Fear Mounts Inside USDA over Trump’s General Counsel Pick
Politico is reporting that morale among many of the Agriculture Department’s legal staff has plummeted since Stephen Vaden, the Trump administration’s nominee to be USDA General Counsel, assumed leadership in March, say several agency attorneys from across the country.
“Vaden, who arrived at USDA in January as part of President Donald Trump’s beachhead team and was appointed principal deputy general counsel two months later, is enforcing workplace changes that have provoked unusually bitter labor negotiations, say the attorneys,” reports Catherine Boudreau. “He also has come under scrutiny for his past work defending state voter ID laws that critics say are discriminatory.
“There is a fair amount of fear right now,” said Jeffrey Streiffer, senior counsel at the USDA OGC’s regional office in San Francisco.
