Federal whistleblowers illegally fired after exposing ‘chaos’ at Trump’s HUD

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Last week, The Real News published a bombshell interview with two federal whistleblowers working in the Department of Housing and Urban Development in their first on air appearance since going public with their whistleblower complaint, which they filed with the office of Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts. I spoke with Paul Osadebe and Palmer Heenan, two attorneys in HUD’s Office of Fair Housing. In their explosive testimonies, Paul Osadebe and Heenan revealed the chaos that has upended HUD under the new Trump administration and the vulnerable Americans who were being systematically abandoned as a result. The frank fact of the matter is that right now, “Discrimination is not being prosecuted,” they told me. “Fair housing laws are not being enforced, and so we felt we had no choice but to go public,” end quote. On Monday, September 29th, exactly one week after we published that interview, Paul Osadebe and Heenan were fired.

A press release from the Federal Unionist Network of which Paul Osadebe and Heenan are both members states, quote, in a stunning act of illegal retaliation, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development has fired two of the four civil rights attorneys who blew the whistle on illegal discrimination, political interference, and the dismantling of Fair Housing protections. The terminations come just one week after Senator Elizabeth Warren called for an Inspector General investigation into the whistleblower’s disclosures, an unprecedented move that underscores the gravity of their allegations. Palmer Heenan a civil rights attorney at HUD and a member of AFGE Local 476 and Paul Osadebe is a civil rights attorney at hud, a union steward with AFGE Local 476 were the two whistleblowers who gave public interviews last week and who were both terminated this morning. In this urgent follow-up interview, I’m joined on The Real News once again by Paul Osadebe and Palmer Heenan. Gentlemen, welcome back. It’s really good to see you both again though. Of course. I wish we were reconnecting under less horrifying circumstances, but here we are and I want to just jump right in and ask first how you both are doing right now, and can you walk us through the last week in your lives from officially going public with your whistleblower complaints on September 22nd to then being fired this Monday on September 29th?

Paul Osadebe:

I’m sure you can imagine it’s been a wild ride. We got a huge outpouring of support and thanks for being willing to tell the truth publicly, for sticking up for our coworkers, for the work of our agency, and for all the people who don’t have a voice, who can’t go out and speak to the media and tell people that their rights are being violated. That was amazing. And in terms of the actual working environment, we didn’t get an initial response, but we knew that just because they didn’t immediately walk through the door and kick us out of the building, we knew that that didn’t mean that they weren’t watching or that they weren’t paying attention and planning something. So for a week it was kind of nothing. And then Monday, early Monday, we got an email that was pretty vague that just said discussion, and it was set for very soon after when the meeting request was sent.

And when we got that, I think we started to have a sense that something negative was about to happen. And when we actually had the meetings, they told me that they were recommending that I be fired for my whistle blowing activity for speaking out to protect civil rights and nothing else. Not anything related to performance or any actual misconduct was entirely for speech and for telling the truth. And then I turned in my laptop, turned in my card that lets me have access to the building and I said goodbye to my coworkers, told them to be strong and continue the fight. And then I was walked out of the building.

Palmer Heenan:

And yeah, my experience was much the same as Paul said. There was this amazing outpouring of support over the course of this week between when we went public and when we were fired, but we also were in the office watching as they continued to dismantle fair housing despite the fact that a sitting US Senator has recommended and has requested that the Inspector General examine and investigate their dismantle and of fair housing. And so just sitting there watching that dismantlement continue and continue and continue, it certainly was wearing on me. And when I got an email at 9 44 in the morning on Monday requesting that I come to a meeting for a discussion at 10 o’clock, so 16 minutes after I got the email, I kind of assumed that that was not good news. Like Paul said, I was able luckily to get in touch with our union, the AFG 4 76, and they were able to get the chief steward of the union to come to the meeting, which I think really just shows the power of unions and the power of organizing and the power of solidarity.

