Clooney said in a New York Times opinion piece that he loves Biden, but the party would lose the presidential race as well as any control in Congress with him as the nominee.

“This isn’t only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and congress member and governor that I’ve spoken with in private,” wrote Clooney. He’s hosted several high-dollar Hollywood fundraisers, including for Biden last month.

Clooney argued the party should pick a new nominee at its convention next month, saying the process would be “messy” but “wake up” voters in the party’s favor, mentioning Vice President Kamala Harris and Govs. Wes Moore of Maryland, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Gavin Newsom of California among those from who the country should now hear.

Focusing much of his piece around Biden’s age, Clooney noted differences he saw in the 81-year-old president during their recent Los Angeles event compared to years past.

“It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010,” Clooney wrote. “He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”

Last month, Clooney, Julia Roberts and Barbra Streisand were among those who took the stage for a fundraiser that took in a record $30 million-plus for Biden, in hopes of energizing would-be supporters for a White House contest they said may rank among the most consequential in U.S. history.

Luminaries from the entertainment world have increasingly lined up to help Biden’s campaign. Leading up to the fundraiser, Clooney’s name appeared on numerous fundraising missives from the campaign, which he called “the fight of our lives.”

Representatives for Clooney did not immediately return a message seeking comment on insight into his decision, when precisely he had made it or how recently he had spoken with Biden.

Biden has refused to end his reelection bid after his weak debate performance against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump on June 27.

___

Kinnard reported from Chapin, South Carolina. She can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP

A spokesperson for Social Security said in a statement to Federal Times on Tuesday that after a broad sweep of water fixtures, some came back with elevated levels, which is not unusual given testing experts have told the General Services Administration that roughly half of the water samples they take come back positive.

Upon retesting, only “a small subset” of water sources in the main campus building indicated elevated levels, according to the official. Impacted fixtures have been removed, and the spokesman said employees have been notified. Officials also said they’ve flushed the system, which helps disrupt any film that have developed over water sources and stops the growth of any naturally present Legionella.

Legionella is a naturally occuring bacteria that is found in both freshwater and in plumbing, and it poses little risk when present in low numbers. It’s when the bacteria grows and is inhaled, or much less commonly drunk, that it can cause health issues, including a potentially fatal pneumonia-like sickness.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say most healthy people exposed to Legionella don’t fall ill. Still, Legionnaires’ disease, caused by the similarly named bacteria, is the most commonly reported waterborne illness in the U.S., affecting between 52,000 and 70,000 people each year.

“According to the CDC, Legionnaires’ disease and Pontiac fever — which is related [to Legionella] — remain rare, but the number of cases reported has grown over the past 20 years,” according to a blog post from GSA. “This year we are testing for Legionella, as well as things like heavy metals, across many buildings.”

Last year, GSA sent out a memo to agencies urging swift action to prevent Legionella contamination in federally owned and operating offices after it became aware of six buildings in across the country that tested positive for the bacteria. GSA said at the time that less densely populated offices post-pandemic may be contributing to water stagnation, which allows the bacteria to thrive.

Two months after those reports, GSA issued an order in November 2023 establishing national requirements and industry standards for testing the presence of Legionella, when none had existed before. This initiative likely means more positive results will be recorded simply because more tests are being conducted.

On June 13, a similar discovery was made in the water sources of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services building near Baltimore. The same bacteria, Legionella, was found when testing new plumbing fixtures, and the building was closed, according to The Washington Post.

Last summer, the Rosa Parks Federal Building in Detroit was also closed after testing exposed Legionella in the building’s cooling towers and drinking water. That building houses employees from several agencies, including the IRS and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The sailor, who has not been identified, searched the name “Joseph Biden” in Military Health System Genesis, the armed service’s health record database, and a co-worker reported it as a violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, otherwise known as HIPPA, according to a Navy official.

Presidential healthcare is provided by the military’s White House Medical Unit, and presidents receive treatment at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland.

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service launched an investigation upon learning of the sailor’s action, and that probe concluded on April 24.

A Navy official told Military Times the sailor was administratively disciplined for the act and was assigned to Navy Medicine Readiness and Training Command at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, at the time.

The official declined to share the sailor’s rank or the nature of the discipline.

“At no time was the president’s personal information compromised,” Pentagon spokesman Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters on Tuesday. “The record that the sailor inappropriately accessed was not the electronic health record of the President of the United States.”

