Washington DC—Scores returned to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to demand removal of self-described “special government employees” working for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The group of computer software coders accessed the personnel files and computer networks hosting the records of millions of Federal employees.
It was the seventh day that Federal workers and supporters rallied outside the OPM, the administrative headquarters arm of the Federal Government. Upstairs on the fifth floor the windows overlooking the courtyard were covered with drapes to block any view of the ongoing activity within as night fell. Outside in the courtyard a line of police stood along the locked front entrance doors of the OPM.
Protesters chanted on bullhorns for Donald Trump and Elon Musk to leave their records alone and for DOGE employees to leave.
Holocaust Survivor warns U.S. has been on a fast track to fascism—and Fascism is here now.
Marione Oestreicher Ingram, who was born in 1935 and is a German-born civil rights activist and Holocaust survivor, joined the protest outside OPM Friday evening in support of Federal Workers. Her mother was Jewish and her father was German. Their family suffered from persecution at the hands of the Nazis during Hitler’s rise to power.
She said she had survived Germany under Hitler but many in her family were killed under fascism in Germany. She went to the OPM to warn those assembled there that the U.S. was just like 1930s Germany.
“I am here because what I see in America happening is 1930s Germany. We are now officially a Nazi America. We have a Hitler clone in the White House. He is across the board destroying everything America defeated.” (Video of Marione Ingram interview below.)
Ingram said she had survived Hitler and had survived the bombing of her city, Hamburg, Germany, the greatest firestorm any city had ever seen. She further said she had seen what the Klu Klux Klan did in Mississippi as an activist involved in the 1960s Civil Rights movement.
Her husband of 67 years, Daniel Ingram stood by her side watching intently as she spoke about how heartbroken she was to see recent events in the United States.
In speaking about the current conditions in the U.S. she said, “I am very very angry and I am distressed and I am to my soul sad beyond words.”
Marione Ingram is an author of several books, including ‘The Hands of War,’ and ‘The Hands of Peace.” She was involved in helping to set up a school in Mississippi in 1964.
DOGE activities are waylaying many functions of the Federal Government
Additional takeovers of various agencies and Departments of the Federal Government by surrogates connected to billionaire Elon Musk were reported throughout the day on Friday.
As the week has dragged on and agencies were taken over or shuttered altogether, the intent of Elon Musk’s hostile takeover came into beter focus. Certain agencies including the Consumer Finance Protection Board (CFPB), the Department of Education, and the Environment Protection Agency were taken over or continued to be taken over on Friday and may soon be shuttered like the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was shuttered on Monday.
Some positive developments include several injunctions have stopped or delayed DOGE activities this week.
DOGE special government employees had new restricted imposed against them by Federal Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Their access to certain financial disbursement accounts maintained by the Bureau of Fiscal Services of the U.S. Treasury was changed to “read only” and Judge Kollar-Kotelly restored account access to U.S. Treasury Federal employees.
A second injunction issued by Federal Judge George O’Toole, a senior United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, delayed the implementation of a reduction in force (RIF) program affecting over two million Federal workers until Monday, February 10 at the earliest..
But such injunctions may be too little or too late because many Federal Government systems are being accessed and deactivated by DOGE special government employees simultaneously.
For example The CFPB website was taken down and showing a 404 error as of Friday night, February 7.
Other Developments Across Washington DC on Friday
Meanwhile government agencies continued to be taken over and toppled like dominoes as a blitzkrieg of DOGE special government employee groups descended like corporate raiders to seize information from their computer systems.
NOAA Federal workers were locked out of their headquarters building on Friday.
The Consumer Finance Protection Board was accessed by DOGE special government employees who were escorted by special security in the morning on Friday. Several video recorded entry of three persons under security escort into the CFPB. They remained there into the night.
The CFPB website was taken down sometime on Friday.
Department of Education (DoE) was yet another arm of government reportedly under siege. A Democratic Congressional delegation including Maxine Waters and 30 other Democratic lawmakers and staff were blocked from entering the DoE. Security locked them out of the building when they tried to enter its main lobby.
The DoE website showed new initiatives underway in the DoE including eliminating Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives. Civil rights activists say that eliminating DEI language is itself coded language for racism, sexism, and bigotry.
Democrats also attempted unsuccessfully to enter the USAID building on Monday, the U.S. Treasury on Tuesday, The Department of Labor on Wednesday, and the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday. Trump has promised to close or permanently shutdown these arms of the government as outlined in Project 2025, a Heritage Foundation manifesto calling for the elimination of much of the Federal Government.
Federal Election Commission (FEC) Chair Ellen Weintraub received a letter from Trump on February 6, purportedly firing her but she refused to leave her position because the FEC is an independent agency, and her appointment falls under the purview of Congress not under the purview of the Executive Branch. She said that she would not leave until Congress appointed a new Chair to the FEC.
