News: Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sent a salvo of letters to cabinet secretaries Wednesday evening demanding details about each department’s plans to lay off federal workers en masse during the ongoing government shutdown.
Warren wrote to the heads of the Treasury, Commerce, and Housing and Urban Development departments seeking answers about “reduction-in-force” efforts underway amid the shutdown. Each cabinet secretary was told by Warren that the motivations behind each RIF “appear purely political.”
The Massachusetts Democrat focused on agencies in the remit of the Senate Banking Committee, where she’s the ranking member.
A letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent — also signed by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) — warned that “these RIFs, if fully implemented, will have significant implications for the Treasury Department’s ability to comply with its statutory mandates once the government reopens.”
The letters to Commerce and HUD follow similar lines of inquiry.
For each department, Warren asked leaders to provide organizational charts for staff, staffing levels on Jan. 20, 2025 and copies of each RIF notice distributed to employees.
Read the letter to Treasury here, Commerce here and HUD here.
