{"id":276,"date":"2026-05-27T10:07:57","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T10:07:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=276"},"modified":"2026-05-27T10:07:57","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T10:07:57","slug":"white-house-seeks-gag-order-for-all-federal-workers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=276","title":{"rendered":"White House Seeks Gag Order For All Federal Workers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Donald<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

In an attempt<\/span> to stop federal workers from sharing information with journalists, the Trump administration may soon ask them\u2014all two million of them\u2014to sign non-disclosure agreements, or NDAs.<\/p>

Read more Why Billionaires Pay Much Less Tax Than the Average American<\/a><\/p>\n

A shared Tuesday by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) outlined a set of civil and criminal penalties the federal government could pursue against any employee who breaks their NDAs and shares \u201cnon-public, confidential, or proprietary information\u201d about their job. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s not unheard of for federal employees to sign legally binding NDAs\u2014, for example, have signed them for decades. But for practical, ethical, and legal reasons, NDAs are a relative rarity in the public sector; they\u2019re better known for their starring role in the broad universe of private-sector litigation. There, they are weapons celebrities and public figures wield against each other\u2014essentially reputation management tools. Donald Trump himself has historically been fond of NDAs, paying adult film star Stormy Daniels $130,000 to sign one in 2016, and asking all<\/em> White House staff to sign them in 2018. White House Counsel Don McGahn initially \u201crefused to draft or distribute\u201d those agreements \u201cbecause he did not think they were enforceable.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

A blanket NDA across the federal government would be even more difficult to enforce, legal experts say. \u201cThe Supreme Court upheld, for example, non-disclosure agreements for a CIA agent,\u201d said David Loy, legal director at the First Amendment Coalition, a nonprofit free-speech group. \u201cBut to the best of my recollection that has never been extended to garden-variety government workers.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

An Office of Personnel Management media relations officer wrote in an email that the agency aims to stem the tide of government leaks, which are \u201cdisrupting agency operations and eroding trust across government.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Those leaks included \u201cthe release of personal information belonging to approximately 4,500 ICE employees,\u201d the release of planned ICE operation information, and \u201cunauthorized disclosures from Federal employees divulging the secret U.S. raid on Venezuela prior to it occurring.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

To some press freedom advocates, these exact examples show that a government-wide hush order would be counterproductive.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAggressive efforts to stifle interactions between government employees and journalists ultimately threaten the public\u2019s access to newsworthy information,\u201d Gabe Rottman, vice president of policy for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, told me. \u201cThe reporting identified in the draft notice itself illustrates the importance of journalists being able to talk with federal officials about issues across government.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>

Read more DHS Is Getting Sued For the Truth About Its \u201cDomestic Terrorism Watchlist\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

In its press release, OPM claimed its NDA would be \u201cfully consistent with existing whistleblower protections under federal law,\u201d and that signing it would supposedly be optional. But the category of \u201cnon-public, confidential, or proprietary information\u201d contained in the draft documents is remarkably broad\u2014and open to some interpretation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if the NDA does not impose new restrictions on its face, it could still chill protected speech if employees are led to believe they cannot discuss anything related to their work,\u201d Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression Senior Attorney Greg Greubel said. On its face, the NDA\u2019s only enforceable parts are already covered by confidentiality obligations that have always come with working for the government. \u201cSo the issue is less the NDA\u2019s text than how agencies implement and communicate it,\u201d Greubel said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo leak out the notes of a meeting is not the same as leaking the nuclear codes, right?\u201d said Loy, of the First Amendment Coalition.<\/p>\n

Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said that the legality of the NDAs depends on exactly how broad they are. \u201cIf the NDA basically just duplicates duties of confidentiality that public employees might already have, then there really isn\u2019t an issue here,\u201d Levinson said. \u201cOn the other end of the spectrum, there is an issue if the administration wants this NDA to act as a catch-all gag order.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some federal employees\u2019 advocates fear that might be the case. Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees\u2014the union representing over 800,000 federal employees and DC government workers\u2014wrote in a statement that \u201cfederal employees do not surrender their First Amendment rights when they accept federal employment, and the public has a right to know about this administration\u2019s abuses.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFederal agencies already have extensive policies and procedures in place for preventing the unauthorized release of classified or privileged information,\u201d Kelley added. \u201cThis proposed rule sweeps in an extraordinarily broad category of information, extending restrictions to the very material the public relies on to learn when an administration is causing harm.\u201d<\/p>

Read more The ACA Affordability Crisis Congress Won\u2019t Fix<\/a><\/p>\n<\/article>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trump tried this before\u2014and failed. The leaks have only gotten worse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":274,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nWhite House Seeks Gag Order For All Federal Workers - Moving and Mortgage Hub<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=276\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"White House Seeks Gag Order For All Federal Workers - Moving and Mortgage Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Trump tried this before\u2014and failed. 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