The EPA spent four years under Biden using environmental rules to strangle American energy.
Now those same career employees are asking a federal judge to overrule the man voters put in charge.
The document they used to defy EPA chief Lee Zeldin may be the only evidence he needs to stop them.
Seven Fired Probationary EPA Employees Had No Civil Service Shield
In June 2025, seven probationary EPA employees signed what they called a "Declaration of Dissent" — a public letter addressed directly to Administrator Zeldin, coordinated by the left-wing activist group Stand Up for Science.
The letter accused the Trump administration of "harmful deregulation" and a "disregard for scientific expertise," and declared open resistance to the agency's direction.
They signed it with their official EPA job titles.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin didn't hesitate.
"We have a ZERO tolerance policy for agency bureaucrats unlawfully undermining, sabotaging, and undercutting the agenda of this administration as voted for by the great people of this country last November," Zeldin said in a public statement after placing close to 150 signers on administrative leave.
By summer's end, the seven were gone.
Claire Balani, Lane To, and Alexis Wright were cut from EPA's Washington operation, with Andreas Harris, Alexander Cole, Stephanie Eytcheson, and Anna Laird losing their positions in Illinois.
All seven held probationary status – putting them outside the civil service protections that longer-tenured federal employees carry, with no path to challenge their removal before the Merit Systems Protection Board.
They were new enough to the job that the government retained broad authority to let them go.
Marc Elias and Democracy Forward Back EPA Dissent Letter Lawsuit
The terminations didn't end the story.
One year to the day after the dissent letter went public, the seven filed suit with the backing of Democracy Forward, the litigation group chaired by Democrat election lawyer Marc Elias.
Elias is best known for his role as Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign lawyer and for pushing the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy theory.
Democracy Forward has spent the past year orchestrating anti-Trump lawfare across multiple agencies and states.
The Daily Signal previously reported that Elias's group held strategy sessions with lawyers from the California and Illinois attorneys general offices to coordinate challenges to Trump executive orders.
Democracy Forward president Skye Perryman called the fired workers "brave plaintiffs" and argued the government had no right "to retaliate against these civil servants because of a protected opinion they expressed while off the clock."
Robert Moffit, senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation and former assistant director of the Office of Personnel Management, cut straight through it.
"It is arrogant to assume one has the right to federal employment," Moffit told The Daily Signal.
"These employees don't understand a simple fact of life: The president of the United States determines the policy of the executive branch," Moffit said.
"If one can't work to implement the president's stated agenda, the right and honorable thing to do is resign and work in the private sector, where they will have a greater sense of personal fulfillment."
He noted they might even find work at Democracy Forward.
The lawsuit faces a built-in legal problem the workers created themselves.
More than 100 employees signed the dissent letter, but more than 30 union representatives who also signed escaped discipline entirely – because union reps carry different legal protections.
The bigger problem is the letter itself.
Democracy Forward's argument – that these workers were expressing protected personal speech off the clock – collides with the fact that the letter was signed with official EPA job titles and addressed to the agency's administrator.
The Supreme Court has been clear for decades that when a government worker uses their official title to publicly undercut the agency's mission, the employer has every right to act.
Every worker who signed anonymously kept their job.
Trump inherited a federal workforce stuffed with career employees who saw their government positions as a personal mandate to block a president they didn't vote for.
The EPA dissent letter was a political operation coordinated by an outside group that openly wants to "take back Congress," using government credentials as the weapon.
Zeldin fired them for it.
Now Elias wants a judge to put them back.
Sources:
- Fred Lucas, "Deep State Strikes, as EPA Employees Who Signed Anti-Trump Letter Sue Over Firing," The Daily Signal, July 3, 2026.
- Fred Lucas, "EXCLUSIVE: How Marc Elias Group Used States to Ramp-Up Anti-Trump Lawfare," The Daily Signal, August 7, 2025.
- "Democracy Forward," Influence Watch, May 5, 2026.
