Furloughed federal workers aren’t guaranteed compensation for their forced time off during the government shutdown, according to a draft White House memo described to Axios by three sources.
Why it matters: If the White House acts on that legal analysis, it would dramatically escalate President Trump’s pressure on Senate Democrats to end the week-old shutdown by denying back pay to as many as 750,000 federal workers after the shutdown.
He is banking on the extremely strong taboo in the US military against interfering in politics which has been established over generations. They will of course burn through that protection at a far faster rate than it was built, but they will likely still get away with this.