The communications director for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was recently caught doubling as a fashion influencer on social media — while using her government office as a backdrop in an apparent violation of federal rules.
That’s according to a Tuesday article in CNN, which reported that McLaurine Pinover posted videos of herself modeling clothing to her Instagram account from her OPM office. Some of those videos included affiliate links to sites where the clothing she was wearing was being sold. Pinover was eligible to be paid commission based on site visitors who bought those clothing items after clicking the links from Pinover’s videos.
On February 13 — the same day OPM held a call with multiple federal agencies instructing them to fire thousands of probationary employees — Pinover posted another fashion-related video to her Instagram account. Several former OPM staffers said that was also the same day that roughly 20 of Pinover’s coworkers in the agency’s communications office were laid off.
Pinover added content to her Instagram account regularly, where she had approximately 800 followers, and her most recent video was posted Tuesday. One former OPM communications staffer recognized the background as the office of the agency’s communications director, who said: “I saw it, and I was like, ‘Are you kidding me, that’s my office.'”
South African centibillionaire Elon Musk, who unofficially leads the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has asserted on multiple occasions that federal agencies are rife with unproductive employees. In January, he posted to his X social media platform: “Pretending to work while taking money from taxpayers is no longer acceptable.”
Click here to read CNN’s full report.
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