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Judge Pauses Trump's "Buyout" Offer to Federal Workers; EPA Environmental Justice Workers Could be Put on Leave; Emails Show Mush Associates Sought to Use Critical Treasury Payment System to Shut Down USAID Spending. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired February 06, 2025 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[14:00:21]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: A judge rules on the deadline and federal workers now have more time to decide if they want to accept a buyout and end their careers in the federal government. A decision with implications for them and for the services that many of us depend on every day.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Plus, an FBI team disbanded. Agents tasked with keeping our elections safe from foreign interference and threats find themselves reassigned. The latest drastic change that has experts wondering about how our national security could be impacted by President Trump's new administration.

And a look at the immigration crisis at the ground level. CNN speaking to immigrants working at Florida farms legally in critical jobs about what should be done to keep America's farms running. We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to CNN News Central.

KEILAR: We are following breaking news. A judge has just paused tonight's midnight deadline for federal employees to decide whether to take President Trump's social called buyout. The deal would mean that they quit their jobs and hope to be paid through September or risk getting laid off anyway. It's part of the Trump administration's aggressive push to shrink the government. And at the center of it all is Elon Musk.

Over the past three weeks or so, we have watched the world's richest man threaten massive job cuts across several agencies, from the treasury to the U.S. Agency for International Development and the CIA, just to name a few. Next, he could come swinging for the Department of Education and the Environmental Protection Agency. And we'll have more on that in a moment.

First, though, let's turn to CNN's Jeff Zeleny, who is live for us at the White House. Jeff, walk us through the judge's decision. It's a big one. And are you hearing anything from the administration in response? JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, we were about 10 hours or so away from that midnight deadline where federal employees would have been able to accept this offer to essentially not return to work and be paid through September if they would not like to participate in the return to office program. But that is all now on hold. As you said, a federal judge in Massachusetts putting the deadline on hold pending oral arguments on Monday.

So for now, at least, this is in suspension mode. This is what we've seen from several executive orders the President has signed. The judge steps in and, excuse me, puts a bit of a pause on this. So far, the White House has not reacted to this ruling. We are expected to hear from the President later. I'm sure he will have words to say on this.

But at the heart of this is how some federal workers believe they are actually being respected or not in the case of this order. The White House Press Secretary just a short time ago had this to say about this offer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We encourage federal workers in this city to accept the very generous offer. If they don't want to show up to the office, if they want to rip the American people off, then they're welcome to take this buyout and we'll find highly competent individuals who want to fill these roles.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: Her words there. If they want to rip the American people off, who she's talking about there is the federal workforce, from the CIA to the FBI to the FAA, actual people behind these offers. And just because people may be working from home or off site does not mean, of course, that they're ripping people off.

But if you look at some of these factors now that are going into this, an email was sent out overnight giving employees one more chance to sign up for all of these. And they're really trying to make the case here that it's good for them that the three federal unions that brought this suit are arguing and have been instructing workers to be very careful about this buyout offer because they say there are no guarantees at all for any of this.

So for now at least, Brianna, this is on hold until Monday pending oral arguments. Again, no immediate comment from the White House. We've checked and they've not gotten back to us. Brianna?

KEILAR: All right. We'll wait to see what they do say. Jeff Zeleny, live for us at the White House, thank you. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Federal employees at the EPA's Environmental justice and Civil Rights office have been told they could be put on leave in the coming days. They were told that in all staff meeting, the change would be part of President Trump's order ending all DEI initiatives. CNN's Renee Marsh is going to break this down for us. Rene, the Trump administration has already closed the EPA's DEI office. So what does the Environmental justice office do and how many workers could be impacted?

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. So this is an office, it's environmental justice, as well as the external civil rights office.

[14:05:00]

And these are individuals who are making sure that grants policies are keeping in mind that there are certain communities that could be facing disproportionate impacts from things like climate change and pollution, and making sure that federal funding and programs are equitably distributed so that they can prepare themselves, make sustainability plans for their communities, as well as resilience for their communities.