Ryder added that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was notified of the attempted breach when the Navy became aware of the sailor’s actions.

Pentagon disclosure of the sailor’s effort to access Biden’s medical records come as questions circulate about the president’s mental acuity and fitness to run for re-election, particularly after the 81-year-old’s seemingly confused and muddled performance at a debate with Republican candidate Donald Trump last month.

Asked Tuesday if Austin ever questioned Biden’s decision-making abilities as commander-in-chief due to potential health conditions, Ryder answered with a quick “no.”

“We have had that discussion with the secretary in terms of monitoring all the coverage that’s out there these days,” Ryder said. “The secretary has full confidence in the president’s leadership as he has had from day one.”

The court’s six conservative justices overturned the 1984 decision colloquially known as Chevron, long a target of conservatives. The liberal justices were in dissent.

Billions of dollars are potentially at stake in challenges that could be spawned by the high court’s ruling. The Biden administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer had warned such a move would be an “unwarranted shock to the legal system.”

The heart of the Chevron decision says federal agencies should be allowed to fill in the details when laws aren’t crystal clear. Opponents of the decision argued that it gave power that should be wielded by judges to experts who work for the government.

“Courts must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court.

Roberts wrote that the decision does not call into question prior cases that relied on the Chevron decision.

But in dissent, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the assurance rings hollow. “The majority is sanguine; I am not so much,” she wrote.

Kagan called the latest decision “yet another example of the Court’s resolve to roll back agency authority, despite congressional direction to the contrary.”

The court ruled in cases brought by Atlantic herring fishermen in New Jersey and Rhode Island who challenged a fee requirement. Lower courts used the Chevron decision to uphold a 2020 National Marine Fisheries Service rule that herring fishermen pay for government-mandated observers who track their fish intake.

Conservative and business interests strongly backed the fishermen’s appeals, betting that a court that was remade during Republican Donald Trump’s presidency would strike another blow at the regulatory state.

The court’s conservative majority has previously reined in environmental regulations and stopped the Democratic Biden administration’s initiatives on COVID-19 vaccines and student loan forgiveness.

The justices hadn’t invoked Chevron since 2016, but lower courts had continued to do so.

Forty years ago, the Supreme Court ruled 6-0, with three justices recused, that judges should play a limited, deferential role when evaluating the actions of agency experts in a case brought by environmental groups to challenge a Reagan administration effort to ease regulation of power plants and factories.

“Judges are not experts in the field, and are not part of either political branch of government,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in 1984, explaining why they should play a limited role.

But the current high court, with a 6-3 conservative majority, has been increasingly skeptical of the powers of federal agencies. Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas all had questioned the Chevron decision.

They were in Friday’s majority, along with Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor joined Kagan in dissent.

Opponents of the Chevron doctrine argue that judges applied it too often to rubber-stamp decisions made by government bureaucrats. Judges must exercise their own authority and judgment to say what the law is, the court said Friday, adopting the opponents arguments.

Bill Bright, a Cape May, New Jersey-based fisherman who was part of the lawsuit, said the decision to overturn Chevron would help fishing businesses make a living. “Nothing is more important than protecting the livelihoods of our families and crews,” Bright said in a statement.

Defending the rulings that upheld the fees, President Joe Biden’s administration said that overturning the Chevron decision would produce a “convulsive shock” to the legal system.

Environmental, health advocacy groups, civil rights organizations, organized labor and Democrats on the national and state level had urged the court to leave the Chevron decision in place.

“The Supreme Court is pushing the nation into uncharted waters as it seizes it seizes power from our elected branches of government to advance its deregulatory agenda,” Sambhav Sankar, a lawyer with the environmental group Earthjustice, said after the ruling. “The conservative justices are aggressively reshaping the foundations of our government so that the President and Congress have less power to protect the public, and corporations have more power to challenge regulations in search of profits. This ruling threatens the legitimacy of hundreds of regulations that keep us safe, protect our homes and environment, and create a level playing field for businesses to compete on.”

Gun, e-cigarette, farm, timber and home-building groups were among the business groups supporting the fishermen. Conservative interests that also intervened in recent high court cases limiting regulation of air and water pollution backed the fishermen as well.

The fisherman sued to contest the 2020 regulation that would have authorized a fee that could have topped $700 a day, though no one ever had to pay it.

In separate lawsuits in New Jersey and Rhode Island, the fishermen argued that Congress never gave federal regulators authority to require the fisherman to pay for monitors. They lost in the lower courts, which relied on the Chevron decision to sustain the regulation.

