Trump is using $70K bonuses for a hiring surge at one agency. Democrats want to stop him

A group of Senate Democrats is demanding the Trump administration cease its efforts to dramatically grow the Interior Department’s police force, calling the hiring surge a “dangerous” centralization of power. 

The U.S. Park Police operates primarily in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco to protect federal lands and property is looking to significantly grow its ranks under President Trump. It had around 400 employees when Trump took office in January and is aiming to potentially double that total. 

The growth is leading to concern on Capitol Hill, however, where Democrats are concerned the Trump administration is looking to expand Park Police’s narrow mission to include general policing duties in Washington. A larger force would enable the president and his administration, which have federalized policing efforts in several cities across the country, to have a cadre of officers at their disposal to “impose their will on the streets of D.C.,” the lawmakers said. 

“There is no evidence of an uptick in crime on [National] Park Service land or increased threats to national monuments,” Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., who serves at the top Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee’s panel that oversees Interior, Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said in their letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. “This haste in both a hiring spree and waiving of critical testing and standards are clear signs that the administration is hijacking this federal police force for its own authoritarian purposes.”

The Trump administration is offering $70,000 signing bonuses to Park Police applicants, as well as a “streamlined” hiring process that focuses on virtual interviews rather than physical testing. 

The senators cited previous reporting by The Washington Post that revealed an internal memorandum in which Interior envisioned USPP as “the premier law enforcement agency in DC, regardless of inaction” by local police and officials. Trump previously tapped Park Police, and several other federal law enforcement officials, to patrol Washington as part of the president’s crime reduction effort in the nation's capital. 

“Amassing what is effectively a new federal police force is yet another Trump administration effort to consolidate and centralize his power as he continues to intimidate protestors, threaten free speech, and desensitize Americans to military presence on the streets,” the senators said.  “Reshaping the U.S. Park Police into a police force with a mission to carry out the president’s policy priorities hands President Trump a cadre of his own armed officers with widespread jurisdiction at his fingertips.”

USPP has hired 77 new officers since January, Kenneth Spencer, government affairs chief of staff for the agency’s Fraternal Order of Police union told Congress in a hearing last week, with more expected to come on board soon. Human resources officials in Interior lamented to Government Executive over the summer that hiring remained frozen across the department in all areas except Park Police. Spencer, however, said the agency requires at least 650 employees, if not far more. 

“​​It is not an overstatement to suggest that, at current staffing levels, our agency would be unsustainable without the intervention of our current hiring surge under Secretary Burgum’s leadership,” Spencer said. 

The Democratic lawmakers called the hiring efforts “unprecedented” and called on the administration to suspend the initiative. It asked for more information about Park Police’s role in Washington, how it collaborates with local police, whether NPS conducted analysis to justify the hiring, how hiring standards have been changed and what the associated costs are with the effort, among other questions. 

“All solid questions,” one Interior HR official said of the senators’ requests. 

It does not appear the administration is going to heed the senators’ demands, as Aubrie Spady, an Interior spokesperson, called the request “disgraceful” and said the surge of law enforcement in Washington is yielding results. 

“The Trump administration cares about ensuring the safety of all Americans and will continue to hire more U.S. Park Police officers and crack down on crime to ensure D.C. is the safest capital in the world,” Spady said.