Having that person with me, having that chief steward with me was empowering. It let me know that I wasn’t alone as I was facing what I believed was going to be a termination. They arrived a couple minutes late for the meeting that they had set 16 minutes later and told me that I was being summarily terminated. I wasn’t being recommended for firing. I was still in my probationary period Just a few weeks earlier, the department had certified that I was serving a critical role for the Department of Housing and Urban Development and that I was necessary to the mission of hud. I had a written certification from HUD that I got on August 12th. They told me that they were resending that certification because I had spoken out. They said it was for the disclosures that I had made of non-public information and that I was being summarily terminated as of yesterday at 10 o’clock, just like actually a couple minutes into the meeting, security showed up as if they were going to have essentially the police escort me out of the building. I turned to the person that was terminating me and said, I’m an attorney. You’re an attorney. I’m not making a scene here. Do you really need security? Is that where we’re at? And they waved them off and then escorted me to my office to surrender my laptop. They escorted me to the restroom and then to the front door of the building where I was able to say goodbye to my colleagues. So that’s been the last week up through yesterday.

Maximillian Alvarez:

And just to be crystal clear, both of you were told explicitly by your superiors that you were being terminated or recommended for termination because of your whistleblowing activities?

Paul Osadebe:

Yes. I mean, when someone says that you made unauthorized disclosure and the unauthorized disclosure, it’s telling Congress and the Inspector General and the American public what they’re doing. Yes. That is being fired for whistle blowing. There’s no other disclosures that we’re talking about here. We’re talking about attempts to dismantle civil rights enforcement in this country. That’s the only thing that I’ve said the truth.

Palmer Heenan:

Yeah, that’s exactly right. I mean, the disclosures that we’ve made are the only disclosures that we’ve made. We’ve told the American public, we’ve told Congress, we’ve told really anyone that will listen that has the power to do something, that things need to change, that there are rights that are being trampled. There are laws that are being broken and people we hope will listen and do something about it. And that’s why we were terminated.

Maximillian Alvarez:

You guys are both attorneys, right? Let’s talk a little bit about the legal implications here, like what whistleblower protections are supposed to prevent the government from taking retaliatory actions like this. This wasn’t you guys just going on a street corner and making accusations. These formal whistleblower complaints filed with Congress.

Palmer Heenan:

We took great pains to make sure that the information that we were disclosing was accurate. We made sure that it was documented and we made sure that it fell within the boundaries of what we were permitted to disclose as whistleblowers. That’s what we spent time, days, and weeks doing, making sure that the information that we were going to tell was true and was accurate. And you’re right, there are protections. There are constitutional protections for speaking out as an American citizen, right? The First Amendment exists and protects the right of every American to speak out, but there are also statutory protections that exist specifically for federal employees who blow the whistle. And that’s because the American public deserves to know if their government is breaking the law. The American public deserves to know if their government is using taxpayer dollars to subsidize discrimination. The American public deserves to know if their constitutional or legal rights are being taken away. And as a consequence of that, there are statutes that exist that allow federal employees to do exactly what it is that Paul and I did, and we made sure that we were within the boundaries of what we were allowed to disclose and that the American public deserves to know.

Paul Osadebe:

And to follow up on that, there’s many different avenues to protect those rights. There’s federal courts, there’s Congress, there’s just telling the truth to the public. There’s many different ways to defend those rights, and we have those rights because without whistleblower protections, you have a government that’s not transparent, it’s not honest, and it kind of runs at the whim of a president or an agency head or a corrupt manager. It can be anything except a government that serves the public. And in order to have that type of government, you have to have the protection and ability of the federal workers who are the only ones inside the building who can tell you the public what is happening inside the building, what laws are being broken, what money is being wasted, who is being abused and who is being hurt and who’s being left to kind of fend for themselves.

It’s only people in our position who can explain that to the public, and that’s exactly what is protected by these laws. That is what we did. And I’m going to seek to defend the rights of not only myself and the public, but all federal workers who tell the truth, who take that risk and blow the whistle. We want to make it clear that when you go after whistleblowers and when you retaliate against them, you’re not silencing anything. All you’re doing is creating a bigger fire and a bigger commitment from federal workers to tell the truth collectively and loudly.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Well, and speaking of that truth that we were talking about together just last week, what does this all mean for the substance of your explosive whistleblower complaints themselves? What does this mean for the future of hud?

