FIRST ON FOX – The American Accountability Foundation, a conservative nonprofit government research organization, has compiled a “watch list” of top bureaucrats at the Ministry of Education who recommends that President-elect Donald Trump should be fired.
The nonprofit, which is funded by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, published the list on its website. The AAF collected 19 “dossiers” naming “America’s most subversive education bureaucrats.”
AAF President Tom Jones, a former Republican congressional staffer, told Fox News Digital that the “public” list was not compiled at the behest of Trump’s transition team, but rather because the conservative organization believes it is important that the American people ” understands’. that there are many officials within the federal government, and especially within the Department of Education, who are not impartial technicians carrying out the president’s agenda, but rather are ideologues who have an agenda that they are willing to implement despite the clear guidance from voters in November.”
‘Ultimately it is fundamentally undemocratic. What you get is a group of people who do not reflect the will of the American people implementing their agenda instead of what the American people called their will in November. What it ultimately means is you’re going to have a left-wing approach to education, especially higher education,” Jones told Fox News Digital. “The America’s higher education system is broken. I think the events of last summer, when you saw left-wing pro-terrorist groups taking over American campuses, and the faculty and administration supporting them, really should have been a wake-up call to all Americans. And I think this could be a wake-up call for this administration.”
Jones said the people on the list also include individuals who are “serial donors” to Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren and President Biden, as well as other “hard core ideologues” who will prioritize their own progressive agendas, such as promoting Biden’s “ bailouts” for student loans, “Increasing regulations on successful online class partnerships, and waging a “witch hunt” against Christian and vocational colleges through the Student Financial Aid Office of Enforcement.
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President Biden in Madison, Wisconsin, on Monday, April 8, 2024. (Daniel Steinle/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Jones identified one individual with the Office of Enforcement who had “spent his career in the Maryland Attorney General’s Office investigating career colleges and Christian colleges.” He pointed to another person who stated that he would work to turn the DOE into a “mini-CFPB,” a reference to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which Jones described as “essentially just a witch-hunting factory used to target organizations of people to investigate’. that the board doesn’t like.” The nonprofit described a DOE general counsel who was listed as “a leading legal advocate for transgender rights in the debate over religious exemptions for certain universities.”
“These people aren’t going to say, you know what, ‘I hated Trump last week, but on January 22nd I’m going to be super excited about implementing his education agenda.’ Unless these people are moved from their positions within the Department of Education, they will continue to work behind the scenes to attack alternatives to traditional four-year institutions,” Jones said.
Others named on the list include a civilian employee of the DOE Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA), who, according to the nonprofit, spearheaded a “$6.1 billion student loan forgiveness program for students of art institutions’.
“They call it relief, but it really is a huge giveaway for people who are getting a college education that is just unaffordable,” Jones told Fox News Digital. “And look, it’s totally unacceptable for the federal government to pay back someone’s student loans and put that burden on the back of a plumber or a welder, you know, a teacher who takes care of their education or who doesn’t. When you go to college, they now have to pay for someone with a feminist studies degree from Columbia and $150,000 in debt. That is simply fundamentally unfair and wrong. you have to be willing to pay for it.”
Students prepare for a lecture at the University of Texas at Austin on February 22, 2024 in Austin, Texas. President Biden has announced an additional $1.2 billion in student loan forgiveness, adding to a total of $138 billion in forgiveness. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
The list includes another DOE employee who the nonprofit says helped the Biden administration “weaponize federal student aid policies” faith-based higher education.”
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The nonprofit accuses the individual of playing a key role in the DOE imposing a $37.7 million fine on Grand Canyon University, the nation’s largest Christian university, for allegedly misrepresenting the costs of its doctoral programs , accusing the Biden administration of effectively “bullying.” ‘ the college to wipe out their student debt.
Everyone on the list makes six figures, Jones said, adding that some even make annual salaries of more than $200,000, while the average salary of an American teacher is around $50,000 to $60,000.
“These woke bureaucrats at the Department of Education are pulling in $200,000 to attack alternatives to education,” Jones said. “The Office of Enforcement is attacking things like vocational schools and Christian colleges, and they’re getting rich doing it. And that’s just embarrassing. So I’m hopeful that the government says, look, this is, you know, paying people $200,000. a year to take the opportunities for welders, nurses and people like that to pursue higher education. That is simply unacceptable.”
Linda McMahon, former administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration and education secretary nominee, on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025. (Valerie Plesch/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“Ultimately, the American people need to understand that the people we’re talking about here are not engineers,” Jones said. “This isn’t plumbing work they’re doing. This is policy work. This is fundamental ideological work. And at the end of the day, these people are like the political appointees that can be fired at the beginning of the administration. ”
“I am hopeful that the government will really take the opportunity to treat them as political appointees and ask them to move on because if they don’t, they will have a left-wing political ideology in the government for the next four years . years,” he added. “And unfortunately we saw some of that happen during the first administration. I’m cautiously optimistic that the administration learned its lesson the hard way, the first time they let a bunch of unelected bureaucrats cannot allow the agenda to be trampled during the first term of this government.”
Jones said he supported President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to become Secretary of Education. Linda McMahonwho still faces a confirmation process in the Senate.
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“I’m glad that she’s going to have the ability and the latitude to do the hard work that it takes to really shake up the Department of Education because it’s, you know, a Carter administration agency that’s stuck in the 1970s, when the world has moved to different approaches to education, whether it’s, you know, high schools or whether it be in post-secondary education,” Jones said.
Fox News Digital has contacted the Department of Education’s press office and the individual staffers listed, seeking comment.
The AAF compiled a similar “watch list” of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employees that the Trump administration recommended clearing. In response, DHS Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas at the time condemned “in the strongest terms any attempt to harass or intimidate our public servants.”
“What Alejandro Mayorkas did was use the power of the Department of Homeland Security to cool the speeches of groups like the American Accountability Foundation,” Jones told Fox News Digital. “There were no examples of anyone feeling threatened, but what there were examples of was him directing departments within the Department of Homeland Security to open an investigation into the AAF. That’s, you know, that’s the kind of weaponization of the American government that we were looking for. four years under the Biden administration… So the idea that some people feel attacked is just nonsense and a complete red herring and in reality a tool for Mayorkas and Biden administration officials to shut down speeches where they can’t just disagree. ”
