Overview

• Furloughed Department of Education employees say their out-of-office emails were altered without consent after they set neutral templates provided by the agency.
• The inserted language blamed Senate Democrats for the funding lapse and cited H.R. 5371, with some workers reporting that neutral text they restored was later switched back again.
• WIRED received the same partisan wording from the Education Department’s press line, effectively corroborating the message content at the agency level.
• Similar partisan guidance or postings appeared across multiple agencies, with HHS confirming it instructed staff to use blame-Democrats language and several agency websites displaying politicized shutdown banners.
• Ethics experts warn the messaging may violate the Hatch Act, Public Citizen filed a complaint targeting agency communications, and the identity of whoever changed individual accounts remains unknown.