US whistleblowers say they were fired for raising fair housing concerns

Two attorneys in the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) anti-discrimination division said they were fired on Monday, a week after going public with a whistleblower report alleging that the Trump administration had dismantled efforts to combat residential segregation.

Paul Osadebe and Palmer Heenan worked in Hud’s Office of Fair Housing (OFH), which is tasked with bringing cases against parties accused of discriminating against tenants and homebuyers under a landmark civil rights law. In a report sent last month to Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren, Heenan, Osadebe and two anonymous colleagues wrote that fighting discrimination under the Fair Housing Act of 1968 was “not a priority” for the administration, and that their office had been targeted for downsizing because it presented an “optics problem”.

On Monday, Osadebe was called into a meeting with HUD managers, who informed him he was being placed on leave in anticipation of firing. A document he was given cited interviews he had given to the New York Times and Washington Post as violating department policy.

“This was purely for whistleblowing activity. There was nothing about conduct, performance, any of that,” Osadebe said in an interview. “They said, this is why we’re firing you, because you spoke out. They are as blatant as can be about it.”

Heenan, who was in the probationary phase of his employment, was fired in a similar meeting for “the disclosure of non-public information”, according to a letter he was given by HUD.

The department’s press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate committee on banking, housing, and urban affairs, said in a statement following the firings: “Donald Trump doesn’t want Americans to know that his administration is engaged in a systemic attack on their rights.

“So the Trump administration is silencing those who are speaking out about how Donald Trump and Scott Turner [the HUD secretary] are turning their backs on the American people, including women experiencing domestic violence, families being denied mortgages because of the color of their skin, and older folks who need extra help getting down the stairs.”

Heenan and Osadebe were recently told they would be moved out of the OFH, which had already lost several staff members and was poised to shrink further through a series of reassignments. Last week, they and three other colleagues sued Turner to prevent the transfers, arguing they were part of the effort to undermine enforcement of the law.

“Although we knew we were taking a risk, I am still surprised that this administration would violate the whistleblower statute so blatantly,” Heenan said, referring to federal law intended to protect employees who make reports like theirs.

“I’m not going to stop speaking out. I’m not going to stop fighting because these rights are just too damn important.”