Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney appears to have revealed the real reason for Agriculture Department Secretary Sonny Perdue’s recent ultimatum to hundreds of government economists and researchers based in Washington, D.C. to move to Kansas City or lose their jobs on Sept. 30, TPM reported on Wednesday.
The USDA, in announcing the intent to relocate last year, said the goal was to move federal workers closer to “stakeholders,” and save on employment costs and rent, “which will allow more employees to be retained in the long run.”
But at a Republican fundraiser at home in South Carolina over the weekend, Mulvaney explained the move was an example of President Donald Trump’s promise to “drain the swamp.”
Mulvaney said “it’s nearly impossible to fire a federal worker,” but Perdue’s ultimatum to workers achieved the goal in a different way.
He boasted, to applause from the supportive audience, that it was “a wonderful way to streamline government, and do what we haven’t been able to do for a long time,” according to TPM.
An inspector general’s investigation was launched in November into the legality of the relocation, and reported Monday that Perdue may have improperly circumvented Congress.
Following those findings Democratic Reps. Steny Hoyer and Eleanor Holmes Norton said “The Secretary must follow the will of Congress and refrain from moving forward with the relocation until Congress approves the use of funds for those purposes as directed by the fiscal year 2018 Consolidated Appropriations Act,” The Washington Post reported.
Neither the USDA nor the White House responded to TPM’s questions about Mulvaney’s comment.
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