After DOGE firings White House asks new job seekers to write Trump loyalty essays, from lawyers to janitors

Independent

2 days ago

After a months-long freeze on hiring new federal employees and the Elon Musk-led DOGE cuts to the government workforce, the Trump administration is ready to resume civil service hiring — as long as the applicants answer a few essay questions about their level of loyalty to the president and his mission.
The Office of Personnel Management last week quietly published a memorandum authored by Vince Haley, the White House 's head of domestic policy that was addressed to the head or acting head of every agency across the entire executive branch.
According to the White House's directive, a copy of which was reviewed by The Independent, anyone applying for a civil service position at entry level or above — including such jobs as nurses, janitors, economists and lawyers, among others — must respond to a series of essay questions before they can even be considered for an interview.
The 'merit hiring plan' lays out in detail how to implement a January executive order signed by Trump to 'prioritize recruitment of individuals committed to improving the efficiency of the Federal government, passionate about the ideals of our American republic, and committed to upholding the rule of law and the United States Constitution.'
The plan also seeks to prevent anyone who is 'unwilling to defend the Constitution or to faithfully serve the Executive Branch' from being employed in the civil service.
One question asks applicants about their 'commitment to the Constitution and the founding principles of the United States,' while another question asks applicants to state how they would 'help advance the President's Executive Orders and policy priorities' and to 'identify one or two relevant Executive Orders or policy initiatives' that they find significant to them.
They must also explain how they'd help implement these orders or initiatives.
If applicants write answers that are satisfactory enough to land them an interview, the memorandum also states that they must participate in an 'executive interview' with a political appointee from 'agency leadership' who will evaluate their 'organizational fit and commitment to American ideals.'
For civil service experts and good-government advocates, the new applicant screening process is setting off alarm bells.
Adam Bonica, a Stanford University political scientist who publishes the 'On Data and Democracy' newsletter on Substack, wrote on Sunday that the White House's directive 'signals a profound departure from a cornerstone of American democracy: the non-partisan, merit-based civil service' and looks to implement Project 2025 efforts to deconstruct the nonpartisan civil service in favor of a return to the 'spoils system' that was in place until the late 1800s.
'A merit-based civil service that took generations to build is being dismantled via memo,' he charged.
The new hiring guidelines aren't the only way Trump and his allies are upending the nonpartisan system that was set up to govern federal hiring in the wake of President James Garfield's 1881 assassination by a disgruntled office seeker.
Shortly after he returned to power in January, Trump signed an executive order that ordered agencies to reclassify career employees who work on policy matters into a new 'schedule' that strips them of nearly all civil service protections.
The directive largely re-implements an October 2020 order Trump signed to establish what was then called 'Schedule F' and was set to be comprised of any federal worker in 'confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating positions.'
That broad category includes most of the government's non-partisan experts such as scientists, doctors, lawyers and economists, whose work to advise and inform policymakers is supposed to be done in a way that is fact-driven and devoid of politics.
Combined with the more than 100,000 open positions created by the massive number of firings and resignations across the entire executive branch during Trump's first few months back in power, these new policies could allow the administration to recruit an equal number of MAGA devotees who would eventually acquire protection from removal by future administrations.
Max Stier, president of the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, told Axios on Monday that it looks like the administration is 'emptying the shelves of the existing nonpartisan expert civil servants' and 'restocking' those same shelves with 'loyalists.'
Jeri Buchholz, a former head of HR at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, told the outlet that traditional federal hiring, by law, was meant to 'focus on the knowledge, skills and abilities required for the position.'
She said the Trump White House's required questions are by contrast 'philosophical' and 'not even aptitude related,' making them difficult to square with the 'merit hiring plan,' especially since it purports to require agencies to speed up hiring decisions.