A shocking claim from a federal employee has surfaced, alleging political persecution, retaliation and discrimination for reporting Hatch Act violations and partisan rhetoric within the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Tom Cullerton, a disabled Veteran and seasoned federal employee, detailed his concerning experience in exclusive comments to The Gateway Pundit.
Cullerton had previously exposed what he describes as blatant violations of federal ethics rules and a hostile work environment orchestrated by USDA and in the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) officials related to illegal hiring practices and discrimination.
As well, Cullerton says the staff are regularly receiving “partisan content” from bosses who are overly partisan and political. Cullerton says these officials have posted articles talking about the origins of the Civil Service originating from the assassination of President Garfield in 1881 as a positive thing, indicating further hostility to the incoming President-Elect.
Cullerton also says his complaints, which were supposed to be confidential, were quickly shared with his bosses causing workplace retaliation. He further claims he was illegally removed and transferred without a personnel action for past protected reports to a no-work environment for 1-year before an agency settlement agreement reversed all of these illegal actions. He claims he was further retaliated against as a disabled Veteran.
“I am a VA (Veterans Affairs)/VHA (Veterans Health Administration) ($36M financial fraud) whistleblower on separate issues during this current administration. I was also attacked ferociously by this administration and Secretary McDonough in my last agency for refusing the VHA Director and POTUS’s unconstitutional mandates. It’s why I ended up at the USDA. I filed a Ph.D. dissertation-style response for a medical and religious exemption, and they refused to adjudicate it, instead hitting me with disciplinary actions for non-compliance despite the constitutional right to refuse.
I share this for transparency, should it ever be disclosed to the GWP. Most agencies are rotten with politics from the inside out. Activists and communist revolutionaries now run the agencies, hiring 20- to 30-year-olds from outside government and then fast-tracking them as new leaders through the merit system over seasoned employees who are not like them.”
Now, Cullerton detailed an alarming new incident where, after the recent election, an assistant communications director posted an article about President James Garfield, who was assassinated in 1881, suggesting that the assassination helped establish the merit system in U.S. civil service in a positive way eliminating the spoils system repeating this as a main point. This manager who had previously expressed repeated anti-Trump messages was now justifying the entire workplace’s worker protections on a prior Presidential assassination, says Cullerton.
“USDA/USFS assistant communications director made a speech to employees and posted an assassination article and picture of Garfield in an all-hands meeting after Election Day 2024, stating an assassination created the merit system as a tool for good by eliminating the spoils system then used loaded language referencing that the agency doesn’t have to do will of politicians, including the POTUS as a call to oppose the incoming administration as the agency did last time,” Cullerton told The Gateway Pundit.
Cullerton says this kind of “partisan activism as calls for resistance to the incoming administration” is chronic in the federal workforce.
According to the audio of the offending meeting obtained by The Gateway Pundit, one of the officials justified its place in the workplace discussion by saying:
“That Park Service article I posted is actually really interesting; it explains what civil service was like before the reform and what pushed us in the direction we’re in now. We’re not here to swing with the passions of whoever is elected or however the public is feeling at any given moment. We’re here for the long run. That’s all I wanted to add to that.”
This misuse of a federal non-partisan workforce platform sparked Cullerton’s immediate concern, prompting him to capture screenshots of the post and record the entire speech, which he then reported under the Hatch Act, which is a federal law intended to prevent partisan political activities by government employees.
In an odd coincidence, Cullerton’s high school classmate was Ryan Routh, who was recently arrested attempting to assassinate President-Elect Trump.
Cullerton cited that this type of partisan rhetoric often has fatal consequences, and represents harm to the psychological safety of federal employees and harmful to the public trust of all who take any assassination rhetoric seriously.
Despite acting in alignment with his oath to uphold the Constitution, Cullerton says his reporting of workplace legal violations has led to severe consequences for himself.
Cullerton told The Gateway Pundit:
“I had reported to the Office of Special Counsel’s Hatch Act Office previously on this same individual, and then provided the entire recorded speech and screen capture of the posted assassination article and the subsequent like-minded support that was elicited by the speech.
Individual has been posting political content all year that I had screen captured as well. Communication from this office then ceased after my initial reports on this individual after I forwarded the assassination rhetoric.
After my past whistleblower reports, and now the new Hatch Act report, I’m now being actively retaliated against after the USDA anti-harassment program leaked my confidential Hatch Act report to my leadership team.
The leadership team’s response was to immediately form a defensive position with multiple human resources programs that are independent and required by law to protect federal employees while maintaining their confidentiality.
I had the highest moral obligation per my oath of office to report this assassination rhetoric in the federal workplace, as this has partisan psychological effects on those who were in attendance and may influence similar violent rhetoric and encourage copycats. I do not want to work for an agency that does not condone partisan rhetoric in the federal workplace.”
Read his complaint below:
Cullerton’s grievances, which he claims have been overlooked by senior officials for three years, underscore more profound systemic problems within the USDA and USFS.
His demands for accountability and improved efficiency have not prompted any significant response, aside from defensive stances that perpetuate ongoing retaliation and discrimination, and mostly reinforce a culture or mediocrity and unhelpful government responses to the public’s concerns.
He contends that the USDA operates daily in an unelected partisan culture characterized by fear, indoctrination, and an covert spoils system that remains fully operational to favor and disfavor specific administrations.
Cullerton added:
“Many federal employees like me in this agency are forced to hide and are denied promotion by these networks based on protected statuses, including Veteran, political, religious affiliations.
Employees who see something and choose to say something in the USDA and USFS are always punished regardless of exposed truths. There are published articles on how the USDA’s Director of the Office of Civil Rights (OASCR) and other workforce programs regularly form partisan networks and formations to immediately silence and dispose of any complaint against the agency, this also has been my unfortunate repeated experience with these agency programs that were founded to protect federal employees and the agency.
More protections are needed in federal agencies from partisan influence, from agencies that are led by one-sided majority partisan bureaucracies, where only like-minded individuals are advanced and supported. Having my livelihood threatened every time I have a duty to report is not constitutional.” he added.”
The post EXCLUSIVE: Federal Whistleblower Alleges Retaliation for Reporting Hatch Act Violation and Anti-Trump Rhetoric appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