So that's at the heart of the work that they do there. But the Trump administration sees work like this as an extension of DEI. However, many of the employees I speak to don't view themselves as DEI employees. They actually see that this is work that's being done to make sure that all communities have access to the resources to protect themselves from things like pollution and climate change.

So back to what we're learning. Many of the staffers within this office and division of the EPA are literally on pins and needles waiting to hear that they, too, would be put on paid administrative leave. And this comes after that meeting that you mentioned in which they essentially said that we plan on enforcing the President's directive through his executive order to dismantle programs like this. And so what does that mean? I mean, his executive order very clearly states that offices focused on environmental justice should be terminated.

So employees got that word yesterday. Fast forward to today. I've not received any messages from anyone saying that they've been placed on leave, but they said that they are expecting that this will happen in the coming days. And of course, Boris, this is just one of many agencies in which we have seen this.

SANCHEZ: Yeah. Apparently, DOGE looking at every single agency across the U.S. Government. Rene Marsh, thanks so much for the update. Brianna?

KEILAR: And with us now is Democratic Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury. She is the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee's DOGE Subcommittee, which is a mouthful. Congresswoman, thank you so much for being with us. And you and a number of other Democrats showed up at Treasury a couple days ago after we had learned that Elon Musk's DOGE effort had gained access to their payment machine, which was a big deal. Was it, though, just a show of opposition? Were you able to achieve something?

REP. MELANIE STANSBURY, (D) RANKING MEMBER, OVERSIGHT DOGE SUBCOMMITTEE: Well, I think, first of all, we have to observe that even a federal court judge today agreed that Elon Musk is breaking the law, whether that's trying to fire federal officials, they're freezing federal funds, they're stealing our data at Treasury. And so over two dozen members of Congress in both the House and the Senate showed up. We requested access to meet with the Secretary of the Treasury and to discuss what's going on and to find out from both politicals and senior officials what data they have access to. When we got there, we met with the Secret Service who was guarding the area. And basically we were told that the politicals had been informed we were there, and they left us standing outside.

And so there were probably thousands of people in the streets. The American people are marching in every major city right now demanding that Elon Musk be held accountable. And so our responsibility as members of Congress is to show up to conduct oversight. We were there to perform oversight over the Secretary and the DOGE team, and we were denied access. So that's why we were there.

KEILAR: And you don't have this lever really of lawsuits because Democrats are not in control of Congress, but there are outside lawsuits. And as you mentioned, and we just covered. You're now seeing stuff move through the courts.

It is a slower process, certainly, than the swift process that we see Elon Musk and his DOGE associates sweeping through the government with. So do you have confidence that the court system can respond in the manner and with the speed that it needs to in order to address concerns that you have?

STANSBURY: I mean, right now, it's the tool that we have to stop them in their tracks. If you look at what happened last week, illegally, the White House froze funds for literally thousands of entities across the country. They tried to lock states out of the Medicaid system. And within 24 hours, we went to the courts.

The state attorney generals went to the courts, and two different federal judges said, this is illegal. We're going to put a pause on this. We now have this with the federal employees. We now have this with the Treasury Department.

The courts is the tool right now because Republicans control not only the House and the Senate, but the White House as well. And so, and you know, if you watch the Oversight Committee yesterday, they've completely abdicated any oversight on the Republican side of the aisle.

In fact, when we tried to invite Elon Musk to come appear in front of the Committee, they denied our request. And then we tried to subpoena him yesterday. And when we tried to hold them to account, all hell broke out in the Committee because they have zero interest in performing oversight.

KEILAR: Well, part of the -- it didn't work out because that was a surprise move, right, to subpoena Elon Musk.

[14:10:03]

But there were actually a couple Democrats who were critical to the effort who didn't show up. They missed the vote insisting that they wanted to be there but it was something that was organized pretty quickly.

