White House official accused of 'coercion' with email to 100,000 agency workers: insider

A member of Donald Trump's administration has upset federal workers with an email sent out to nearly 100,000 staff members, an insider has claimed.

Brooke Rollins, the Department of Agriculture secretary, sent an email to employees celebrating Easter. The email, seen by The Washington Post, starts, "Happy Easter - He is Risen indeed! Today we celebrate the greatest story ever told, the foundation of our faith, and the abiding hope of all mankind.

"From the foot of the Cross on Good Friday to the stone rolled away from the now empty tomb, sin has been destroyed. Jesus has been raised from the dead. And God has granted each of us victory and new life. And where there is life — risen life — there is hope.”

The email, sent to USDA employees, is signed by Rollins. Staffers at the department, who were granted anonymity to share their thoughts on the email, were stunned by the nature of the message.

One person who has worked at the department for 15 years said, "I have never seen that overtly of a religious email in all my years of government service. It's a separation of state and religion for a reason."

That same insider says the department and other Trump administration heads had sent similarly religious emails in the past, but none as clear as this one.

"I think it is telling when the head of a department is the one that is forcing religion down everybody’s throat," they said.

James Nelson, a law professor at the University of Houston who specializes in religion and speech rights in the workplace, said the "very unusual" email could be seen as a breach of the admin's own speech policy.

Nelson said, "One might also argue that the email risks impermissible coercion of employees. The Clinton guidelines were sensitive to the special risks of coercion from supervisors’ religious expression. But the current administration has indicated that religious speech by supervisors should be treated the same as speech by nonsupervisory employees."

Another insider says the email had upset many, but nobody is willing to put their name to a formal action against Rollins. "I know [the Easter email] upset a lot of people,” the employee said, “but people are just dead scared to put their name to anything."