Paul Osadebe:

It has a lot of negative impacts. I mean, just on a base level, you’re taking away two committed civil rights attorneys from their jobs who are committed to protecting people who are survivors of domestic violence, people with disabilities, families with kids. I mean, every type of person, every single individual in this country is protected by these laws. And you’ve taken away two of the people most devoted to protecting that who did it for free and who did it to fulfill their oath under the constitution. That’s already a huge loss to the American people. Then there’s the atmosphere of fear that this is intended to create because let’s be clear here, there’s no legal cover for what they’re doing. It’s a pure attempt to intimidate and silence, and that’s the impression that they’re trying to create and the feeling that they’re trying to instill in federal workers. And that’s a loss because people are going to feel reluctant to tell the truth, to give accurate legal analysis to political appointees to speak out about when contracts are legally violated or laws are not followed. People will feel that they’re not protected in doing that, but that’s not true because I think will show what those protections can actually provide.

Maximillian Alvarez:

And just to underscore the first part of what you said, the whistleblower complaints that you and your coworkers filed underlined the fact that the staff cuts at HUD and the internal reorganizations had already left your office at critical incapacity to do your jobs, and so that was one of the key parts of the complaint, that you all had been reduced to just a handful of lawyers and now two of that handful are now gone as well.

Palmer Heenan:

You’re exactly right. And really just across the board, the action that’s been taken to unlawfully terminate Paul and I is just further evidence of the truth. I think of our underlying allegations, right? There’s a world in which you could say, Hey, none of that’s what’s actually happening right here, point by point what’s actually going on in the ground? But the problem is, is that what we are saying is true. And so the only possible response is to try to create that fear, to try to do whatever you can to sort of distract from the fact that you are dismantling fair housing, that you are removing the rights that Americans should have to petition their government for protection and for help when somebody is discriminating against them when somebody is not allowing a survivor of domestic violence to live in the housing that the federal government is funding. And so when your response can’t be to refute the truth because it’s true, right? Your only response is just to sow this fear and this chaos and make the problem, as you’re saying, worse by getting rid of two of the few remaining attorneys who actually do this work.

Maximillian Alvarez:

So what happens now specifically in regard to your cases, what recourse is available in this political climate and what can people watching this do to help?

Paul Osadebe:

At this point? We are considering all legally based options, but there’s many things that the people watching this can do to help us and other federal workers and other people committed to civil rights and the truth. There’s many members of Congress that are in oversight positions over the Department of Housing. There’s many members of Congress that have really critical affordable housing needs in their districts, and each of us can contact those members and say, Hey, we need to have a hearing about the atmosphere of retaliation against whistleblowers that’s happening at hud. You can have calls to those members of Congress and visits and just letter campaigns, anything that you can do to make your voice heard and say that I want my civil rights protected by civil servants at hud. I want a fully staffed office. I want people to be free to tell the truth and to actually do their jobs without political interference, without just everything that we’ve already talked about.

I think people have the capacity to do that. They have the capacity to join with civil rights groups that really care about this, that are committed to the civil Rights Movement, and who can make contact with the people who actually need these. It’s up to all of us to do that. And I think if we do that, if we rally, if we march, if we call and visit, if we use all the resources at our disposal, I think that there’s plenty that we can do about this because these actions are extremely unpopular and they’re impossible to justify. So don’t let people justify them, don’t accept them, and don’t allow them to continue. I think if we do that, then we can turn this around.

Palmer Heenan:

Paul is absolutely right. What I can tell you is that despite being terminated, I’m not going to stop speaking up and speaking out because I think it’s important to show that we knew there was risk, and now the worst possible outcome has happened. We’ve been terminated because we spoke out on behalf of the American people. But I am not going to let that put me in fear. I am not going to let that silence me, and I hope that the people listening to this feel the same way because as Paul said, these are unpopular actions. At the end of the day, everyone needs housing. It doesn’t matter who you are, how much money you have, you got to have a roof over your head at the end of the day. And so the rights that we’re talking about, the rights that we enforce impact every single person in this country, they are too important to stay quiet about.

