'More teeth': Trump OPM planning second email for federal workers — and response could be mandatory

Many federal workers are complaining about a recent e-mail from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) asking them to justify keeping their jobs.

Now, according to Washington Post reporters Emily Davies and Carol D. Leonnig, federal workers are "slated to receive a second e-mail" from OPM — this one due to arrive on Saturday, February 29.

With the second e-mail, Davies and Leonnig report, federal workers "might have to respond, according to two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private talks."

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"Last weekend," the Post reporters explain, "the federal Office of Personnel Management sent a message to government employees from hr@opm.gov, asking for a list of what workers had accomplished the week before. The new message is expected to arrive from addresses associated with chiefs of agency HR departments across the federal government, the people said. The switch could give the request more teeth, because agencies typically have more direct authority over their staff than OPM, which enacts HR policy across the bureaucracy but doesn't actually employ most workers."

The second e-mail, according to Davies and Leonnig, will be more intimidating than the first — and that is by design.

Max Stier, president of the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, told the Post, "The president of the United States cannot fire a career employee, because they are not reporting to him. But if an agency head says this is what all employees need to do, there is fairly significant latitude."

The mass layoffs that are rocking the federal government are being orchestrated by the Trump Administration with the help of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an advisory group led by SpaceX/Tesla/X.com CEO Elon Musk.

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Davies and Leonnig note that after the first e-mail was sent out, Musk tweeted that if federal workers didn't respond with five bullet points, it would be considered a resignation.

"But he backed off after the White House directed agency heads that the order wasn’t binding, the first apparent fissure between the president and the richest person in the world," according to Davies and Leonnig.

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