If you work for the U.S. Agriculture Department and study climate change, trade, economics, food stamps, or anything producing facts that Donald Trump doesn't want to hear about, your employer is finding you a new home somewhere outside of Washington.
Politico reports that employees of the agency say a "political crackdown" is dropping on economists whose work has delivered any unwelcome news about Trump's policies. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue reportedly "stunned" employees of the department's Economic Research Service last year when he informed them he would be relocating most of the agency out of Washington. The tactic appeared to be an effort to force economists to quit the agency so they wouldn't have to entirely relocate their families and their lives.
In March, the department started telling people who could stay and who would have to go on a case-by-case basis, without issuing a comprehensive list. Apparently Trump's geniuses didn't think the economists were smart enough to put two and two together themselves. Surprise! The economists compiled of list of who among the 279-person staff was being forced out, and guess what it showed: The ousted almost all work in areas where actual science shows the incomprehensible lunacy of Trump's agenda. Just 76 Agriculture staff members are being allowed to remain in Washington, and they typically research "non-controversial issues like crop planting," writes Politico. But anyone who has researched issues such as climate change, tax policies, and the economy—they're out.
“This was a clear politicization of the agency many of us loved for its non-partisan research and analysis,” a current ERS employee told Politico.
This all comes down once again to the fact that Trump can't handle the truth. So now he and his appointees are sweeping anything that's a little too inconvenient under the rug. This is what dictators do, by the way, with government employees whose work reveals what terrible leaders they truly are—they find a way to shut them up.