The justices heard two cases on the same issue because Jackson was recused from the New Jersey case. She took part in it at an earlier stage when she was an appeals court judge. The full court participated in the case from Rhode Island.

Tom Jones and his American Accountability Foundation are digging into the backgrounds, social media posts and commentary of key high-ranking government employees, starting with the Department of Homeland Security. They are relying in part on tips from his network of conservative contacts, including even workers themselves. In a move that alarms some, they are preparing to publish the findings online.

With a $100,000 grant from the influential Heritage Foundation, the goal is to post 100 names of government workers to a website this summer to show a potential new administration who might be standing in the way of a second-term Trump agenda — and ripe for scrutiny, reclassifications, reassignments or firings.

“We need to understand who these people are and what they do,” said Jones, a former Capitol Hill aide to Republican senators.

The concept of compiling and publicizing a list of government employees shows the lengths that Trump’s allies are willing to go to ensure that nothing or no one will block his plans in a potential second term. Jones’ Project Sovereignty 2025 comes as Heritage’s own Project 2025 is laying the groundwork, with policies, proposals and personnel ready day one of a possible new White House.

The effort, which is focused on top career government officials who are not appointees within the political structure, has stunned democracy experts and shocked the civil service community in what they compare to the “red scare” of midcentury McCarthyism.

Jacqueline Simon, policy director at the American Federation of Government Employees, said the language being thrown around — the Heritage Foundation’s announcement praised the group for ferreting out “anti-American bad actors” — is “so shocking.”

Civil servants are often former military personnel and all are required to take an oath to the Constitution to work for the federal government, not a loyalty test to any one president in the White House, she and others said.

“It just seems as though their goal is to try to menace federal employees and sow fear,” said Simon, whose union is backing President Joe Biden for re-election.

As Trump, who has been convicted of felony charges in a hush-money case and is under a four-count federal indictment accusing him of working to overturn the 2020 election, faces a likely rematch with Biden this fall, far-right conservatives have vowed to take a wrecking ball to what they call the deep-state bureaucracy.

The Trump campaign has said repeatedly that outside groups do not speak for the former president who alone is setting his policy priorities.

Conservatives view the federal workforce as overstepping its role to become a power center that can drive or thwart a president’s agenda. Particularly during the Trump administration, government officials came under attack from both the White House and Republicans on Capitol Hill, as his own Cabinet often raised objections to some of the former president’s more singular or even unlawful proposals.

While Jones’ group won’t necessarily be recommending whether to fire or reassign any of the federal workers it lists, the work aligns with Heritage’s far-reaching Project 2025 blueprint for a conservative administration.

Heritage’s Project 2025 proposes reviving the Trump “Schedule F” policy that would try to reclassify tens of thousands of federal workers as political appointees, which could enable mass dismissals – although a new Biden administration rule seeks to make that more difficult. The Heritage project is working to recruit and train a new generation to come to Washington to fill government jobs.

In announcing the $100,000 “Innovation Award” last month, Heritage said it would support American Accountability Foundation’s “investigative researchers, in-depth reports, and educational efforts to alert Congress, a conservative administration, and the American people to the presence of anti-American bad actors burrowed into the administrative state and ensure appropriate action is taken.”

Heritage President Kevin Roberts said in a statement the “weaponization of the federal government” has been possible only because of the “deep state of entrenched Leftist bureaucrats.” He said he was proud to support the work of American Accountability Foundation workers “in their fight to hold our government accountable and drain it of bad actors.”

The federal government employs about 2.2 million people. That includes those in the Washington, D,C, area but also workers who the unions say many Americans know as friends or neighbors in communities across the country.

About 4,000 positions in the government are considered political appointees who routinely change from one presidential administration to the next, but most are career professionals — from landscapers at Veterans Administration cemeteries to economists at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The public list-making conjures for some the era of Joseph McCarthy, the former senator who conducted grueling hearings into suspected communist sympathizers during the Cold War. They were orchestrated by a top staffer, Roy Cohn, who went on to become a confidant of a younger Trump.

‘Alarming trend’

Skye Perryman, CEO of the advocacy group Democracy Forward, said it’s all deeply disturbing, and reminiscent of “the darker parts of American history.”

“This is part of the overall, highly concerning and alarming trend,” she said.

Publicly naming government workers is an “intimidation tactic to try to chill the work of these civil servants,” she said, and part of a broader “retribution agenda” under way this election.

