US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday making it easier to fire 8,000 of some of the best-paid government workers, part of a broader effort to overhaul the federal workforce.
The order, released by the White House and the Office of Personnel Management, strips job protections from a mostly senior group of federal workers earning up to almost $200,000 a year and who are deemed to be "influencing" government policy.
In a call previewing the move, Scott Kupor, director of the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the government's human resources policies, said the administration needs to employ people willing and able to carry out orders to achieve the administration's policy priorities.
"You can have any political views, but if you allow those views to basically interfere with your willingness to actually carry out lawful orders and policy directives with the administration, then this provides a mechanism obviously for people in those agencies to be able to be removed effectively at will," he said.
The order shows Trump is persisting in his efforts to discipline and fire career employees who he sees as undermining his political goals, a year after billionaire Elon Musk left his post overseeing an effort to slash government spending and payrolls.
Trump believes his agenda was hampered by career federal workers who opposed his policies during his first term.
The number of workers affected by the order is well below a ceiling estimate of up to 50,000 workers who could have been made subject to the new rules. Senior administration officials on the call said Trump could expand the grouping but has no immediate plans to do so.
Federal worker unions and their allies sued in January to stop the policy before it was fully developed. Federal judges paused the litigation while the Trump administration finalized changes.
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