White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday morning that it is incorrect to describe a recent decision to offer buyouts to all federal employees as a purge.
On Tuesday evening, a memo released by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) said it would start subjecting all federal employees to “enhanced standards of suitability and conduct” and warned of future downsizing. The email, sent to millions of employees, said those who leave their posts voluntarily will receive about eight months of salary but that they have to choose to do so by Feb. 6.
When asked about the memo, Leavitt told reporters that suggestions it is a purge of the federal workforce is “absolutely false” and that it is only “a suggestion to federal workers that they have to return to work, and if they don’t, then they have the option to resign, and this administration is very generously offering to pay them for eight months.”…