RedState For an "apolitical" civil service, politics certainly seems to color many of its activities. Last week, President Trump placed 50-60 senior executives with the US Agency for International Development on administrative leave (see Trump Suspends As Many As 60 Senior Bureaucrats for Trying to Evade His Executive Orders – RedState) for attempting to sabotage his efforts to cut grants to such worthy project as transgender Nigerian dance troupes; see WATCH: Press Hounds Karoline Leavitt About USAID, and She Comes Off the Top Rope With the Receipts.
"Across the federal government, we hear stories of resistance brewing. The stories are probably exaggerated but real nonetheless. And every once in a while, one of the goobers gets out over their skis and gets burned. This one, thanks to James O'Keefe and the poor girl who had to go on a date with him.
"The target was a guy named Brandon Wright, who is a GS-14 IT manager at the Department of Homeland Security." . . .
Brandon Wright, Platform Services Manager for DHS, was recorded saying that the agency’s career bureaucrats do not allow political appointees to interfere with their operations. He told the undercover reporter, "Kristi Noem? I f*cking hate her."
“The secretaries can set the priorities for the department, but they can't actually tell us what to do,” Wright told an undercover OMG journalist, later adding, "The truth is, we don't let them [secretaries] get in our way.” He said, "If we don’t agree with those priorities, there is a lot of room for interpretation, in terms of how we interpret what those priorities are." . . .
Just because you are part of an apolitical service, like the Civil Service or Armed Forces, doesn't mean you can't have political opinions. What it means is that you can't let your politics interfere with the job, and you can't carry out a guerilla war against your agency's leadership because you disagree with their politics.
“We Don’t Let Them Get in Our Way”: GS-14 DHS Official Admits Department Will Defy Trump Appointed Secretary" J O'Keefe
’s “Marching Orders,” Reveals Tactics to ‘Interpret Priorities We Don’t Agree With’ “The secretaries can set the priorities for the department, but they can't actually tell us what to do.” “By the time the actual marching orders get to me and below, we can filter it in a way that steadies the ship.”
This is happening throughout the government https://t.co/wOfBQBNlHy
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 4, 2025


