Department of Education staffers who were furloughed during the GOP’s government shutdown say that their email accounts were hijacked to push partisan messaging without their consent.
Five officials told NBC News that someone quietly altered their out-of-office messages to blame Democrats for the shutdown, saying that they had initially used the agency’s standard, neutral language, only to find it replaced with GOP talking points.
For example, one message originally read:
There is a temporary shutdown of the U.S. government due to a lapse in appropriations. I will respond to your message if it is allowable as an excepted activity or as soon as possible after the temporary shutdown ends.
But it was changed it to:
Thank you for contacting me. On September 10, 2025, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 5371, a clean continuing resolution. Unfortunately, Democrat Senators are blocking passage of H.R. 5371 in the Senate which has led to a lapse in appropriations. Due to the lapse of appropriations, I am currently in furlough status. I will respond to emails once government functions resume.
Even worse, one staffer said that they switched their message back to the neutral version, only to see it changed again.
“None of us consented to this. And it’s written in the first-person, as if I’m the one conveying this message, and I’m not,” they told NBC. “I don’t agree with it. I don’t think it’s ethical or legal. I think it violates the Hatch Act.”
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Another staffer agreed: “I took the statement they sent us earlier in the week to use. And I pasted it on top of that—basically a standard out-of-office. They went in and manipulated my out-of-office reply. I guess they’re now making us all guilty of violating the Hatch Act.”
The Hatch Act restricts partisan political activity by federal employees—and that’s exactly what Democrats say is happening here.
Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, is calling for an investigation. In a letter to the Office of the Special Counsel obtained by MSNBC, Garcia wrote that the Trump administration is in “blatant violation of the law” for “misuse of taxpayer dollars for political purposes.”
The Education Department didn’t immediately respond to Daily Kos’ request for comment. However, one spokesperson had an out-of-office message that mirrored the partisan language:
Thank you for contacting the press team. On September 19, 2025, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 5371, a clean continuing resolution. Unfortunately, Democrat Senators are blocking passage of H.R. 5371 in the Senate, which has led to a lapse in appropriations. Due to the lapse in appropriations, we are currently in furlough status. We will respond to emails once government functions resume.
But this isn’t just about staff email signatures. Across the federal government, agencies are being repurposed as partisan mouthpieces.
The State Department’s website, which initially carried a neutral message about limited updates due to a “lapse” in funding, now blames “the Democrat-led shutdown.”
A cartoon by Clay Bennett.
And the Small Business Administration’s website claims that Senate Democrats are blocking small business loans. The Justice Department has also slapped a banner across its page declaring, “Democrats have shut down the government.”
At the Department of Housing and Urban Development, a pop-up message blares, “The Radical Left in Congress shut down the government.”
Weaponizing official government websites is bad enough, but the Department of Education’s approach is more insidious, dragging civil servants into the GOP’s talking points as if they personally endorse them.
Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and GOP leaders have been hammering the same false line that Democrats caused the shutdown by demanding benefits for undocumented immigrants. In reality, Democrats are fighting to keep health care subsidies affordable for American families.
The GOP, which controls the White House and both chambers of Congress, is the one refusing to budge.
Shutdown standoffs aren’t new for Republicans. For decades, the party has employed threats—or actual shutdowns—as a political tool, making them a familiar part of its playbook. But while GOP leaders may be hoping that voters will blame Democrats this time, early polls suggest that the public isn’t falling for it.
That leaves Trump as the wildcard, as usual—using government machinery to spin a story that isn’t landing and, in the process, making his own party’s mess even bigger.
