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President George W. Bush being welcomed in Riyadh in 2008. 'The Saudi government has always denied culpability [for any involvement with the 9/11 attacks] and itself urged that the 28 pages be made public, a request that was denied by the Bush administration.' (Photo:Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Image)
Following developments this week in which the alleged 20th hijacker of the 9/11 attacks in 2001 claimed in a stated deposition that prominent officials within the Saudi government offered substantial financial support for al Qaeda in the years prior to the plot against targets in New York City and Washington, D.C., renewed calls are emerging for the U.S. government to declassify a chapter of the official 9/11 Commission Report which is thought to detail its conclusions about the role Saudi Arabian higher-ups may or may not have played in those events.
Fifteen of the nineteen identified hijackers were Saudi nationals and questions have long-simmered about what, if any, knowledge Saudi officials may have had about the attack or--more contentiously--if any members of the nation's royal family or intelligence services may have played an active role in financing or enabling it.
According to reporting by Carl Hulse at the New York Times on Thursday:
A still-classified section of the investigation by congressional intelligence committees into the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has taken on an almost mythic quality over the past 13 years -- 28 pages that examine crucial support given the hijackers and that by all accounts implicate prominent Saudis in financing terrorism.
Now new claims by Zacarias Moussaoui, a convicted former member of Al Qaeda, that he had high-level contact with officials of the Saudi Arabian government in the prelude to Sept. 11 have brought renewed attention to the inquiry's withheld findings, which lawmakers and relatives of those killed in the attacks have tried unsuccessfully to declassify.
"I think it is the right thing to do," said Representative Stephen F. Lynch, Democrat of Massachusetts and an author of a bipartisan resolution encouraging President Obama to declassify the section. "Let's put it out there."
According to the Guardian's Jason Burke, Moussaoui's "new testimony has some largely uncontroversial elements that ring true - and plenty more controversial allegations that do not."
VICE News reports:
In December 2013, House Representatives Walter Jones (R-NC) and Stephen Lynch (D-MA) introduced a resolution calling on President Obama to release the pages, part of the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001. Despite claims from family members that Obama promised to do so, the portion remains classified.
The Saudi government has always denied culpability and itself urged that the 28 pages be made public, a request that was denied by the Bush administration. However, members of Congress who have seen the pages say they show damning intelligence gathered on Saudi individuals. Made public, the redacted portions could prove that the Bush administration knew, perhaps not of a large scale conspiracy emanating from the royal family, but at least of significant Saudi involvement -- even as they drew not so subtle links to 9/11 in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
"The recent testimony by Mr. Moussaoui is further reason to declassify the 28 pages of the Joint Inquiry report," Jones told VICE News. "The contents of the pages do not pose a threat to national security but deal with relations the Bush administration had before 9/11."
However, as a separate article in the Times, this one by Ben Hubbard and Scott Shane, notes "Mr. Moussaoui's sensational allegations have drawn attention in part because far more credible figures, including some members of the national 9/11 Commission, believe the Saudi role in the attacks has never been adequately examined."
Those more "credible figures" of the 9/11 Commission include former senators Bob Graham of Florida and Bob Kerrey of Nebraska as well as John Lehman, who previously served as secretary of the U.S. Navy. All three men have signed affidavits as part of an ongoing legal challenge to get that 28-page portion of the commission's report released.
"I am convinced that there was a direct line between at least some of the terrorists who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks and the government of Saudi Arabia," wrote Mr. Graham in his statement to the court, which was entered during proceedings on Monday of this week.
According to a separate report by Shane at the Times, filed on Wednesday:
Mr. Kerrey said in the affidavit that it was "fundamentally inaccurate and misleading" to argue, as lawyers for Saudi Arabia have, that the 9/11 Commission exonerated the Saudi government.
The three former officials' statements did not address Mr. Moussaoui's testimony.
The 9/11 lawsuit was initially filed in 2002 but has faced years of legal obstacles. It was dismissed in 2005 on the grounds that Saudi Arabia enjoyed "sovereign immunity," and the dismissal was upheld on appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
But the same appellate court later reversed itself, ordering that the lawsuit be reinstated. The Saudi government appealed to the Supreme Court, but it declined to hear the case, so it was sent back to Federal District Court in Manhattan. The filing on Monday was in opposition to the latest motion by Saudi Arabia to have the case dismissed.
