Federal personnel chief Scott Kupor insists that claims are false by three prominent congressional Democrats that multiple Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) appointees are being “embedded” as “permanent” federal employees, but to date, none of the trio have publicly acknowledged their error.

As The Washington Stand reported August 14, Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, joined by California’s Rep. Robert Garcia, decried in a 10-page, single-spaced August 6 letter to U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Scott Kupor “the alarming extent to which [DOGE] employees are embedding themselves in the federal government in key agency positions.”

While acknowledging that billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk “has departed [DOGE], his influence remains, as DOGE and its employees attempt to become a permanent part of the federal government, scattered across agencies where they can continue to sabotage key functions from within.”

The problem is so serious, they claimed, that such embedding into the career civil service workforce threatens “the ability of the Social Security Administration (SSA), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Department of Labor (DOL), and other government agencies to serve the American people.”

Kupor told TWS, however, that no former DOGE employees have been embedded into the career federal civil service workforce. The only “permanent” federal workers are those in the career civil service. Federal political appointees typically serve two to four years in a department or agency and then move on to a new position elsewhere.

The congressional trio’s letter “misconstrues the civil service hiring process. OPM’s Office of Merit Systems Accountability and Compliance reviews all requests to appoint current or recent political appointees to career roles for compliance with merit systems principles and civil service laws,” Kupor explained. “In addition, all federal hires undergo required background checks, ethics reviews, and suitability screenings. No DOGE-affiliated individuals have ‘unlawfully burrowed’ into career roles. We welcome oversight grounded in facts.”

Spokesmen for all three of the letter signers have been asked by TWS if their bosses have or will disavow their signatures on the August 6 letter, but no responses have been received. Warren is not a member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, which has oversight authority over OPM. Blumenthal is a member of that panel. Garcia is the Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

The trio’s letter contains multiple references to DOGE employees converting to “permanent federal service roles,” “permanent career roles,” “DOGE employees’ conversion to permanent federal employees,” and the “hiring of DOGE affiliates to career positions.”

A possible explanation for the three Democrats missing the mark on the issue could be their heavy reliance on mainstream media reports, including a June 25 National Public Radio (NPR) report that is cited eight times in the August 6 letter to Kupor. The NPR report, written by reporters Shannon Bond and Stephen Fowler, declared that “since January, DOGE staffers have been detailed across the federal government, leading efforts to fire workers, cancel contracts, and obtain access to sensitive data.”

“Now,” the article continued, “many of them have been converted to permanent jobs within the government, and agencies are embracing DOGE’s mission, according to NPR’s review of personnel movements and interviews with federal employees who requested anonymity because they fear retaliation from the Trump administration for speaking about internal matters.”

The NPR story then claimed that “a number of the young software engineers who were among DOGE’s earliest recruits have recently converted from ‘special government employees’ — a time-limited role — to full-time federal workers. That includes Luke Farritor and Ethan Shaotran, who became regular staffers at the General Services Administration this spring, according to internal GSA records seen by NPR.”

The only positions in the federal workforce whose descriptions would correspond to being “full-time” and “regular staffers” are those in the career civil service. Repeated requests for confirmation of their employment status were made to Farritor and Shaotran, as well as the GSA media office, but no responses were received. The NPR reporters were also asked for comment for this news analysis, but neither of them responded.

All conversions of politically-appointed federal employees must be processed through and approved by OPM, and an agency official told TWS that both Farritor and Shaotran are political appointees, not career workers.

Controversy over the accuracy of claims on Capitol Hill and in the mainstream media that DOGE employees are being embedded into the federal workforce as permanent or career civil servants comes as NPR and the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) face the prospect of massive defunding as a result of President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 (OBBB).

The OBBB slashed more than $1.1 billion in federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). NPR depends directly on CPB for 1% of its funding, but another 30% of its operating budget comes from local public radio stations that purchase programs from NPR. Those purchases are frequently funded indirectly by CPB.

Trump targeted CPB because of what a White House Fact Sheet described as NPR and PBS having persistently used tax dollars to fuel “partisanship and left-wing propaganda.” The fact sheet further pointed out that:

• “Moreover, while the CPB is legally mandated to be ‘nonpolitical [in] nature’ and not ‘contribute to or otherwise support any political party,’ both NPR and PBS make significant in-kind contributions to the Democrat party and its political causes.”
• “An NPR editor found that registered Democrats outnumbered Republicans 87 to zero in the newsroom’s editorial positions.”
• “NPR’s President and CEO admitted that she regards ‘truth’ as a harmful ‘distraction’ from NPR’s objectives.”
• “Research shows that ‘congressional Republicans faced 85% negative coverage, compared to 54% positive coverage of congressional Democrats,’ on PBS’s flagship news program.”
• “Over a six-month period, PBS News Hour used versions of the term ‘far-right’ 162 times, but ‘far-left’ only 6 times.”
• “PBS’s coverage of the 2024 Republican National Convention was 72% negative, while its coverage of the 2024 Democratic National Convention was 88% positive.”
• “No media outlet has a constitutional right to taxpayer subsidized operations, and it’s highly inappropriate for taxpayers to be forced to subsidize biased, partisan content.”