Amidst the wave of layoffs affecting thousands of federal workers in Washington DC, an official from the Trump administration responsible for reducing bureaucracy seems to have been using her government office to create fashion influencer content.
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM), leading the efforts to downsize the federal workforce through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under the Trump administration, is facing a situation where its primary spokesperson is diverting from the intended message.
McLaurine Pinover, instead of advocating for the layoffs, has been consistently sharing videos on her social media to pursue her side gig as an Instagram fashion influencer, catering to her 800 followers.
In dozens of videos filmed directly inside her official OPM office, Pinover can be seen modeling sleek blazers, $475 skirts, and $300 dresses, tagging posts with #dcstyle and #dcinfluencer, while also linking to commission-based clothing sites.
Many of the posts appear to have been published on the very same days thousands of federal employees have been asked to justify their jobs or face termination.
Elon Musk, the leader of Donald Trump’s DOGE has already slashed staffing at several federal agencies, cut federal spending and in an unprecedented move emailed federal employees asking ‘what they got done last week’.
It appears Pinover has been posting videos of herself blowing kisses to the camera, twirling in ‘work looks,’ and marketing outfits, all from the agency headquarters leading the charge against government inefficiency.
Among the most galling examples: On February 13, when OPM reportedly laid off 20 members of Pinover’s own communications team and held meetings instructing agencies to ‘swiftly terminate poor performing employees,’ Pinover uploaded a video labeled ‘moment for mixed patterns.’
Just over two weeks later on February 28, as OPM sent out a government-wide email asking federal workers to write ‘five bullet points’ to justify their existence in the workforce, Pinover shared another fashion video, dubbed the ‘Businesswoman special’, showing off another pricey outfit to her followers.
Pinover has only been in her role as communications director for OPM for two months having been appointed in January but in that time she has been a lead voice backing Trump’s sweeping layoffs and buyout offers to tens of thousands of government workers.
Yet from in front of her desk on the fifth floor of OPM’s Washington, DC headquarters Pinover has been filming herself modeling outfits, applying makeup, and typing away on government computers in post after post.Â
In each clip, Pinover’s Instagram account linked followers directly to her ShopMy page, where they could buy the same clothes she was wearing usually from high-end brands like Reformation, Nordstrom, and Bloomingdale’s with ‘affiliate links’ earning her commissions on sales.
When CNN asked her about the videos, Pinover did not respond and instead deleted her entire Instagram account with the handle @getdressedwithmc vanishing.
Similarly her ShopMy page was also wiped clean, removing any trace of her fashionable side-hustle and a list once-carefully curated shopping links for her followers.
Pinover’s part-time modeling comes as as Elon Musk and his DOGE team push an aggressive campaign to eliminate what they deem ‘wasteful’ workers and root out ‘lazy’ civil servants.
DOGE has faced intense scrutiny in recent weeks for its chaotic handling of layoffs, particularly its firing of key federal employees only to attempt to rehire them later.
Among those affected were workers responsible for maintaining nuclear weapons sites across the US, a move that has raised serious national security concerns and Musk and his allies are now face mounting pressure to reassess their approach.
Last week revealed his next two targets as he moves to slash the size of the federal government.
He’s now looking at cutting the US Postal Service and the railway service Amtrak, but on Tuesday the US Department of Education said it would lay off nearly half its staff, a possible precursor to closing altogether, as government agencies scrambled to meet Trump’s deadline to submit plans for a second round of mass layoffs.
The terminations are part of the department’s ‘final mission’ it said, alluding to Trump’s vow to eliminate the department, which oversees $1.6 trillion in college loans, enforces civil rights laws in schools and provides federal funding for needy districts.
The layoffs would leave the department with 2,183 workers, down from 4,133 when Trump took office in January.
Similar closures served as a precursor to shuttering the headquarters of the US Agency for International Development, the humanitarian aid agency, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which protects Americans against unscrupulous lenders.
So far, DOGE has cut more than 100,000 jobs across the 2.3 million-member federal civilian bureaucracy, frozen most foreign aid and canceled thousands of programs and contracts, despite dozens of lawsuits challenging the legality of those moves.
DOGE’s blunt-force approach has frustrated several White House officials and Republican lawmakers, some of whom have confronted angry constituents at town halls.Â
Trump told department heads last week that they, not Musk, have the final say on staffing, his first notable public move to restrain the Tesla CEO.
All US government agencies have been ordered to come up with large-scale layoff plans by Thursday, setting up the next phase of Trump’s cost-cutting campaign.
Several agencies have offered employees payments to retire early to fulfill Trump’s demand.
Affected Education Department employees will be placed on administrative leave starting on March 21, the department said.
Trump and Musk have argued that the government is wasteful and bloated. DOGE claims it has saved $105 billion in cuts, but it has only publicly documented a fraction of those savings, and its accounting has been plagued by errors.
Other agencies have offered lump-sum payments of up to $25,000 before tax to workers who agree to leave their jobs.Â
Among these are the Office of Personnel Management, the Social Security Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services, including its Food and Drug Administration.
