‘Conservative’ outfits are ‘scouring’ because journalists won’t

The other day I acquired a new title: “Scourer.” My organization, Protect the Public’s Trust, was among the groups mentioned in a Politico article the outlet’s X account promoted as “Conservative outfits are scouring feds’ emails.”

I know “scouring” isn’t meant as a compliment, but I’m happy to take it that way. As stated in the article, PPT has made more than 1,600 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests of the Biden-Harris administration. We’ve done so because the journalists and watchdog groups so enthusiastic about policing the Trump administration seem to have decided sometime around January 20, 2021, that their vigilance was no longer needed.

I have no issue with how I and PPT were portrayed in Robin Bravender’s report, but the piece’s framing and marketing were a bald attempt to whip up fear inside the Beltway of a Trump II purge of the bureaucracy. Bravender quoted the overwrought words of the Environmental Protection Network’s Jeremy Symons: “This abuse of the FOIA system is to intimidate civil servants and pave the way for hit lists in the event that Trump takes office.”

I can only speak for PPT, but that’s certainly not something we’ve focused on. We’ve found that there are more than enough conflicts and ethics problems with Biden-Harris political appointees to keep us busy. Our work mentions career civil servants when necessary, but PPT doesn’t target them and we keep no lists.

Career bureaucrats should not be above scrutiny, however. Transparency is not for certain classes of government employees. Civil servants must be accountable to the people who pay their salaries … and who elect their boss.

Symons told Bravender that the Trump administration would seek “excuses to get rid of anybody of significance and importance, so that the only people left in the agency are political hacks that are loyal to the president.”

No doubt, that would be bad. But, as long as we’re being reductive, wouldn’t it be just as bad to countenance “political hacks” who actively oppose the president? Those hacks would be flouting the will of the majority that elected the president and thus subverting “our democracy.”

The article states that the FOIAs “are causing concern among government employees and their allies.” That government employees have or need allies means they have adversaries, which, whatever their personal politics, civil servants shouldn’t have. Presidents serve at the pleasure of the electorate. Political appointees serve at the pleasure of the president. Career bureaucrats serve at the pleasure of … whom?

It recently surfaced, thanks to a whistleblower, that in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton, a career FEMA supervisor in Florida directed workers to avoid houses with Trump signs. That certainly sounds like a situation in need of scouring.

All federal employees, appointed or career, work for the taxpayers. They use taxpayer-provided resources to spend taxpayer-provided money. There is nothing sinister about insisting that the taxpayers have the right to know what they are getting for the salaries they pay and the resources they provide.

There was a time when scouring legally obtained public documents was also known as journalism – a noble and necessary role in a functioning republic. Journalists could and sometimes did shine light into the career bureaucracy. Few seem interested in doing that anymore, so it falls to others – some of whom journalists ascribe politics they dislike. That’s the price of abandoning the field.

But since there will be a second Trump administration, we can expect journalists and erstwhile “watchdogs” to rediscover their curiosity. Maybe “scouring” will no longer be a term of derision.

For our government to function for the maximum benefit of the American people, transparency is paramount. And nobody in government should be immune to scrutiny.

Michael Chamberlain is the Director of Protect the Public’s Trust, a watchdog organization focused on ethics and transparency.