In a piece posted to his Consortium News site, independent journalist Robert Parry explores how the renewed focus on Saudi Arabia's role in exporting jihadist ideology and funding non-state militant groups is relevant, not just for those interested in the historic events of 9/11, but also for current geopolitical stratagems and conflicts now underway across the Middle East and beyond.
Parry acknowledges that "Moussaoui's credibility came under immediate attack from the Saudi kingdom" but says that fact that some of his assertions "mesh with accounts from members of the U.S. Congress who have seen a secret portion of the 9/11 report," raises important questions about allegations over Saudi Arabia's continued support for al-Qaeda and similar groups now operating in the region.
Complicating the predicament for Saudi Arabia, writes Parry, "is that, more recently, Saudi and other Persian Gulf oil sheikdoms have been identified as backers of Sunni militants fighting in Syria to overthrow the largely secular regime of President Bashar al-Assad. The major rebel force benefiting from this support is al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria.
"In other words, the Saudis appear to have continued a covert relationship with al-Qaeda-connected jihadists to the present day."
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Following developments this week in which the alleged 20th hijacker of the 9/11 attacks in 2001 claimed in a stated deposition that prominent officials within the Saudi government offered substantial financial support for al Qaeda in the years prior to the plot against targets in New York City and Washington, D.C., renewed calls are emerging for the U.S. government to declassify a chapter of the official 9/11 Commission Report which is thought to detail its conclusions about the role Saudi Arabian higher-ups may or may not have played in those events.
Fifteen of the nineteen identified hijackers were Saudi nationals and questions have long-simmered about what, if any, knowledge Saudi officials may have had about the attack or--more contentiously--if any members of the nation's royal family or intelligence services may have played an active role in financing or enabling it.
According to reporting by Carl Hulse at the New York Times on Thursday:
A still-classified section of the investigation by congressional intelligence committees into the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has taken on an almost mythic quality over the past 13 years -- 28 pages that examine crucial support given the hijackers and that by all accounts implicate prominent Saudis in financing terrorism.
Now new claims by Zacarias Moussaoui, a convicted former member of Al Qaeda, that he had high-level contact with officials of the Saudi Arabian government in the prelude to Sept. 11 have brought renewed attention to the inquiry's withheld findings, which lawmakers and relatives of those killed in the attacks have tried unsuccessfully to declassify.
"I think it is the right thing to do," said Representative Stephen F. Lynch, Democrat of Massachusetts and an author of a bipartisan resolution encouraging President Obama to declassify the section. "Let's put it out there."
According to the Guardian's Jason Burke, Moussaoui's "new testimony has some largely uncontroversial elements that ring true - and plenty more controversial allegations that do not."
VICE News reports:
In December 2013, House Representatives Walter Jones (R-NC) and Stephen Lynch (D-MA) introduced a resolution calling on President Obama to release the pages, part of the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001. Despite claims from family members that Obama promised to do so, the portion remains classified.
The Saudi government has always denied culpability and itself urged that the 28 pages be made public, a request that was denied by the Bush administration. However, members of Congress who have seen the pages say they show damning intelligence gathered on Saudi individuals. Made public, the redacted portions could prove that the Bush administration knew, perhaps not of a large scale conspiracy emanating from the royal family, but at least of significant Saudi involvement -- even as they drew not so subtle links to 9/11 in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
"The recent testimony by Mr. Moussaoui is further reason to declassify the 28 pages of the Joint Inquiry report," Jones told VICE News. "The contents of the pages do not pose a threat to national security but deal with relations the Bush administration had before 9/11."
However, as a separate article in the Times, this one by Ben Hubbard and Scott Shane, notes "Mr. Moussaoui's sensational allegations have drawn attention in part because far more credible figures, including some members of the national 9/11 Commission, believe the Saudi role in the attacks has never been adequately examined."
Those more "credible figures" of the 9/11 Commission include former senators Bob Graham of Florida and Bob Kerrey of Nebraska as well as John Lehman, who previously served as secretary of the U.S. Navy. All three men have signed affidavits as part of an ongoing legal challenge to get that 28-page portion of the commission's report released.
"I am convinced that there was a direct line between at least some of the terrorists who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks and the government of Saudi Arabia," wrote Mr. Graham in his statement to the court, which was entered during proceedings on Monday of this week.
