Home / General / Document, Document, Document!

Document, Document, Document!

On March 2, 2025

At 12:18 pm

In General

1048 Views

Some good advice on Bluesky this morning for government workers confronted with DOGE goons. I’d like to expand on it, having dealt with similar (but much less blatantly illegal) maneuvers back in the day.

It started with a quote-post of this:

No one wants a paper trail because spending funds Congress has not appropriated is colloquially known as “stealing from the US Treasury.”— Sam Halpert (@samhalpert.bsky.social) 2025-03-02T14:21:28.155Z

Verbal directives indeed mean that someone does not want a paper trail. That suggests that they know quite well that what they are doing is illegal or unethical. They don’t want to go to jail, but they’re okay with you taking the responsibility.

It is the people who sign the letters firing people illegally or signing a contract over to SpaceX who are legally liable. If you are told to write such a document, write a memo to to the person giving you the instructions: “As I understand your request of [date, time], I am to write letters firing [specific names or groups]…[more detail]. I would like to clarify this instruction.” Send it by email, copying it to your normal supervisor and the one above. Print a copy for yourself and save it.

If they come back to you with another verbal instruction, send another email confirming *that* instruction. Depending on how illegal/unethical the thing is, you may need to resign to avoid be tainted by it even if you force them to put it in writing. This is what Danielle Sassoon did.— Shower Cat Love (@shower-cat.bsky.social) 2025-03-02T15:43:43.626Z

If they come up with a “work around” that they say makes it legal, make sure that is documented too. There are sometimes loopholes that can be used (legally!), but make sure the usage of the loophole is documented. “Confirming we are doing XYZ, which complies with [regulation/law].”— Shower Cat Love (@shower-cat.bsky.social) 2025-03-02T15:52:37.326Z

If they don’t want a paper trail, make it for them. Don’t say no without it—that’s just insubordination. But you can refuse to do things that are illegal or break ethics rules. Document document document. Create a FOIAable trail, create documents for discovery.— Shower Cat Love (@shower-cat.bsky.social) 2025-03-02T16:02:19.387Z

Spending funds Congress has not appropriated literally violates the Constitution and to do so knowingly and willfully is a crime punishable by two years in prison. See 31 USC 1341(a) and 1350. uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?p…— Eric Columbus (@ericcolumbus.bsky.social) 2025-03-02T15:38:51.268Z

What DOGE is doing is illegal. Don’t let them pin it on you.