Back in April, the veteran Justice Department lawyer Erez Reuveni was in court, representing the government in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man the government mistakenly deported to El Salvador.
The judge peppered Reuveni with questions: How was Abrego Garcia seized? What authority did law enforcement officers have to take him from his car?
"So, Your Honor, my answer to a lot of these questions is going to be frustrating," Reuveni responded. "I am also frustrated that I have no answers for you on a lot of these questions."
The judge followed up with another question: Why couldn't the United States get Abrego Garcia back?
"Your Honor, I will say, for the court's awareness, that when this case landed on my desk, the first thing I did was ask my clients that very question," Reuveni replied. "I've not received, to date, an answer that I find satisfactory."
Reuveni was put on leave the next day and fired later that month. He has appealed his termination.
Now critics of President Trump say Reuveni's case exemplifies what will happen if the Trump administration prevails in its efforts to reshape the civil service.
Changing long standing norms around the civil service
Five months into his second term, Trump is changing long standing norms around hiring and firing federal employees as he seeks to assert far greater control over those tasked with carrying out his agenda.
A key part of this makeover is the Office of Personnel Management's proposed rule "Improving Performance, Accountability and Responsiveness in the Civil Service." It would allow the administration to move tens of thousands of civil servants into a new category of employees who would serve at the pleasure of the president.
The administration says it's part of making the bureaucracy more efficient and more accountable.
The president's critics say Trump is politicizing the civil service, and they warn of consequences for the American people.
A focus on "policy-influencing" jobs
As a civil servant, Reuveni had strong job protections, including the right to due process. Federal law requires the government to go through a number of steps before taking disciplinary action, including providing notice to employees and providing an opportunity to respond.
But the Trump administration appears to have bypassed those steps in Reuveni's case, firing him less than two weeks after his appearance in court. The Justice Department declined to comment on his case.
Now, under the administration's proposed rule, federal employees in jobs deemed "policy-influencing" could lose those protections all together.
"There wouldn't need to be any reason given for just firing people," says Stacey Young, who worked at the Justice Department for 18 years before resigning in late January.
Young says if federal employees can be removed based on political whim, the American people will suffer. Gone would be the protections that enable "brilliant, qualified people" to spend their entire careers helping the American public, she says.
Concern for the government's number crunchers
Even in corners of the government that appear farthest from politics, there are concerns about the changes Trump is bringing to the civil service.
Erica Groshen, who served as commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics back in the Obama administration, affectionately calls the economists, statisticians and others who track employment, inflation, wages and other economic indicators "the best data nerds around."
Even though they spend their days crunching numbers, she worries they too could be among those turned into at-will employees.
She can't figure out what the administration means when it says it plans to reclassify people in "policy-influencing" positions.
"It is not specific. Many of these words are open to interpretation," says Groshen. "Does BLS influence policy? Yes, it's intended to."
The Federal Reserve uses its data when choosing to raise or lower interest rates. Retirees' Social Security benefits are adjusted based on the consumer price index. A mistake of a tenth of a percentage point could result in overpayments or underpayments of a billion dollars, Groshen says.
Outside the government, businesses write long-term contracts tied to the government's inflation data and decide where to set up production facilities based on wages and workforce availability.
Underlying all of this, Groshen says, is a shared trust that the people collecting, processing and reporting the data are doing it free from political interference. Even the perception that government data could be manipulated by politics could change that.
"The trustworthiness of the information would be lost," Groshen says, with huge implications for an economy that needs reliable data to stay on track.
Neither BLS nor the Office of Personnel Management answered NPR's questions about whether employees of BLS or other statistical agencies could be among those reclassified under the rule once it's finalized.
An emphasis on carrying out the president's agenda
Trump first established this category of at-will employees late in his first term, calling it Schedule F. After President Biden unraveled the effort, Trump brought it back on his first day in office, renaming it Schedule Policy/Career.
"It is meant to ensure that the administration, the president, has people who are working for him that are actually going to do the policies that he ran on, that he's articulating," said Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought during his confirmation hearing in January. "We think that's an important fundamental principle, and it does not mean that we have any intent to use that to fire career civil servants."
But making it easier to fire people is in fact a stated goal.
The administration explains in the proposed rule that the creation of Schedule Policy/Career will allow agencies "to quickly remove employees from critical positions who engage in misconduct, perform poorly, or undermine the democratic process by intentionally subverting Presidential directives."
Where this gets complicated is that actions taken by an employee could appear different to different people, says Don Kettl, former dean of the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, who opposes the change.
"Things that may look to a supervisor like somebody slow walking or sabotaging may in fact be the legitimate effort of an employee to follow … other standards of accountability," says Kettl, such as laws and regulations, the Constitution and professional ethics.
Fearing "a level of sycophancy" not seen since the 19th century
Under the proposed rule, agencies are to draw up lists of positions that could be moved into Schedule Policy/Career. Trump himself will make the final call. The administration estimates some 50,000 federal employees could be reclassified.
Young, the former government attorney, expects the Justice Department to be affected more significantly than other agencies. She warns that turning attorneys into at-will employees would change the nature of the department entirely.
"It would demand a level of sycophancy that we have not seen since the 19th century," she says.
Already, Young says, she hears every day about people being told to do things that are unprofessional, unethical, even illegal, or being told to resign. She says Reuveni's case reveals what can happen if they refuse.
"He was fired shortly after he stood up in court and told the truth," says Young.
In response to questions from NPR, Justice Department spokesperson Chad Gilmartin wrote: "DOJ attorneys are expected to uphold all legal and ethical duties including the zealous defense of our nation's interests, the enforcement of civil and criminal laws, and the vigorous defense of presidential policies and action against legal challenges."
Only hiring "patriotic Americans"
The Trump administration is also revamping how it hires people, putting out a new hiring plan that it says will bring to the workforce "only the most talented, capable and patriotic Americans."
The plan directs agencies to stop using demographic statistics in hiring and instead focus attention on merit, competence and applicants' enthusiasm for Trump's policies.
"How would you help advance the President's Executive Orders and policy priorities in this role?" asks a new essay question that most job applicants will have to answer. "Identify one or two relevant Executive Orders or policy initiatives that are significant to you, and explain how you would help implement them if hired."
Kettl doesn't think asking such a question makes sense for apolitical government roles.
"You're not hiring people now to administer an executive order of a particular president. You ought to be hiring people now with the capacity to be able to manage government programs effectively for the next decade, two decades or more," says Kettl. "It's the expertise that we need, not the loyalty to a particular administration."
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