Donald Trump is planning to force all federal employees to sign sweeping non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) in a dramatic bid to choke off leaks to journalists.
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the HR arm of the federal government, published a draft NDA on Tuesday to be handed to both new and existing staff across all agencies. Anyone who breaks the gag order faces being fired, banned from future federal employment, and hit with civil or criminal action.
It bars workers from disclosing any non-public, confidential or proprietary information 'whether marked as such', covering internal operations and personnel matters. The gag would follow employees for five years after they leave government service.
The Trump administration cites leaks to the New York Times and Washington Post ahead of the secret raid on Venezuela in January which 'put the lives of members of the armed forces at risk.' It also points to a federal employee who allegedly leaked the names, addresses and phone numbers of some 4,500 ICE employees, triggering what the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) says was an 8,000 percent surge in death threats.
DHS has already begun administering polygraph tests in a bid to root out leakers. OPM also pointed to the 2022 attempted assassination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, which came after a leaked draft opinion suggested the Supreme Court was poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 abortion ruling.
OPM Director Scott Kupor defended the move in a statement, saying: 'In much of the private sector, employees handling sensitive business or customer information are routinely required to sign confidentiality agreements, and the federal government should not be held to a lower standard.'
The hardline move is Trump's latest crackdown on federal workers following a spate of damaging leaks that preceded the ousting of four cabinet secretaries in the last three months.
Trump has waged an unprecedented legal war on the press, filing a barrage of lawsuits against major outlets since he returned to the White House in January. The President sued the BBC in December for $10 billion over a documentary, which stitched together two separate sections of his January 6 speech to give the impression he had urged the crowd to attack the Capitol. The broadcaster apologized and conceded its edit was a mistake, while two senior bosses resigned over the scandal.
That same month, Trump sued the Des Moines Register and its former top pollster J. Ann Selzer over a November 2024 survey that showed Kamala Harris leading him by three points in Iowa, a state he went on to win comfortably. He filed against the Wall Street Journal in July 2025 over its claim that his signature appeared on a 2003 birthday note to Jeffrey Epstein, complete with a drawing of a naked woman. A judge tossed the case in April, but Trump vowed to re-file.
FBI Director Kash Patel joined the fray last month, slapping the Atlantic with a $250 million defamation claim over a story alleging he had a drinking problem.
Federal law bans government retaliation against employees exposing fraud, abuse and misconduct to internal watchdogs and Congress. The NDA would not apply to such disclosures, according to the draft.