According to a separate report by Shane at the Times, filed on Wednesday:
Mr. Kerrey said in the affidavit that it was "fundamentally inaccurate and misleading" to argue, as lawyers for Saudi Arabia have, that the 9/11 Commission exonerated the Saudi government.
The three former officials' statements did not address Mr. Moussaoui's testimony.
The 9/11 lawsuit was initially filed in 2002 but has faced years of legal obstacles. It was dismissed in 2005 on the grounds that Saudi Arabia enjoyed "sovereign immunity," and the dismissal was upheld on appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
But the same appellate court later reversed itself, ordering that the lawsuit be reinstated. The Saudi government appealed to the Supreme Court, but it declined to hear the case, so it was sent back to Federal District Court in Manhattan. The filing on Monday was in opposition to the latest motion by Saudi Arabia to have the case dismissed.
In a piece posted to his Consortium News site, independent journalist Robert Parry explores how the renewed focus on Saudi Arabia's role in exporting jihadist ideology and funding non-state militant groups is relevant, not just for those interested in the historic events of 9/11, but also for current geopolitical stratagems and conflicts now underway across the Middle East and beyond.
Parry acknowledges that "Moussaoui's credibility came under immediate attack from the Saudi kingdom" but says that fact that some of his assertions "mesh with accounts from members of the U.S. Congress who have seen a secret portion of the 9/11 report," raises important questions about allegations over Saudi Arabia's continued support for al-Qaeda and similar groups now operating in the region.
Complicating the predicament for Saudi Arabia, writes Parry, "is that, more recently, Saudi and other Persian Gulf oil sheikdoms have been identified as backers of Sunni militants fighting in Syria to overthrow the largely secular regime of President Bashar al-Assad. The major rebel force benefiting from this support is al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria.
"In other words, the Saudis appear to have continued a covert relationship with al-Qaeda-connected jihadists to the present day."
Following developments this week in which the alleged 20th hijacker of the 9/11 attacks in 2001 claimed in a stated deposition that prominent officials within the Saudi government offered substantial financial support for al Qaeda in the years prior to the plot against targets in New York City and Washington, D.C., renewed calls are emerging for the U.S. government to declassify a chapter of the official 9/11 Commission Report which is thought to detail its conclusions about the role Saudi Arabian higher-ups may or may not have played in those events.
Fifteen of the nineteen identified hijackers were Saudi nationals and questions have long-simmered about what, if any, knowledge Saudi officials may have had about the attack or--more contentiously--if any members of the nation's royal family or intelligence services may have played an active role in financing or enabling it.
According to reporting by Carl Hulse at the New York Times on Thursday:
A still-classified section of the investigation by congressional intelligence committees into the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has taken on an almost mythic quality over the past 13 years -- 28 pages that examine crucial support given the hijackers and that by all accounts implicate prominent Saudis in financing terrorism.
Now new claims by Zacarias Moussaoui, a convicted former member of Al Qaeda, that he had high-level contact with officials of the Saudi Arabian government in the prelude to Sept. 11 have brought renewed attention to the inquiry's withheld findings, which lawmakers and relatives of those killed in the attacks have tried unsuccessfully to declassify.
"I think it is the right thing to do," said Representative Stephen F. Lynch, Democrat of Massachusetts and an author of a bipartisan resolution encouraging President Obama to declassify the section. "Let's put it out there."
According to the Guardian's Jason Burke, Moussaoui's "new testimony has some largely uncontroversial elements that ring true - and plenty more controversial allegations that do not."
VICE News reports:
In December 2013, House Representatives Walter Jones (R-NC) and Stephen Lynch (D-MA) introduced a resolution calling on President Obama to release the pages, part of the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001. Despite claims from family members that Obama promised to do so, the portion remains classified.
The Saudi government has always denied culpability and itself urged that the 28 pages be made public, a request that was denied by the Bush administration. However, members of Congress who have seen the pages say they show damning intelligence gathered on Saudi individuals. Made public, the redacted portions could prove that the Bush administration knew, perhaps not of a large scale conspiracy emanating from the royal family, but at least of significant Saudi involvement -- even as they drew not so subtle links to 9/11 in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
"The recent testimony by Mr. Moussaoui is further reason to declassify the 28 pages of the Joint Inquiry report," Jones told VICE News. "The contents of the pages do not pose a threat to national security but deal with relations the Bush administration had before 9/11."
