President Donald Trump’s new Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, is issuing an order to all State Department personnel effectively ending COVID-era work-from-home guidelines and ordering them all back to work in person at the State Department.
The news of the order, obtained by Breitbart News exclusively ahead of its public release, is likely to cause shockwaves throughout the federal workforce but fulfills a major promise that Trump made that everyone needs to come back to work right away.
According to a USA Today story from after the election on how Trump and billionaire Elon Musk—who will chair the newly-created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—are aiming to bring the federal workforce back to work, there are still thousands and thousands of federal workers who do not show up to the office.
“The Office of Management and Budget reported in August that of 2.28 million federal workers, 46% were telework-eligible of which 10% were fully remote with no expectation to regularly go into the office,” the late November USA Today piece reads. “At 54%, more than half who could work from home worked fully on-site, according to the report which examined work habits in April and May.”
Now, with Rubio in as Secretary of State, that’s changing at Foggy Bottom as Rubio has ordered everyone back to work. Rubio was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Monday evening–the only Trump Cabinet official confirmed on Inauguration Day–and is clearly already throwing his weight around at the State Department.
This issue has been getting lots of attention lately, as in addition to Trump, Rubio, and Musk putting a focus on it, so has House Oversight Committee chairman Rep. James Comer (R-KY). Comer has introduced the SHOW UP Act, which would restore the federal workforce to working in person like they did before the pandemic. The fact that this has not been rectified for the entirety of the now former Joe Biden administration despite the pandemic being over for years has irritated many Republicans and good-government advocates. But now that Trump is in place, and now that his Cabinet is taking shape–with Rubio the first confirmed Cabinet official–this is changing quickly. It would seem likely, too, that other Cabinet secretaries in the Trump administration will do similar things once confirmed.
The post Exclusive — Secretary of State Rubio Ends COVID-Era Work-from-Home Nonsense, Orders All State Department Officials Immediately Back to Work appeared first on Breitbart.
