Lankford weighs in on DOGE, voicing concerns on certain actions

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — Senator James Lankford spoke out on Wednesday about the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) federal employee firings, budget cuts, and facility closures, raising some concerns about the impact on Oklahomans and military operations.

For weeks, News 4 has been reporting on the thousands of federal employees who’ve suddenly found themselves without jobs, many in Oklahoma.

“We’re not faceless bureaucrats. We’re your neighbors, friends, and family members. We chose public service because we believe in the mission,” a fired FAA employee recently told News 4.

“It bothers me a lot that now I think we’re going in a direction where we’re not trying to do things the right way,” a fired IRS employee recently told News 4.

Those employees said that their termination letters stated they were fired due to “performance,” even though they hadn’t even worked in their roles long enough to have a performance review.

News 4 has had a hard time getting direct answers from Oklahoma’s congressional delegation about the exact number of Oklahomans who have been or will be fired due to DOGE cuts.

But on Wednesday, News 4 heard directly from Senator James Lankford (R-OK), who held a virtual Q&A with Oklahoma journalists.

News 4 asked Lankford how he felt about DOGE firing probationary employees and blaming it on “performance.”

“I don’t agree that you just come in and blanket remove. But I would tell you, if you work in a corporate entity in America, that’s typical,” Lankford said. “A probationary employee, the executive branch is allowed to be able to remove them. And so what we’re trying to be able to push on is, okay, I know that’s permissible for you to be able to remove that person. Are you going to rehire for that same position? Is this the right person to be able to remove? Many of those positions we still need. And so we’re already seeing secretaries step up and press back on this.”

Lankford raised concerns about reports that DOGE will be cutting hundreds of jobs at Tinker Air Force Base and the Army’s ammunition plant in McAlester.

“Tinker cannot operate if we lose 600 civilian employees there," Lankford said. “We will not be able to keep aircraft in the air long term for the Air Force. That is really important for us to be able to have. The same thing in McAlester. If we remove a thousand civilians there, we won’t be able to operate.”

News 4 has reported that DOGE has announced plans to end leases for hundreds of federal office spaces, including the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Oklahoma’s Eastern District in Muskogee.

“We’re trying to find out, is this a storage unit connected to this office, or is it the office?” Lankford said. “We followed up and said, ‘where are the U.S. Attorneys going to be?’ And they have now said, ‘hey, that’s not actually going to be canceled.’”

But other facilities are also on the chopping block, including a National Weather Service radar facility in Norman.

Getting any answers from DOGE, even for this U.S. senator, has been a challenge.

“We’re tracking trying to be able to find out fact from fiction,” Lankford said. “We’re not getting an answer on that yet.”

He said the same goes for the federal building in downtown Oklahoma City that replaced the Murrah Building—which was also recently on a list to be sold by the General Services Administration (GSA).

“You can’t just dispose of federal property,” Lankford said. “How did that end up on the list? What was the scoring on this? We can’t get anybody on the phone yet to be able to answer the question.”

The lack of answers, Lankford says, makes his job that much harder.

“If we can’t get the information on that, it doesn’t help us to be able to know what’s the strategy, what’s the timing, what’s actually going to occur,” Lankford said.

Lankford pointed out that during the Clinton administration, more than 400,000 federal employees lost their jobs. But said that was over an eight-year period, and this mass firing has taken place over eight weeks.

“They’re going to throw everything out there to say, ‘we’re going to close it, we’re going to change it.’ And unless somebody complains, that’s going to just keep moving,” Lanford said.