As President Donald Trump and Elon Musk move to fire broad swaths of the federal workforce, the top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is launching an investigation into who officials in the previous administration hired in the waning days of Joe Biden’s presidency.
Committee Chair James Comer’s effort — which spans 24 departments and agencies, seeks to root out partisan staff who joined the executive branch as the former president was leaving the White House. The Kentucky Republican is requesting the names of all hires between Jan. 1, 2024 and Jan. 20, 2025, and the names of all political appointees during the Biden administration who have remained in the executive branch, among other information.
“We are concerned about job postings and hiring surges not based on actual agency mission needs, but based on political goals, including a desire to ‘Trump-proof’ agency staffs by placing personnel opposed to President Donald Trump’s agenda,” Comer wrote in separate letters to all the current agency and department heads. “The Committee requests documents and information to facilitate our oversight of the Biden-Harris Administration’s apparent attempt to impede President Trump’s agenda.”
The investigation touches just about every corner of the executive branch: from the Justice Department to the Government Services Administration, the Department of Labor to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It also comes as the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency are moving to dramatically alter the federal bureaucracy, dismissing probationary employees and directing mass reductions in staffing at agencies.
The new effort from Comer is also the latest example of how House allies are leveraging their investigative powers to benefit the administration and continuing to probe Biden’s leadership months after he has already left the White House. Comer has indicated he still intends to investigate Biden-era officials, even after the former president has retreated from public view.
Comer has set a March 14 deadline for agency and department leaders to respond.
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