“They’re seeking to undermine our democracy, they’re seeking to undermine the way that our government works for people,” she said.

Jones, from his desk overlooking rickhouses storing barrels in the “Bourbon Capitol” of Bardstown, scoffed at comparisons to McCarthyism as “nonsense.”

He’s a former staffer to former Sen. Jim DeMint, the South Carolina conservative Republican who went on to lead Heritage and now helms the Conservative Policy Institute, where American Accountability Foundation has a mailing address. Jones also worked for Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, and provided opposition research for Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential bid.

With six researchers, Jones’ team is operating remotely across the country, poring over the information about federal workers within Homeland Security, State Department and other agencies that deal with immigration and border issues.

Their focus is on the highest ranks of the civil servants — so-called GS-13, GS-14, and GS-15 employees and those in senior executive positions who could put up roadblocks to Trump’s plans for tighter borders and more deportations.

“I think it’s important to the next administration to understand who those people are,” he said.

He dismissed the risks that could be involved in publicly posting the names, salary information and other details of federal workers who have some level of privacy, or the idea that his group’s work could be putting employees’ livelihoods in jeopardy.

“You don’t get to make policy and then say, ‘Hey don’t scrutinize me,”’ he said.

“Gut check’

He acknowledges some of the work is often a “gut check” or “instinct” about which federal employees would be suspected of trying to block a conservative agenda.

“We’re looking at, ‘Are there wrong people on the bus right now that are, you know, openly hostile to efforts to secure the southern border?”’

His own group came under scrutiny as it first probed Biden nominees.

Biden had repealed Trump’s Schedule F executive order in January 2021, but a Government Accountability Office report in 2022 found that agencies believed it could be reinstated by a future administration.

Since then, the Biden administration issued a new rule that would make it harder to fire workers. A new administration could direct the Office of Personnel Management to undo the new regulation, but the process would take time and be open to legal challenges.

The highly anticipated Right to IVF Act, championed by Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, would’ve also expanded access to various reproductive treatments for service members, veterans and others in the private sector.

The legislation needed 60 votes to advance, and failed in a vote of 48-47. Among Republicans, only Sen. Susan Collins, Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, Alaska, voted yes.

“I don’t have it in me to beat around the bush today,” Duckworth said following the vote. “I am angry — really, really angry. If Republicans actually cared as much about protecting IVF as they do protecting Donald Trump’s poll numbers, tis would have been a simple ‘yes’ vote.”

The bill aimed to establish what Democratic senators called a “statutory right” to reproductive care, especially against conservative attempts to block abortion post-Roe and related ethical questions about the personhood rights of embryos used in fertilization procedures. It mashes together four bills introduced before by Democrats, including New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, Washington Sen. Patty Murray and Virginia Sens. Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine.

“I have significant reservations about the bill’s overly broad mandates for insurers to pay for treatment costs – but I want to be clear on my support for a family’s right to access IVF,” wrote Murkowski on X, formerly known as Twitter.

In vitro fertilization, in particular, is a common procedure used by families who struggle to conceive, but it is also very expensive and insurance coverage of it varies widely. The Right to IVF Act wants to set a baseline coverage mandate for it and other forms of artificial reproductive technology, including artificial insemination and procedures that handle embryos, eggs or sperm. It would also give OPM authority to define what other services might fall under the definition of ART.

In addition, the bill would ensure service members have the opportunity to preserve sperm or eggs prior to deploying to a combat zone or a hazardous duty assignment, or after injury or illness. For veterans, it would authorize fertility treatment and counseling, ensure continuity of fertility care after a change of station, provide access to use of surrogates, and streamline eligibility for these benefits.

In March, the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs lifted health care restrictions on IVF for same-sex or unmarried individuals.

For feds, many FEHB providers do cover artificial reproductive procedures, thanks to recent requirements set by the Office of Personnel Management. OPM has said it encouraged carriers to go beyond minimum coverage and, to date, 24 carriers have done so.

However, this bill would have made expanded coverage a standard across all plans, given some that include ART are not open to everyone.

Ahead of the vote, the White House put out a statement strongly supporting the Senate bill. OPM declined to comment on the legislation.

“The Senate squandered a chance to give many federal employees the insurance coverage they need to express their families,” said Stacey Young, president of DOJ Gen, in a statement. “But OPM can bring badly needed help for plan year 2025 without Congress by mandating that plans cover IVF medications and treatments. This administration has positioned itself as a supporter of IVF; this is a perfect opportunity to show that.”