So I’m going to keep speaking up. I’m going to keep speaking out, and I hope that every person listening will speak up and speak out as well, because that’s what we need right now. We need people speaking up and speaking out and saying, Hey, this is how I was impacted. Hey, wait a second. We do need affordable housing. Hey, my rent’s too high. Why are you creating this atmosphere of fear in the federal agency? That’s all about housing. I need housing. I don’t need a bunch of federal employees too scared to give good advice. I need them to be saying, no, put the housing in my backyard so that my rent goes down. So that’s what I’m hoping that people will do. Speak up and speak out.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Well, and I know I got to let you guys go in a minute, but I wanted to sort of pick up on that and end on a personal note. I wanted to ask just bluntly, if you guys stand by your decision to file these whistleblower complaints and to go public even knowing that this was a possible outcome, and what message do you hope that your actions will send to other public servants out there who might be wrestling with this decision over whether or not to speak out about the crimes that they’re seeing, the chaos that they’re seeing in their agencies, the questions of public that need to be known by the public? What gives you hope that these actions will still bring us closer to achieving that fight for civil rights and housing justice in this country?

Paul Osadebe:

What gives me hope is my coworkers that are still in the building, still trying to serve the American people, all the people that have reached out to talk about how important speaking out has been to them, how it’s inspired them to figure out what they can do with their coworkers to challenge illegal acts, to build the power to expose what’s going on at their federal agencies and to fight back against it. It’s been thinking about the people that actually rely on our help, who really need us. There’s people out there who need us, and anything that I’m facing is nothing compared to what they’re facing. And this agency was created, our office was created, and my job then and now is to help those people to protect them and to speak out for them when they can’t speak out for themselves. And that’s what my oath means to me.

It meant that I needed to take this risk, and it still is asking me to continue to speak out no matter what retaliation I face. Because what we do is too important to let one act of retaliation stop us from defending the truth and defending our work. So to all the people out there who are wondering whether it makes sense to just kind of keep their head down in this moment, or whether to speak out and challenge the destruction of their agency, it’s always worth it to speak out and tell the truth and defend the people that you serve.

Palmer Heenan:

I have prosecuted some truly horrific cases in my time as a civil rights attorney, cases where people were in serious physical danger for their lives, their children’s lives, who were called just horrific things. And as I prosecuted those cases and I took them before a judge and a jury, and I was able to convince people that that discrimination had occurred, that it was real, and that person deserved justice, it made me realize that people take these things seriously. We are a country that does not believe that a landlord should hurl racial epithets at a tenant. We are a country that believes that affordable housing should exist, that, excuse the cliche, the rent is too damn high, right? We are a country that believes that housing rights are important, and that’s what gives me hope. I have seen, yes, a personal outpouring of support. And just to be clear, I’m here.

I was fired. I don’t know where I’m going next, but this amazing outpouring of support and listening to people say, yeah, these rights are important. That’s what gives me hope. That’s what’s going to let me continue to speak out, and I hope that people will speak out on their own halves on halves of others. There are so many dedicated, yes, federal workers, but also state workers and folks in nonprofits who every day see those same horrific stories that I’ve seen in my career as a civil rights attorney. And I think those stories are what we need to hear right now because we need to know There’s a reason that Congress outlawed this decades ago, and there’s a reason they empowered our office to go after this discrimination. It’s because housing rights are just too damn important to ignore. And I’ve got to believe having seen what’s happened in response to our going public, that people are going to start speaking out about that because it is that important

Paul Osadebe:

For federal workers that want to figure out the best way to build power in their workplaces, to strategize about how to stop the attacks that they’re facing, how to support their coworkers, how to join with other federal workers, and figure out what they’re doing that’s worked. If you fall into that category, you should go to save public services.com, join the fund, and it is fun to actually fight back and win.

Palmer Heenan:

And I’ll just plug, talk to your coworkers, talk to your friends, your family, your network about what you’re experiencing, but also just if you’re at work, just connect with people. For me, I don’t know that I would’ve had the courage to do this on my own, right? It was only through the support of my coworkers being able to talk to folks like Paul, who went public with me, right? We went public together. That to me is the critical part of this, right? Standing in solidarity and realizing you are not alone. There are people to support you, but sometimes you have to reach out to find that network. Sometimes you have to reach out to find those people. And as Paul said, the fun exists for helping people do exactly that.