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Trump says if elected he will force federal workers to pass a political test and fire them if they fail

Comes as the former president faces federal investigation

Eric Garcia
Wednesday 19 April 2023 10:38 BST
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Former president Donald Trump said that if he returns to the White House in 2025, he will mandate that federal employes take a civil service test and workers who do not pass would be fired.

The former president made the remarks in a video released on Friday.

“I will require every federal employee to pass a new civil service test, demonstrating an understanding our constutitional limited government,” he said.

Mr Trump said that the test would include command of due proceess rights, equal protection, free speech, religious liberty and Fourth Amendment to the Constitution’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure, which led him to mention the FBI searching his Mar-a-Lago estate in August for classified documents.

“We will put unelected bureaucrats back in their place, librate the US economy and attract millions of jobs and trillions of dollars to our shores,” he said.

Mr Trump has previously called on putting in new requirements for federal employees. In March of last year, he called on passing laws that would make every employee who works under the executive branch fireable by the president.

“We will pass critical reforms making every executive branch employee fireable by the president of the United States,” he said at the time. “The deep state must and will be brought to heel. It’s already happening.”

Throughout his presidency, Mr Trump regularly went after various executive branch officials, such as when he fired FBI director James Comey and when he regularly attacked his attorney general Jeff Sessions.

Mr Trump was recently indicted and arraigned in Manhattan on 34 charges related to alleged hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels. He also faces a federal investigation led by Special Counsel Jack Smith, whom Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed, to investigate both his keeping of classified documents and his attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, including his actions on January 6.

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