Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is the latest official in the Trump administration to give an exception to the DOGE request that all federal workers email a list of their accomplishments for the previous week.
The Office of Personnel Managment issued the email titled "What Did You Do Last Week?" and said that any federal employee that did not respond with a list of five items would be effectively resigning from their position.
The emails elicited an outcry from many employees, with some outraged at having to be accountable for their accomplishments and others worried that it could expose classified information to the public.
The FBI and DOD quickly told their employees they should not respond to the email, and Gabbard added her refusal soon after.
“Given the inherently sensitive and classified nature of our work, [intelligence community] employees should not respond to the [Office of Personnel Management] email,” Gabbard wrote.
It's not that the officials are defying DOGE head Elon Musk, where the request originated, or Trump in their instructions to sensitive departments, although that's surely what media outlets like the New York Times and UK Independent want the public to believe.
Instead, the officials want email responses routed through the respective agencies in a secure way, avoiding any national security breaches.
The initial confusion shows how Musk and others at DOGE are shooting from the hip in real time, rather than carefully planning their strategies for cutting government waste, fraud and abuse.
Moving quickly may be intended to keep media pundits off-balance so they don't have a lot of time to create oppositional content about the moves.
Or it could just be Musk's usual way of acting first and thinking about it/making adjustments later.
There are signs that OPM may be backing off from the requirement.
A memo from Health and Human Services to its employees said that the agency backtracked on the email request and that responses may expose senders to malicious observers.
"In discussions with OPM officials yesterday and today, OPM has now rescinded that mandatory requirement," HHS told its staff members. "There is no HHS expectation that HHS employees respond to OPM and there is no impact to your employment with the agency if you choose not to respond."
The deadline to respond to the email was Monday at 11:59 p.m., as originally imposed.
