Todd Blanche Confirms Trump Slush Fund Is Dead After Republican Outcry

Employees of the agency, located in the George Washington Carver Center in Beltsville, Maryland, were told about the infestation in mid-May, five employees told NOTUS. The USDA sent the staffers home, telling them to telework for a few days while the building was fumigated. The agency’s acting administrator, Kelly Moore, and acting chief operating officer, Carson Hawley, told employees that the building would only be closed for a few days but that they would email staff later to confirm.

When employees came back to the office, though, the fumes were so bad that some became sick, and the department said they could go back to remote work, a rare departure from the Trump administration’s insistence on in-person work for federal employees.

On Friday, employees were told that bedbugs were seen again in the building, but now, employees told NOTUS, more telework has not been authorized. Instead, agency employees were told to take personal time off if they didn’t want to work in the office. Hawley told staff in an email that day that employees were responsible for the bedbugs coming back, as they engaged in “insufficient compliance regarding personal items,” and told them to put those items into garbage bags and take them out of the building.