Though for years the topic of infertility felt taboo, doctors and health care advocates have said it’s a fairly common condition. According to the World Health Organization, one in six people worldwide experience infertility, and it can affect men and women.

Election year

Democrats were hoping Thursday’s vote would be a successful rallying point on the highly contentious issue of reproductive health care that is currently being fought over by the federal government, Supreme Court and state legislatures. With it being an election year, it’s particularly in their interest to appeal to the large share of single-issue voters backing abortion rights, which has increased, according to recent polls.

On Capitol Hill, there’s been a lot of back and forth on the issue, particularly over ethical concerns raised by any embryos discarded or unused during collection for IVF.

Still, some House Republicans voiced their support for IVF in a February resolution, which is not a law but expresses the sentiments or official position of the chamber. Senate Republicans also blocked a measure in February to expand access to IVF, calling it an overreach with “poison pill” riders.

“After clamoring to get on the record in support of IVF after the Alabama Supreme Court ruling, Senate Republicans had a chance to prove that claimed support by simply getting out of the way of our efforts to pass my bill that would protect IVF access nationwide — and they blocked it,” said Sen. Duckworth in February. The military veteran had both her children through IVF.

In another legislative volley just this week, Senate Democrats torpedoed a Republican bill that would cut off Medicaid funding to states that prohibit IVF, arguing that doesn’t go far enough.

An on June 11, Republicans tanked a Rules Committee record vote led by Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly to amend the 2025 defense bill in furtherance of IVF coverage.

In a post on X, the congressman pointed out that Republicans will have access to IVF coverage themselves next year. That’s because of a D.C. law effective Jan. 1, 2025, that says “a health insurer offering a large group health benefit plan shall provide coverage for the diagnosis and treatment of infertility, including in vitro fertilization.”

The Affordable Care Act requires members of Congress and staff to get insurance via the D.C. exchange, which will become subject to the new law.

“Because those plans will now be required to cover IVF, members of Congress next year will have access to IVF coverage that the FEHB program does not currently mandate,” a spokesperson said.

In a statement including signatures from all Republican Senators, lawmakers said before Thursday’s vote that they “strongly support continued nationwide access to IVF.”

“Senate Democrats have embraced a Summer of Scare Tactics—a partisan campaign of false fearmongering intended to mislead and confuse the American people,” the statement read.

Some signatories have pointed out that IVF is currently legal and available in all 50 states, and that their bill, the IVF Protection Act, is the “only one” that safeguards access, according to a statement from Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala.

At a hearing on the fiscal year 2025 budget request for the Department of the Treasury on June 4, Vice Chair of the Appropriations Committee Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, pointed out a recent watchdog report that showed IRS employees work in person about 38% of the time.

“I’m trying to reconcile the data that’s reported by the inspector general to the IRS’ goal of having its employees work half of their work days in the office,” she said.

In response, Yellen — who oversees a workforce of about 100,000 — said many employees are covered by collective bargaining agreements, so enforcing back-to-office rules requires agreement by the union. According to federal data, about three-quarters of the workforce is represented by a labor union.

That’s true for most federal agencies where changes in working conditions must be negotiated. Telework in particular has become a rallying point for labor leaders who say it has significantly improved retention, productivity and work-life balance. At the same time, Republicans in Congress have expressed frustration with what they say are largely empty federal office buildings paid for by taxpayers, and agencies’ “slow rolling” policies on bringing workers back following the pandemic.

Collins suggested that these contracts with telework provisions be “renegotiated with the taxpayers interests in mind,” and Yellen said she “agreed.”

In a comment on the exchange, the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents IRS employees, said its contract with the agency doesn’t expire for another three years, and in any case, there are already tens of thousands of IRS employees who don’t telework at all.

“Every time our contract comes up for renewal, both parties re-evaluate the program’s effectiveness and make adjustments accordingly,” said President Doreen Greenwald in a statement to Federal Times. “Telework is a program negotiated between NTEU and the IRS and is a proven benefit for recruiting and retaining skilled workers across the country. It has been in place at the IRS for decades.”

As of May 5, the IRS requires employees work in-person half of the time.

IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel told lawmakers on the House Ways & Means Committee in February that the agency is “roughly in line with the governmentwide standard of 50%” in-office work.

Though Democrats in Congress have been generally more understanding of telework as a modern workplace fixture, the White House has also put pressure on department heads to recall their workers.

