The Trump administration planned to send an alert to about 2.3 million employees of the federal government from an email address launched this week and confused at least some rank and file, which looked suspicious that it was worried.
Personnel Management Office “Testing a new capacity, allowing them to send important communication to all federal employees from the same mail address, [hr-at-opm-.gov] If you receive an email from this address, it can be considered reliable, “according to the message sent on Friday.
CBS News obtained a scrabgrade of the message and confirmed its authenticity with several federal employees and officials.
OPM, which serves as the Human Resource and Employees Benefits Department of the federal government, sent a government-wide message overnight, two agency officials confirmed CBS News.
“This is a new attempt under it Administration“One of the officials said.
White House officials did not immediately answer questions as to what the new email alert system can be used or why the new system is being implemented this week.
Washington Post also told On Friday, similar messages went to other agencies and departments starting on Thursday. Many people who claim to have government employees report emails as spam or fishing Two Redit threads For federal employees. A person in these redit threads Said The Food and Drug Administration sent an email on Friday, asking the employees to stop reporting it, as the message is valid.
The emails seen by CBS News came with a warning from the information technology offices of the concerned departments that the message “originated from outside the department” and its contents could not be safe.
“Everyone thought it was spam,” Tipster said, who asked that the screenplay had not been published. “There was a hurry of messages, 'Is this spam?” ,
On Friday morning, waking up for a suspected looking email was very little to calm the veins in the federal government this week amidst the wave of big personnel. President TrumpAs promised during his presidential campaign, a new released Executive Office and Executive Order To recruit something this week; Temporarily Prevent publication Of government public health reports; Calling for the end Federal diversity, equity and inclusion programs; And reviving a proposed Civil Services Recruitment Scheme from its first administration that critics warned that historically the non -Nonpartison federal workforce could be politicized.
And the new administration is looking for a way to stop waste, fraud, misconduct and biden-era policies New government efficiency program Leaded by billionaire businessman Elon Musk,
“They had to send this week, all weeks? Actually?” The person said the person who flagged the email.
OPM officials said that other agencies and leaders of the departments received advance information on plans to conduct a new test on Thursday “Federal government-wide email communication test“Whatever it was Posted on OPM web siteIn some cases, rank-end-filing did not learn about plans for email until it came, leading to the confusion of Friday morning, the officials said.
Representatives of the American Federation of Government Employees, one of the largest labor unions representing civil federal employees, had no immediate comments on the new email system.
Contributed to this report.
