Among the latest hires: a longtime DuPont manager who is now at an EPA position that is typically not a political appointment.
by Derek Kravitz, ProPublica
We have obtained a list of 95 new Trump administration appointees made over the past six months. Following a pattern we’ve detailed before, many of the hires previously worked on President Donald Trump’s campaign or at conservative think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation. In other cases, appointees seem to have little work experience at all.
We compiled the information from Freedom of Information Act requests and have added the appointees to our Trump Town app, which lets you search the disclosures of nearly 3,000 of them.
Here are a few of the recent appointments:
- Lynn DeKleva, who worked for decades at chemical giant DuPont, was appointed to a job as an environmental engineer in the Environmental Protection Agency’s chemical safety and pollution prevention office in October. Typically, environmental engineering positions are not political appointments. DeKleva did not respond to ProPublica’s requests for comments. The EPA said in a statement that DeKleva “brings considerable product stewardship experience and knowledge with her to assist” the agency.
- Ileana Garcia, a co-founder of the campaign’s Latinas for Trump, was appointed in October as deputy press secretary in the Department of Homeland Security.
- Todd Thurman, a Heritage Foundation staffer who used to write for the Daily Signal and Breitbart, was appointed as the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s digital strategy specialist in September.
- Antonin Scalia, the namesake grandson of the late Supreme Court justice, was appointed in September as a temporary assistant in the State Department. Scalia graduated from college last year. Scalia and the State Department did not respond to ProPublica’s requests for comments.