“Whether at the IRS or other federal agencies, the government should focus its resources on employees and how best to achieve agency mission not on simply filling buildings and offices to meet some subjective percentage,” Greenwald said.

Republican lawmakers questioned whether some senior leaders should be fired because of the scandal, which they said has undermined public faith in the department.

“Ultimately, the responsibility for this failure falls on your shoulders,” House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill., told the secretary at a hearing on the issue Tuesday. “And if leaders below you fail, and are not held accountable, you must be held to account.”

The contested bonuses were part of the $117 million Critical Skill Incentive Payments program authorized by Congress two years ago. Money from that fund has been given to more than 13,000 staffers with high-demand skills in an effort to keep them in VA hospitals and benefits offices.

But at least 182 senior employees who were not eligible for the awards also received payouts through the program. All of the bonuses were more than $30,000, and several were given more than $100,000.

VA Inspector General Michael Missal testified on Tuesday that the mistakes stemmed from several senior leaders — particularly Under Secretary for Health Shereef Elnahal and Under Secretary for Benefits Joshua Jacobs — misinterpreting the law, either through ignorance or intentionally skirting it to hand out generous cash rewards to senior officials.

“Our work found lapses in governance, judgment, due diligence, communications and accountability at multiple levels in VA,” he said.

Missal told lawmakers he “would not have confidence” in Elnahal or Jacobs based on their handling of the bonus issues. Republican lawmakers decried the mistakes as unforgivable, especially given that the money was intended to retain front-line employees instead of bureaucrats.

“The administration decided that pushing paper in Washington, D.C. was a critical skill to VA’s mission that was worthy of a maximum bonus,” Bost said. “Don’t be fooled, this money could have been spent on hardworking VA employees, outside the beltway, who might’ve used it to send their son or daughter to college, not to buy a new Porsche.”

Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wisc., said during the hearing that Elnahal, McDonough and President Joe Biden should all resign over the issue.

Missal’s report largely absolves McDonough of blame in the bonus mistakes. VA leaders have been working to recoup the improper bonuses for several months. About 92% of the money has been recovered, the secretary said.

McDonough noted in his testimony that his office reported the error to lawmakers last fall shortly after he was made aware of the internal problem, illustrating that there was not an intent to hide information from oversight officials.

And committee Democrats attributed the mistakes — which they also labeled as serious and concerning — to a misunderstanding of the law and a lack of proper review procedures within the department. They called for reforms to the department’s oversight system regarding bonuses, but did not call for firings related to mistakes.

But Republican lawmakers were angry that their request to hear directly from Elnahal and Jacobs was superseded by McDonough’s decision to testify on Tuesday, vowing that those leaders will soon face harsh questioning on Capitol Hill.

McDonough said he opted to testify instead of allowing them to appear because of the seriousness of the issue, and to explain broader efforts to correct the errors. He promised a response to the inspector general’s recommendations in the near future.

He also said some of the senior executives may still be eligible for other bonuses in the future, but they will not be awarded in batch or through the critical skills program.

Both the inspector general and committee leaders also promised continued focus on the issue in coming months.

Jurors convicted Trump on all 34 counts after deliberating for 9.5 hours.

The verdict is a stunning legal reckoning for Trump and exposes him to potential prison time in the city where his manipulations of the tabloid press helped catapult him from a real estate tycoon to reality television star and ultimately president. As he seeks a return to the White House in this year’s election, the judgment presents voters with another test of their willingness to accept Trump’s boundary-breaking behavior.

Trump is expected to quickly appeal the verdict and will face an awkward dynamic as he seeks to return to the campaign trail as a convicted felon. There are no campaign rallies on the calendar for now, though he’s expected to hold fundraisers next week. It will likely take several months for Judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw the case, to decide whether to sentence Trump to prison.

The falsifying business records charges carry up to four years behind bars, though prosecutors have not said whether they intend to seek imprisonment, and it is not clear whether the judge — who earlier in the trial warned of jail time for gag order violations — would impose that punishment even if asked. The conviction, and even imprisonment, will not bar Trump from continuing his pursuit of the White House.

Trump faces three other felony indictments, but the New York case may be the only one to reach a conclusion before the November election, adding to the significance of the outcome. Though the legal and historical implications of the verdict are readily apparent, the political consequences are less so given its potential to reinforce rather than reshape already-hardened opinions about Trump.

