Washington, DC — A political official within the Department of the Interior (DOI) is pursuing the removal of a top attorney for allegedly providing a memo to the Secretary seeking his approval to cede unprecedented control over a highly sensitive personnel database to unqualified individuals, according to documents posted today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).  That memo, which raised several serious legal and major cybersecurity concerns, is labeled “objectionable,” “subversive,” and “obstructionist” in the notice of proposed removal.

Anthony Irish has been in the Interior Solicitor’s Office for 18 years, was promoted during the first Trump administration to Assistant Solicitor, and is now the Associate Solicitor overseeing the General Law Division. He participated in a series of meetings with Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) affiliated officials within Interior concerning their request for “administrator status” over the Federal Personnel Payroll System along with other information technology systems.

That system contains detailed financial and personnel information for 53 federal agencies, including the Supreme Court, and over a quarter million federal employees. These DOGE officials already had viewing access enabling them to see any actions processed but wanted “full administrator rights,” which would enable them to initiate and execute personnel actions.

In the memo, Irish, along with officials within Interior’s Office of the Chief Information Officer, spelled out the considerable legal and security risks involved. Notably, according to the memo, no single official presently has such unfettered access to all human resources, payroll, and credentialling systems that these untrained officials sought. Senior DOI career officials, including Irish, indicated that the unprecedented nature of this request required permission from the Secretary and prepared a decision memo to that effect. That memo is the sole basis cited in the proposal to terminate Irish from federal service.

“Tony Irish is being punished for doing his job; we want government attorneys to ask questions to ensure the legitimacy of actions before proceeding,” stated PEER Executive Director Tim Whitehouse, a former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency senior enforcement attorney, whose organization is legally representing Irish in challenging this action. “Elevating important concerns up the chain of command is how government is supposed to work.”

In the memo Irish and his colleagues prepared for the Secretary, they warn about potential violations of the Privacy Act, which carries criminal penalties, and point out that handing out this level of cyber-control to unqualified and uncertified individuals creates the distinct risk of —

• A major “insider threat due to potential compromise by nation-state adversaries or other malicious actors”;
• “Manipulating systems and introducing unauthorized actions”; and
• “[S]ignificant [system] failure because of operator error.”

“The consequences of a security breach or screwup by amateurs could cause a colossal breakdown or a compromise of massive amounts of sensitive personal data,” Whitehouse added, noting that the proposed removal was dated one day after both the Department interviewed Irish and authored the “Report of Investigation” into the matter. “The reckless nature of this request followed by these bullying tactics suggests that the wrong official is facing removal.”

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Read the Notice of proposed dismissal

View the memo to the Secretary

Look at Report of Investigation

See the scope of Federal Personnel Payroll System