You told this to Kristen Welker in December. I want to listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STANSBURY: And I just think that as we're facing the Trump administration, we have to have well-oiled Committee machines, well- oiled leadership machines, and that we have to know how to serve the American people in an effective manner.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Looking at yesterday, and I know it was an effort to kind of throw something together, but it didn't work out that wasn't well- oiled. How do you, going forward, try to change that?

STANSBURY: Well, I think it's important to understand how the Committee process actually plays out. Republicans are in the majority, and at any given time, you know, it's very unlikely that the Republicans are not going to stall the proceedings so that they can get enough members in the room. Now, if the Chairman had actually held the vote at the moment the motion was made, we would have destroyed them in the vote.

But what happened was there were only like four members on the Republican side even in the room because people are doing lots of different things during the day. And so if you notice in the tape, I mean, they had to hold the vote open for, you know, 15 minutes until they could get enough Republicans in the room.

So, I mean, we're not in the majority. But that doesn't mean that, as you know, the resistance inside of our agency -- inside of the Congress, that we can't use that platform to show that we're fighting for the American people. But procedurally we're going to lose because we're not in the majority.

KEILAR: How important is it to at least appear unified and organized in that effort?

STANSBURY: Absolutely. It's crucial. It is absolutely crucial. But I think yesterday was a bit of an anomaly because it was a busy day and people were doing various things around the campus. But of course, it played out on a gigantic stage.

KEILAR: So I do want to ask you, because oversight, Dems, and I know that there are limited things, you're in the minority. We do need to stress this. But you do have the chance certainly to message and you do have the chance to inform yourselves and reach out to people in that regard. Have you talked to David Lebryk, the Former Acting Treasury Secretary, who had resisted some of these DOGE attempts, who just resigned after Musk's DOGE Associates threatened him if he didn't comply with DOGE demands?

STANSBURY: Well, we are actively actually reaching out to him right now for that very reason, but also because Elon Musk refuses to come testify in front of the Committee. And so we would like to invite him to come and testify if he's willing to, because I think that it's crucial that people actually understand what these sensitive data systems are that they're accessing, what their plans are, what they're trying to do, and to get the real story. Because obviously, the Trump administration is not disclosing what's actually going on.

KEILAR: And so what is within your abilities to do with, say, David Lebryk, if he agrees to speak to you, to cooperate, to speak publicly?

STANSBURY: We will put him in front of the Committee and provide the opportunity for him to tell his story and to explain to the American people what's going on. You know, as the Democrats in the minority, we use our platforms. We show up to do oversight, we inform the public of their rights. We can help support these lawsuits. But the most important thing we can do right now is to show the ways in which the Republicans are not only abdicating their responsibilities constitutionally, but failing to and also enabling the Trump administration to do things that are blatantly illegal.

And you know the clip that was just shown of their White House's comment about federal employees? These are veterans, active duty military, who are fighting overseas for American lives. These are the people that are making sure your water is clean so that you don't die of a disease. These are people in our federal government that have dedicated their lives to public service.

And the Trump administration is acting like the millions of Americans who are gainfully employed by the federal government to make sure that you're safe, that I'm safe, that we have national security, are somehow enemies of the state. Like, this is the kind of authoritarianism that we warned the public about during the campaign. And the twisted infiltration that the White House and this billionaire bro are conducting on our government right now are, I think, chilling.

KEILAR: I don't think they're lumping an active duty military into the federal workforce when they're talking about it. But to your point, I think the veteran piece is very lost on this.

STANSBURY: Yes.

KEILAR: A huge chunk of the federal workforce is veterans and also military spouses as well.

[14:15:00]

STANSBURY: Yeah. I mean, I think it's important to know that, like, for example, when they canceled DEI programs, there is a huge portion of the military that was actually impacted by that. Programs were frozen. There are civilians that work for the military who basically were told their services were no longer desired --

KEILAR: Certainly.