For another candidate in another time, a criminal conviction might doom a presidential run, but Trump’s political career has endured through two impeachments, allegations of sexual abuse, investigations into everything from potential ties to Russia to plotting to overturn an election, and personally salacious storylines including the emergence of a recording in which he boasted about grabbing women’s genitals.

In addition, the general allegations of the case have been known to voters for years and, while tawdry, are widely seen as less grievous than the allegations he faces in three other cases that charge him with subverting American democracy and mishandling national security secrets.

Fitness for office

Even so, the verdict is likely to give President Joe Biden and fellow Democrats space to sharpen arguments that Trump is unfit for office, even as it provides fodder for the presumptive Republican nominee to advance his unsupported claims that he is victimized by a criminal justice system he insists is politically motivated against him.

Trump maintained throughout the trial that he had done nothing wrong and that the case should never have been brought, railing against the proceedings from inside the courthouse — where he was joined by a parade of high-profile Republican allies — and racking up fines for violating a gag order with inflammatory out-of-court comments about witnesses.

The first criminal trial of a former American president always presented a unique test of the court system, not only because of Trump’s prominence but also because of his relentless verbal attacks on the foundation of the case and its participants. But the verdict from the 12-person jury marked a repudiation of Trump’s efforts to undermine confidence in the proceedings or to potentially impress the panel with a show of GOP support.

The trial involved charges that Trump falsified business records to cover up hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, the porn actor who said she had sex with the married Trump in 2006.

The $130,000 payment was made by Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer Michael Cohen to buy Daniels’ silence during the final weeks of the 2016 race in what prosecutors allege was an effort to interfere in the election. When Cohen was reimbursed, the payments were recorded as legal expenses, which prosecutors said was an unlawful attempt to mask the true purpose of the transaction. Trump’s lawyers contend they were legitimate payments for legal services.

Trump has denied the sexual encounter, and his lawyers argued during the trial that his celebrity status, particularly during the 2016 campaign, made him a target for extortion. They’ve said hush money deals to bury negative stories about Trump were motivated by personal considerations such as the impact on his family and brand as a businessman, not political ones. They also sought to undermine the credibility of Cohen, the star prosecution witness who pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges related to the payments, as driven by personal animus toward Trump as well as fame and money.

The trial featured more than four weeks of occasionally riveting testimony that revisited an already well-documented chapter from Trump’s past, when his 2016 campaign was threatened by the disclosure of an “Access Hollywood” recording that captured him talking about grabbing women sexually without their permission and the prospect of other stories about Trump and sex surfacing that would be harmful to his candidacy.

Trump’s voice

Trump himself did not testify, but jurors heard his voice through a secret recording of a conversation with Cohen in which he and the lawyer discussed a $150,000 hush money deal involving a Playboy model, Karen McDougal, who has said she had an affair with Trump: “What do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?” Trump was heard saying on the recording made by Cohen.

Daniels herself testified, offering at times a graphic recounting of the sexual encounter she says they had in a hotel suite during a Lake Tahoe golf tournament. The former publisher of the National Enquirer, David Pecker, testified about how he worked to keep stories harmful to the Trump campaign from becoming public at all, including by having his company buy McDougal’s story.

Jurors also heard from Keith Davidson, the lawyer who negotiated the hush money payments on behalf of Daniels and McDougal.

He detailed the tense negotiations to get both women compensated for their silence but also faced an aggressive round of questioning from a Trump attorney who noted that Davidson had helped broker similar hush money deals in cases involving other prominent figures.

But the most pivotal witness, by far, was Cohen, who spent days on the stand and gave jurors an insider’s view of the hush money scheme and what he said was Trump’s detailed knowledge of it.

“Just take care of it,” he quoted Trump as saying at one point.

He offered jurors the most direct link between Trump and the heart of the charges, recounting a meeting in which they and the then-chief financial officer of Trump Organization described a plan to have Cohen reimbursed in monthly installments for legal services.

And he emotionally described his dramatic break with Trump in 2018, when he decided to cooperate with prosecutors after a decade-long career as the then-president’s personal fixer.

“To keep the loyalty and to do the things that he had asked me to do, I violated my moral compass, and I suffered the penalty, as has my family,” Cohen told the jury.

The outcome provides a degree of vindication for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who had characterized the case as being about election interference rather than hush money and defended it against criticism from legal experts who called it the weakest of the four prosecutions against Trump.

But it took on added importance not only because it proceeded to trial first but also because it could be the only one of the cases to reach a jury before the election.