However, as a separate article in the Times, this one by Ben Hubbard and Scott Shane, notes "Mr. Moussaoui's sensational allegations have drawn attention in part because far more credible figures, including some members of the national 9/11 Commission, believe the Saudi role in the attacks has never been adequately examined."
Those more "credible figures" of the 9/11 Commission include former senators Bob Graham of Florida and Bob Kerrey of Nebraska as well as John Lehman, who previously served as secretary of the U.S. Navy. All three men have signed affidavits as part of an ongoing legal challenge to get that 28-page portion of the commission's report released.
"I am convinced that there was a direct line between at least some of the terrorists who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks and the government of Saudi Arabia," wrote Mr. Graham in his statement to the court, which was entered during proceedings on Monday of this week.
According to a separate report by Shane at the Times, filed on Wednesday:
Mr. Kerrey said in the affidavit that it was "fundamentally inaccurate and misleading" to argue, as lawyers for Saudi Arabia have, that the 9/11 Commission exonerated the Saudi government.
The three former officials' statements did not address Mr. Moussaoui's testimony.
The 9/11 lawsuit was initially filed in 2002 but has faced years of legal obstacles. It was dismissed in 2005 on the grounds that Saudi Arabia enjoyed "sovereign immunity," and the dismissal was upheld on appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
But the same appellate court later reversed itself, ordering that the lawsuit be reinstated. The Saudi government appealed to the Supreme Court, but it declined to hear the case, so it was sent back to Federal District Court in Manhattan. The filing on Monday was in opposition to the latest motion by Saudi Arabia to have the case dismissed.
In a piece posted to his Consortium News site, independent journalist Robert Parry explores how the renewed focus on Saudi Arabia's role in exporting jihadist ideology and funding non-state militant groups is relevant, not just for those interested in the historic events of 9/11, but also for current geopolitical stratagems and conflicts now underway across the Middle East and beyond.
Parry acknowledges that "Moussaoui's credibility came under immediate attack from the Saudi kingdom" but says that fact that some of his assertions "mesh with accounts from members of the U.S. Congress who have seen a secret portion of the 9/11 report," raises important questions about allegations over Saudi Arabia's continued support for al-Qaeda and similar groups now operating in the region.
Complicating the predicament for Saudi Arabia, writes Parry, "is that, more recently, Saudi and other Persian Gulf oil sheikdoms have been identified as backers of Sunni militants fighting in Syria to overthrow the largely secular regime of President Bashar al-Assad. The major rebel force benefiting from this support is al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria.
"In other words, the Saudis appear to have continued a covert relationship with al-Qaeda-connected jihadists to the present day."
"The antitrust division has long worked to enforce the law to fight monopoly power, but these attorneys may have been fired for doing just that," said Sen. Amy Klobuchar.
The Trump Justice Department has removed two of its top antitrust officials amid infighting over the handling of merger enforcement, conflict that came to a head with the DOJ's strange and allegedly corrupt settlement with Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks.
CBS News reported that Roger Alford, principal deputy assistant attorney general, and Bill Rinner, deputy assistant attorney general and head of merger enforcement, were fired for "insubordination" on Monday after being placed on administrative leave last week.
"There has been tension over the handling of investigations into T-Mobile, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and others," the outlet reported, citing unnamed sources.
The Wall Street Journal subsequently reported that the two officials—both deputies of Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater, the head of the DOJ's antitrust division—were terminated "after internal disagreements over how much discretion their division should have to police mergers and other business conduct that threatens competition."
News of Alford and Rinner's firings came amid growing scrutiny of the Justice Department's merger settlement with Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks, an agreement that reportedly divided the DOJ internally.
The Capitol Forum reported last week that Justice Department leaders including Chad Mizelle, Attorney General Pam Bondi's chief of staff, "overruled" top antitrust officials who raised concerns about the settlement, Slater among them. HPE hired lobbyists with ties to the Trump White House to push for the deal, which allowed the merger to move forward pending a judge's review of the settlement.
MLex reported over the weekend that Mizelle placed Alford and Ginner on leave last week following "disagreements with higher-ups over a recent merger settlement in HPE-Juniper."
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who serves on the Senate Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights, called the firings "deeply concerning" and demanded answers from the Trump administration.