STANSBURY: -- and these are folks that keep our military functioning. This is an actual threat to our national security. And meanwhile, they're also doing purges. The FBI, the CIA, and our national law enforcement. So, I mean, this is an actual compromise of national security.

KEILAR: Certainly. And these EOs, to be clear, very much do affect the military. I didn't mean to --

SATNSBURY: Yeah.

KEILAR: I didn't mean to say anything about that when it comes to these buyouts and stuff, obviously they're offering that to folks in the civilian workforce. But thank you so much and we would love to have you back.

STANSBURY: Absolutely.

KEILAR: Thank you so much for coming in. We really appreciate it. Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury, thank you.

STANSBURY: Thank you.

KEILAR: Still to come. One of Pam Bondi's first directives as Attorney General to shutter an FBI team in charge of combating foreign interference in U.S. elections.

Plus, in an effort to comply with an executive order, the CIA sent the White House a list of all new hires. Why the move could expose identities of those officers to foreign government hackers.

And then later, lawmakers briefed on the investigation of the deadly midair collision between a passenger jet and an army helicopter over the Potomac River. Well, that and much more coming up on CNN News Central.

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[14:21:04]

SANCHEZ: We're following new developments at the FBI. A source tells CNN the agency is preparing to break up a special task force that protects U.S. Elections from foreign threats. The order is coming directly from the Department of Justice. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the move in a memo issued on Wednesday saying, quote, to free resources, to address more pressing priorities, and end risks of further weaponization and abuses of prosecutorial discretion, the Foreign Influence Task Force shall be disbanded.

It was established back in 2017 by former FBI Director Christopher Wray in response to a wave of foreign threats, including Russia's efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election. CNN Senior Law Enforcement Analyst and Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe joins us now. Andrew, thanks so much for joining us. What could be the impact of disbanding this specific team of specialists?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, let's for a minute, Boris, let's talk about what this task force actually did. And I think it sheds a little light on why this might be misunderstood by people and maybe even by the Attorney General. This task force didn't have anything to do with all of the allegations we typically hear about the weaponization of the FBI and interference and, you know, election interference and the way that those words were tossed around in the election. These were a group of trained special agents from different disciplines within the FBI, from the Counterintelligence Division, the Cyber Division, the Criminal Division, and others who were focused on uncovering whether or not foreign governments were trying to interfere in U.S. Elections.

As we know, that is against the law in this country. If you are a foreign government or a foreign person or a foreign corporation, you are not allowed to contribute or support to elections in the United States. So this is really, you can think about it as a counterintelligence effort. We're trying to understand how foreign spies are trying to influence and change the outcome of our U.S. Elections. And I guess we're not doing that anymore.

SANCHEZ: Well, I wonder how you square that with the reasoning. I mean, you alluded to the Attorney General perhaps not knowing exactly what this task force is doing, but she specifically cites freeing up resources and stymieing weaponization and abuses of prosecutorial discretion. There's no actual mention of foreign meddling in elections.

MCCABE: Yeah, there's, you know, reallocating resources is kind of a general thing that you can do anytime. You close out one activity and you shift people to another one. So I can't speak to that. But there's no weaponization here. This is just the FBI doing what the FBI does, keeping an eye on national security threats, foreign actors, people outside the United States who are meddling illegally in our elections.

There's never been an allegation that this task force engaged in weaponization, whatever that means. It's not like FBI agents going after Republicans or Democrats to try to change the outcome of elections. I don't agree that that's ever happened, but it certainly wasn't happening with these people who were looking outside our borders at adversaries, we know have tried this in the past.

And I will point out, Boris, that under the Trump administration, they were very proactive in drawing Americans attention to the fact that at that time, they found evidence of Chinese and Iranians trying to interfere in the 2020 election. They very proactively and I think responsibly called it out. That's the sort of work that this task force did. For some reason, that's now fallen out of favor with the new Attorney General.

