentagon and intelligence community.
The lawmakers are asking that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Acting Director of National Intelligence Lora Shiao take “immediate steps” to insulate their employees from White House directives that they say will erode the federal government’s merit-based civil service system.
The directives include a federal hiring freeze and a deferred resignation offer, which was temporarily blocked by a federal judge this week. Lawmakers said the efforts appear intended to “politicize and demoralize” the federal workforce.
“The manner in which your departments and agencies have implemented these directives constitute a generational risk to the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to Hegseth and Shiao.
The letter was signed by Sens. Chris Coons of Delaware, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense; Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee; Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Rep. Betty McCollum of Minnesota, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense.
The lawmakers said Trump’s push to cut down the federal workforce will result in a mass exodus of highly skilled workers and create a brain drain that would make the U.S. vulnerable to foreign threats.
More than one-third of the federal workforce is made up of national security personnel, including civilians who acquire military hardware for troops, provide medical care at military treatment facilities, maintain equipment at shipyards and depots and provide analysis and warning on threats to the U.S.
Civilians also constitute more than 80% of the Defense Department’s financial management and audit staff. The department also employs an estimated 46,000 military spouses, according to the letter.
Lawmakers particularly zeroed in on how the Defense Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence have responded to the deferred resignation program known as the “Fork-in-the-Road” directive. The program offers federal employees the option to resign while retaining full pay and benefits through Sept. 30.
Guidance issued by the Office of Personnel Management excludes military personnel and positions related to national security from the program but the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and other agencies have confirmed that their civilian employees received the offer.
Lawmakers said Shiao has not given any guidance on the offer to the intelligence workforce, “creating anxiety and confusion” among employees, while the Defense Department has “embraced” the offer in a memo to personnel without exempting critical functions.
“The steps taken by the White House must be reversed if the critical functions of government are to continue safely and effectively,” the lawmakers wrote.