"The antitrust division has long worked to enforce the law to fight monopoly power, but these attorneys may have been fired for doing just that," Klobuchar wrote on social media.
Faiz Shakir, an adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), wrote in response to the firings that "more and more people [are] taking notice that Trump is using his power to coddle the oligarchs."
"Major cases being settled, rather than fought out in trials," he wrote. "Nothing new being filed to fight major monopolies. Things like non-compete bans and click-to-cancel rules being overturned."
The American Prospect's David Dayen described the internal turmoil at the Trump DOJ as an apparent "effort to hijack antitrust powers on behalf of large corporations."
"This mess is about more than just a wireless back-office infrastructure merger," Dayen wrote, referring to the HPE-Juniper deal. "The antitrust division is actively overseeing cases against Google, Apple, Visa, Live Nation, RealPage, and more."
"If Slater is functionally not in control of the division, then cash and favor-trading will determine the outcomes for some of the biggest companies in the economy," Dayen added. "We're already seeing lenient enforcement at DOJ, with a deal between T-Mobile and UScellular approved. The precedent appears to be set: The right consultants paid the right amount of money can get you a sweetheart deal."
"President Trump's deal to take a $400 million luxury jet from a foreign government deserves full public scrutiny—not a stiff-arm from the Department of Justice," said the head of one watchdog group.
With preparations to refit a Qatari jet to be used as Air Force One "underway," a press freedom group sued the U.S. Department of Justice in federal court on Monday for failing to release the DOJ memorandum about the legality of President Donald Trump accepting the $400 million "flying palace."
The Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), represented by nonpartisan watchdog American Oversight, filed the lawsuit seeking the memo, which was reportedly approved by the Office of Legal Counsel and signed by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, who previously lobbied on behalf of the Qatari government.
FPF had submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the memo on May 15, and the DOJ told the group that fulfilling it would take over 600 days.
"How many flights could Trump have taken on his new plane in the same amount of time it would have taken the DOJ to release this one document?"
"It shouldn't take 620 days to release a single, time-sensitive document," said Lauren Harper, FPF's Daniel Ellsberg chair on government secrecy, in a Monday statement. "How many flights could Trump have taken on his new plane in the same amount of time it would have taken the DOJ to release this one document?"
The complaint—filed in the District of Columbia—notes that the airplane is set to be donated to Trump's private presidential library foundation after his second term. Harper said that "the government's inability to administer FOIA makes it too easy for agencies to keep secrets, and nonexistent disclosure rules around donations to presidential libraries provide easy cover for bad actors and potential corruption."
It's not just FPF sounding the alarm about the aircraft. The complaint points out that "a number of stakeholders, including ethics experts and several GOP lawmakers, have questioned the propriety and legality of the move, including whether acceptance of the plane would violate the U.S. Constitution's foreign emoluments clause... which prohibits a president from receiving gifts or benefits from foreign governments without the consent of Congress."
Some opponents of the "comically corrupt" so-called gift stressed that it came after the Trump Organization, the Saudi partner DarGlobal, and a company owned by the Qatari government reached a deal to build a luxury golf resort in Qatar.
Despite some initial GOP criticism of the president taking the aircraft, just hours after the Trump administration formally accepted the jet in May, U.S. Senate Republicans thwarted an attempt by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to pass by unanimous consent legislation intended to prevent a foreign plane from serving as Air Force One.
"Although President Trump characterized the deal as a smart business decision, remarking that it would be 'stupid' not to accept 'a free, very expensive airplane,' experts have noted that it will be costly to retrofit the jet for use as Air Force One, with estimatesranging from less than $400 million to more than $1 billion," the complaint states.
As The New York Times reported Sunday:
Officially, and conveniently, the price tag has been classified. But even by Washington standards, where "black budgets" are often used as an excuse to avoid revealing the cost of outdated spy satellites and lavish end-of-year parties, the techniques being used to hide the cost of Mr. Trump's pet project are inventive.
Which may explain why no one wants to discuss a mysterious, $934 million transfer of funds from one of the Pentagon's most over-budget, out-of-control projects—the modernization of America's aging, ground-based nuclear missiles...
Air Force officials privately concede that they are paying for renovations of the Qatari Air Force One with the transfer from another the massively-over-budget, behind-schedule program, called the Sentinel.