The other three cases — local and federal charges in Atlanta and Washington that he conspired to undo the 2020 election, as well as a federal indictment in Florida charging him with illegally hoarding top-secret records — are bogged down by delays or appeals.

The union, representing workers at the Economic Development Administration, sent a letter to Assistant Secretary Alejandra Castillo on May 28 calling attention to the “rapidly deteriorating” relationship between officials and agency employees who have alleged that any further return-to-work plans will exacerbate turnover and understaffing. In general, workers report onsite twice per biweekly pay period.

“Yet conversations on how best to address our concerns have completely stalled,” according to the letter obtained by Federal Times and sent by local 3810 of the American Federation of Government Employees.

The letter said feedback from workers about the work environment paints a picture of “an agency on the brink of collapse.”

While most cabinet-level agencies have called their workers back to offices post-pandemic, unions have strongly opposed the move, claiming telework has always been a fixture of federal work, and that it has helped offices recruit and retain staff in light of pay shortages and competitive private sector benefits.

Lawmakers, especially Republicans, have been wary of widespread remote work, saying customer service backlogs at government agencies including the Social Security Administration and the IRS prove the case for more in-person staff. Just last week, the acting director of the Office of Personnel Management, the federal government’s HR department, assured lawmakers that more than half of all federal employees work in-person full time.

Still, as House Republicans seek to increase that share via legislation, union leaders at EDA are saying reentry mandates will prompt employees to seek employment elsewhere, jeopardizing a period of growth for the agency that has seen its annual programs grow by $200 million in recent years thanks to supplemental funding via the American Rescue Plan and CARES Act.

At EDA, more than half of respondents polled in a survey by the union said they are “actively” applying for jobs outside the agency. Nearly two-thirds said they would accept an outside offer if it was made.

The workforce has already been shaken, the union argued in its letter, by “mass layoffs” that occurred roughly eight months ago. Ryan Zamarripa, speaking in his capacity as vice president of local 3810, said in an interview that a group of staff members hired to carry out programs funded by supplements were called into a virtual meeting and told that they would be let go.

It’s not clear how many employees were affected, but Zamarripa said he knew of 20 to 30 who were initially hired through Schedule A for a two-year term and were then told they would be let go before that time was up.

EDA has leveraged billions of dollars for new programs since Congress began its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, but its resources for administering them are finite, officials said.

In a statement, Assistant Secretary Castillo and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Development and Chief Operating Officer Ben Page said the department has appropriately overseen its allocations.

The agency did not elaborate on the layoffs cited by the union.

“EDA appropriately managed the resources that were provided, leveraging term employees to address an unprecedented surge in work without leaving an unsustainable fiscal burden,” they said. “EDA has repeatedly sought additional resources through the President’s budget to sustain these term staff to continue the high degree of customer service and we continue to work with Congress to secure the necessary resources.”

In any case, AFGE said safeguarding telework is important to maintaining a workforce for the only federal government agency focused exclusively on economic development.

EDA offices and projects are geographically dispersed around the country, so it makes sense that the agency be able to retain telework, Zamarripa said.

“The bulk of our work was getting done in the field, and that’s the point of our agency,” he added. “We’re supposed to be in the communities that we serve. By requiring people to be not in the communities, but rather in a federal office, either in D.C. or [regional headquarters offices], we’re taking away that very critical step. I think that’s something that, for whatever reason, is not being heard fully by the leadership of EDA.”

In other instances, agency officials have shown up to monthly labor council meetings in half force, the union said. The letter alleges that issues brought up during these meetings are not communicated up the chain to those in a position of decision making power, “to no resolution or update.”

In their joint statement, Assistant Secretary Castillo and Deputy Assistant Secretary Page said leadership is committed to working through workplace challenges.

“Throughout this period of exponential programmatic growth, EDA’s leadership team, our union, and our stakeholders have engaged in frequent, real-time dialogue about where we are, and where we are headed, including in the thoughtful planning for our required increased office attendance,” they said. “These conversations have happened both privately, as well as through frequent leadership team calls and open town halls.”

The union said agency leaders received the letter and responded sharing their intent to work through the issues.

“Honestly, the first step is just having the assistant secretary take what we’re saying seriously and engage with us in a way that prevents more people leaving,” Zamarripa said. “At the end of the day, we’re all here because we think this is a great agency that does really good work, and we want to ensure that we’re able to do that going forward.”