Big Tech Critic, Former Gaetz Attorney Join Federal HR Office

Attorneys who, separately, once accused Alphabet Inc.‘s Google of censoring Republican voices and represented former Florida congressman Matt Gaetz now hold key positions at the federal government’s HR office.

Noah Peters, formerly a solicitor for the Federal Labor Relations Authority during the first Trump administration, joined the Office of Personnel Management, the federal government’s HR department, an OPM spokesperson said. The FLRA handles relations between labor and management for more than 2 million civilian federal employees.

Andrew Kloster is now OPM’s general counsel, the office’s spokesperson said. Kloster was counsel for Gaetz, according to payroll records. He served as OPM’s associate director during Trump’s first term starting in 2020, according to Bloomberg Government’s personnel directory. That year, President Donald Trump signed a directive making it easier for his administration to fire career employees who work across administrations, known as Schedule F. Trump signed a similar order last week.

The OPM has played a central role in Trump‘s push to shrink the federal workforce and curb government initiatives aimed at hiring more people from underrepresented groups, such as people of color and women. The acting head of the OPM instructed agencies last week to fire staff that work on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility programs. It also directed federal employees to report colleagues that try to “disguise” that work.

Peters represented former Google engineer Kevin Cernekee, who accused the company of treating Republican employees unfairly. Google punished Cernekee for dissenting from the company’s “very, very left-wing office culture,” Peters said in 2019. The case caught Trump’s attention after Cernekee appeared on Fox News.

Google later settled with the National Labor Relations Board.

Peters declined Bloomberg Law’s request for comment.