Preparations to refit the plane "are underway, and floor plans or schematics have been seen by senior U.S. officials," according to Monday reporting by CBS News. One unnamed budget official who spoke to the outlet also "believes the money to pay for upgrades will come from the Sentinel program."
Chioma Chukwu, executive director of American Oversight, said Monday that "President Trump's deal to take a $400 million luxury jet from a foreign government deserves full public scrutiny—not a stiff-arm from the Department of Justice."
"This is precisely the kind of corrupt arrangement that public records laws are designed to expose," Chukwu added. "The DOJ cannot sit on its hands and expect the American people to wait years for the truth while serious questions about corruption, self-dealing, and foreign influence go unanswered."
The complaint highlights that "Bondi's decision not to recuse herself from this matter, despite her links to the Qatari government, adds to a growing body of questionable ethical practices that have arisen during her short tenure as attorney general."
It also emphasizes that "the Qatari jet is just one in a list of current and prospective extravagant donations to President Trump's presidential library foundation that has raised significant questions about the use of private foundation donations to improperly influence government policy."
"Notably, ABC News and Paramount each agreed to resolve cases President Trump filed against the media entities by paying multimillion-dollar settlements to the Trump presidential library foundation, with Paramount's $16 million agreed payout coming at the same time it sought government approval for a planned merger with Skydance," the filing details. "On July 24, the Federal Communications Commission announced its approval of the $8 billion merger."
"The Trump regime just handed Christian nationalists a loaded weapon: your federal workplace," said one critic.
The Trump administration issued a memo Monday allowing federal employees to proselytize in the workplace, a move welcomed by many conservatives but denounced by proponents of the separation of church and state.
The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) memo "provides clear guidance to ensure federal employees may express their religious beliefs through prayer, personal items, group gatherings, and conversations without fear of discrimination or retaliation."
"Employees must be allowed to engage in private religious expression in work areas to the same extent that they may engage in nonreligious private expression," the memo states.
Federal workers "should be permitted to display and use items used for religious purposes or icons of a religiously significant nature, including but not limited to bibles, artwork, jewelry, posters displaying religious messages, and other indicia of religion (such as crosses, crucifixes, and mezuzahs) on their desks, on their person, and in their assigned workspaces," the document continues.
"Employees may engage in conversations regarding religious topics with fellow employees, including attempting to persuade others of the correctness of their own religious views, provided that such efforts are not harassing in nature," OPM said—without elaborating on what constitutes harassment.
"These shocking changes essentially permit workplace evangelizing."
"Employees may also encourage their coworkers to participate in religious expressions of faith, such as prayer, to the same extent that they would be permitted to encourage coworkers participate in other personal activities," the memo adds.
OPM Director Scott Kupor said in a statement that "federal employees should never have to choose between their faith and their career."
"This guidance ensures the federal workplace is not just compliant with the law but welcoming to Americans of all faiths," Kupor added. "Under President [Donald] Trump's leadership, we are restoring constitutional freedoms and making government a place where people of faith are respected, not sidelined."
The OPM memo was widely applauded by conservative social media users—although some were dismayed that the new rules also apply to Muslims.
Critics, however, blasted what the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) called "a gift to evangelicals and the myth of 'anti-Christian bias.'"
FFRF co-president Laurie Gaylor said that "these shocking changes essentially permit workplace evangelizing, but worse still, allow supervisors to evangelize underlings and federal workers to proselytize the public they serve."
"This is the implementation of Christian nationalism in our federal government," Gaylor added.
The Secular Coalition for America denounced the memo as "another effort to grant privileges to certain religions while ignoring nonreligious people's rights."
Monday's memo follows another issued by Kupor on July 16 that encouraged federal agencies to take a "generous approach" to evaluating government employees who request telework and other flexibilities due to their religious beliefs.
The OPM directives follow the U.S. Supreme Court's 2023 Groff v. DeJoy ruling, in which the court's right-wing majority declared that Article VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 "requires an employer that denies a religious accommodation to show that the burden of granting an accommodation would result in substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business."
The new memo also comes on the heels of three religion-based executive orders issued by Trump during his second term. One order established a White House Faith Office tasked with ensuring religious organizations have a voice in the federal government. Another seeks to "eradicate" what Trump claims is the "anti-Christian weaponization of government." Yet another created a Religious Liberty Commission meant to promote and protect religious freedom.