A tranche of privately distributed training videos for aspiring political appointees in the next Republican presidential administration developed by the controversial Project 2025 transition project stop short of overtly discussing GOP plans for the federal civil service, though architects repeatedly refer to the need for better “political control” of agencies and more political appointees atop government.
The videos were obtained, reported upon and published by ProPublica and Documented. Though the Trump administration has sought to distance itself from the Heritage Foundation-led transition project due to the unpopularity of its 900-page policy book—Mandate for Leadership—the effort was worked on by dozens of former high-ranking officials in the former president’s first administration. In addition to the policy book, Project 2025 set out to create a database of 20,000 potential political appointees to shepherd into government if Trump wins in November.
And both the campaign itself and Project 2025 remain aligned on federal personnel policy, particularly the revival of Schedule F. First unveiled in October 2020, the initiative aimed at converting tens of thousands of federal workers in “policy-related” positions out of the competitive service, effectively making them at-will employees. Though the initiative was not implemented before President Biden took office and rescinded it, conservative groups have continued to advance the policy, creating a list of 50,000 agency employees to convert and then threaten with termination.
In a training video entitled “The Federal Workforce,” Spencer Chretien, associate director of Project 2025 and former associate director for presidential personnel in the Trump White House, never mentions Schedule F, but repeatedly suggests that Republicans should expand the ranks of political appointments.
“Are 3,000 to 4,000 people enough to turn around that federal battleship? These are the only people who are accountable to the president and serve at his pleasure,” he said. “What does the number suggest about accountability to the people who really matter: the voters? Imagine what would happen if almost all federal employees opposed a president . . . Some want to actually reduce the number of political appointees, or classify more positions as reserved for career employees, not political appointees. And some on the right say that because we believe in small government, we should lead by example and not fill certain positions. It would be almost impossible to bring any conservative change to America if the president did that.”
And Kaitlin Stumpf, who served as Chretien’s deputy in the Trump administration and a Heritage staffer, stressed the importance of ensuring the “political control” of agencies, particularly the Office of Personnel Management, the federal government’s dedicated HR agency.
“One thing we understood in our time in the Trump administration was the importance of retaining political control over OPM,” she said. “There were several career employees in powerful positions who hindered the work of the president and his staff. They were later replaced by political appointees. OPM is the federal entity that actually processes the paperwork of appointees once [the White House Presidential Personnel Office] has selected them . . . If PPO and OPM don’t have alignment, there will not be any success.”
In other videos, former Trump administration officials speak derisively of the career civil servants they work with. Bethany Kozma, who served as deputy chief of staff for U.S. Aid and International Development during the Trump administration, claimed without evidence that she was “persecuted” by career employees at the agency and accused them of helping Buzzfeed report on her anti-LGBTQ activism in Virginia.
“Even before I arrived, the careers already had it out for me,” she said. “They tried to keep me from being hired. Two weeks after I started, Buzzfeed did a hit piece on me fueled by information that was leaked about my past advocacy standing up for my children’s safety against the radical gender ideology in Fairfax and Loudoun County public schools. I had a huge target on my back.”
But while several presenters referred at times to career employees’ resistance to policy changes, others found that, once they actually learned the culture, policies and procedures of their offices, career staff were much easier to work with.
“For people coming in for the first time, government service is hard,” said Max Primorac, another former USAID appointee. “It’s very confusing. These rules and regulations governing contracting and the budget and all of these things are very confusing—never stop asking questions . . . And after some period of time, when you show yourself to be competent and respectful, you’re going to have folks in the bureaucracy, some who won’t agree with you, but because of that and because they actually do subscribe to the notion that public service is beyond politics and even if they don’t agree, they should do their job. And they’re going to come out and start helping you.”
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