SANCHEZ: Andy, I want to ask you about these accusations from the Acting Attorney General, Emil Bove, aimed at FBI leadership, accusing them of insubordination because they refused to identify this core team of employees who worked on J6 cases. Was that an act of insubordination?

[14:25:04]

MCCABE: No. No, not in my judgment, Boris. here was an act of trying to protect FBI employees from being maliciously attacked online, if in fact, this very sensitive information with their personally identifying data was shared online.

Let's remember where this came from. The Acting Deputy Attorney General sent a message last Friday to the FBI demanding this data. The subject matter in the message line was termination. He's now trying to back up from that a little bit and try to make it seem as if everyone whose information is coming over to the Justice Department won't actually be terminated. But he does go on in his message yesterday to make it clear that people who indicated undue partisan influence or refused the orders of the Department of Justice would be treated that way.

So I think the leadership of the FBI did the right thing trying to protect these employees, trying to do something to ensure that they are subjected to the normal policy and processes that we have in place to address significant allegations of misconduct. And mind you, there's not been a single allegation of misconduct even made yet in the context of this issue. And so it'll be interesting to see where that goes.

SANCHEZ: Andrew McCabe, thanks so much for the analysis. Appreciate it.

MCCABE: Thanks.

SANCHEZ: Brianna?

KEILAR: Democratic lawmakers are slamming a move by the CIA to comply with Trump administration orders to reduce its workforce. The agency sent the White House an email listing all new hires that have been with the CIA for two years or less. But what has angered some lawmakers is the realization that the email was sent as unclassified and included agents first names and last initials.

And now, there are real fears that this could put employees' safety at risk. Let's get more now about this list from CNN National Security reporter Zachary Cohen. Zach, tell us what you're learning?

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yeah, Brianna, The CIA clearly under pressure from the White House to comply with Donald Trump's executive order to, you know, reduce the size of the federal workforce. But look, the move, the unorthodox move to send this list of employee names in an unclassified email is raising legitimate counterintelligence concerns. And as officials are warning that it could expose the names of these CIA employees to foreign adversaries.

We know foreign adversaries like China and Russia have consistently tried to hack into and exploit vulnerabilities in these unclassified government email systems. We know Chinese linked hackers have successfully done so in the past. But look, this all speaks to just how sensitive this identifying information related to CIA employees is across the board.

On this list you had agents and officers ranging from Analysts to people that were training to go undercover and be part of covert operations. You know, oftentimes even internally at the CIA, people don't even know their colleagues own last names. That just shows you a little bit how closely guarded this identifying information is.

You know, on the other side, there's this question too, of how many of the people on this list were maybe CIA officers who were dedicated to other agencies as part of their official cover that could pose additional counterintelligence risks, as well as those people often are part of those covert operations overseas.

So really, this move, unprecedented move by the CIA to send this information, even if somewhat obscures the identities of these individuals, really is raising some legitimate concerns from lawmakers and people inside the agency itself.

KEILAR: So, Zach, how did this happen? Because you think the White House, especially as it's emphasizing wanting to do some more covert work instead of doing some of the analysis at the CIA that they would actually be more protective of this kind of information.

COHEN: To your point, Brianna, CIA Director John Ratcliffe during his confirmation hearing said exactly that, that he wants the CIA to get back to its core mission, which includes covert operations and intelligence collection, human intelligence collection. But that does require protecting the people that you have, you know, carrying out that work, including the people who are working under, you know, need their identities protected in order to do so safely.

So, look, this does sort of run counter to the stated mission. But again, Donald Trump has made clear that reducing the size of the federal workforce and specifically validating his gripes against the CIA specifically, are his top priority.

KEILAR: All right. Zach Cohen, thank you for the great reporting. We do appreciate it.

Aviation officials briefing lawmakers on the deadly midair collision near Washington D.C. as investigators are trying to figure out what went wrong. We'll have the latest next.

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