Virginia candidate fired by Trump warns of Republican plans to politicize federal jobs

Source: The Guardian

Wed 23 Oct 2024 10.00 EDT
Last modified on Wed 23 Oct 2024 15.56 EDT


The Democrat Eugene Vindman stood before a group of roughly 30 fellow veterans and warned of an impending danger if Republicans like his opponent, Derrick Anderson, won key House races next month: a little-known policy called schedule F.

The policy, initially embraced by Donald Trump in the final months of his first term in office and now included in the rightwing manifesto known as Project 2025, would transform previously nonpartisan jobs in the federal government into political appointments. The change could fundamentally alter and perhaps jeopardize the employment of tens or even hundreds of thousands of government workers, including 14% of the residents in Virginia’s seventh district, where Vindman is running for Congress.

Vindman knows something about the politicization of government posts. In 2020, Trump fired Vindman and his twin brother, Alexander Vindman, after they played a key role in the former president’s first impeachment. The brothers, who both held senior positions on Trump’s national security council, raised alarms about the then president’s alleged attempt to pressure Ukraine to launch an investigation of Joe Biden and his son Hunter. They were both dismissed days after Trump’s impeachment trial concluded.

“This idea of politicizing the civil service – I know that means a lot to the people in this room,” Vindman told the veterans at his campaign event. “You know how you prevent something like Schedule F and Project 2025 from being implemented? You vote for Democrats up and down the ticket.”

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/23/virginia-house-race-democrat-eugene-vindman