Trump’s DEI Snitch Email Is Being Targeted by Spammers
Various NGOs reported seeing the address added to their email lists. But they don’t think it’s Orwellian. They think it’s a prank.
THE EMAIL ACCOUNT SET UP BY THE Trump White House to encourage government employees to snitch on their DEI-promoting colleagues appears to be the target of a mass spamming campaign designed to overwhelm those administering it.
The day after the inauguration, Trump’s Office of Personnel and Management (OPM) issued a memo to government agencies tasking them with rooting out Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. The memo told recipients that if they were “aware of a change in any contract description or personnel position description since November 5, 2024 to obscure the connection between the contract and DEIA or similar ideologies,” they were to “report all facts and circumstances to DEIAtruth@opm.gov within 10 days.”
A number of prominent non-governmental groups have told The Bulwark that in the days that followed, they began seeing that email address—DEIAtruth@opm.gov—appearing on sign-up lists to receive their emails. Several officials were initially concerned that Trump White House officials were attempting to monitor their external communications in an effort to police whether or not the groups were promoting DEI initiatives or something approximating it.
But the consensus quickly changed when it became evident that the email address was being signed up not just for NGO newsletters but for a massive swath of listservs in what appears to be an attempt to make the email address’s inbox basically unnavigable. One Democratic operative said they discovered that the email had been added randomly to several Democratic party fundraising email lists after the people operating one such list got a bounceback reply suggesting that the account no longer worked. The Bulwark sent its own email to DEIAtruth@opm.gov and received no such auto-reply.
Others who have seen the email added to various group lists say they are confident it is not because the OPM is taking some sort of aggressive action to monitor communications but because very-online critics of the administration are trying to mess with them.
“Trump’s attempting to terrify and troll the entire country,” said Daniel Hunter, co-founder of Choose Democracy. “And the internet knows how to handle trolls.”
The Trump White House did not return a request for comment. But there is a fair bit of data to provide clues as to what type of material is being sent to the DEIAtruth@opm.gov account. People have suggested emailing the account Scientology emails, porn, the script of The Bee Movie, and warnings that unqualified, mediocre white people are being hired to head up important government agencies.
This type of tactic has been employed before. When the Trump administration unveiled an "immigration tip line" in 2018, operators were flooded with prank calls. The state of Texas set up an inbox to track requests to change gender markers on drivers’ licenses, and people responded by, again, sending the script of The Bee Movie. And when Trump’s 2020 campaign set up a voter fraud hotline (after the election had ended), it was reportedly inundated with people making fart noises.