Federal Employment and Labor Law Blog

There’s a key difference to working inside the government versus working outside of it. Outside the government, businesses focus on profit. They chase after it with a naked, unabashed thirst, pausing only to make sure they pay heed to the rules and—sometimes—their customers’ long-term interests. But inside the government, you work for the people. Even if that means passing up some opportunities.

That’s a lesson that one Senior Advisor to the Secretary at the U.S. Department of Agriculture should have learned. But it appears she might not have. According to ProPublica, the Senior Advisor had been a lobbyist for CropLife America before she joined the government. Once she entered the public sphere, she signed an ethics statement in which she agreed for one year to avoid any business with CropLife or parties she knew CropLife represented. However, her emails suggest she may have crossed that line.

There’s no lack of stories about “the job that got away.” Depending on the job, a company or agency might review dozens or hundreds of applications for a single position. But in the end, the job usually goes to just one person. That leaves everyone else to wonder why they didn’t get it.

This is still true for federal applications, even though they’re often different than private sector applications. The process is generally more structured. There are all kinds of rules to ensure that the best, most qualified candidate gets the job. Yet there are still some people who try to cheat those rules.

As 2019 drew toward a close, TIME Magazine offered the American public a rare look at the public servants who keep the nation running. Typically tucked away in their offices and focused on their work, career federal employees bring a wide array of skills and expertise to their jobs. They may serve under multiple administrations, regardless of political affiliations, and they don’t often make the news.

That changed in 2019 when impeachment hearings drew several of these employees squarely into the national spotlight. As TIME noted, these people didn’t want the attention they were given, nor did they want to cause trouble. But like all federal employees, they had sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States. For their efforts to honor their oaths, TIME Magazine named them its Guardians of the Year.

Whistleblowers have been in the news a lot of late. Some have received ongoing national attention. Others have seen their cases resolved with almost no fanfare. Some of these whistleblower cases have highlighted the handling of classified materials.

One of these cases involved a would-be whistleblower in the Air Force. As FedSmith.com recently reported, the whistleblower was removed from his position after sending classified materials to several agencies, public officials and media outlets.