Education Department puts hold on 5-day suspension of employee who provided The Post with budget information – The Washington Post
The Education Department has placed an indefinite hold on the five-day suspension of a budget analyst who provided information to The Washington Post about the Trump administration’s 2018 budget proposal before it was released, her attorney said. The agency accused the employee of “conduct unbecoming a federal employee,” but her attorney described her as a whistleblower whose efforts to expose mismanagement are protected by federal law.
Rebecca Delaney, an analyst in the Education Department’s Office of Finance and Operations since 2016, received a letter dated Nov. 15 from an agency official saying the suspension would be delayed “until further notice.”
Delaney and her attorney, Cathy Harris, had sought a stay of the suspension while the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal investigative and prosecutorial agency, reviews the case at their request. A letter to that office from Harris said Delaney provided the information to The Post “because she reasonably believed that the information in the budget was inaccurate, misleading and constituted gross mismanagement.”