Cabaniss had been at the agency only since September.

The departure casts a cloud of uncertainty over the federal workforce as it struggles to decide how to handle the coronavirus outbreak, with growing questions about the Trump administration's decision to keep most government offices open and how it is handling remote work.

OPM is the human resources management policy shop for the federal government’s civil service, and it deals with health benefits and retirement, among other issues. Cabaniss is a former Republican staff director of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee’s subcommittee on financial services and general government and was chairman of the Federal Labor Relations Authority in the Bush administration. Cabaniss didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

McEntee's return to the White House has roiled the administration with some officials criticizing the former Trump campaign staffer for what they see as an effort to stock the administration with his friends, including at least three college seniors. McEntee has not responded to questions on stories touching on the hires.

Within the past week, Jonathan Blyth is also no longer chief of staff at OPM and has moved back to OPM’s congressional affairs shop, which he now heads, according to two people familiar with his move, one of which said it reflects McEntee’s growing clout within the administration.

Adding to the tension: The White House has hired a third college senior to be an administration official in a sensitive post, according to four people familiar with the matter.

As some prominent Democrats call for the military to help out more with the response to the coronavirus crisis, John Troup Hemenway has been hired on a 30-day detail to help the deputy director of the Presidential Personnel Office, Michael Burley, with paperwork for Defense Department political appointees, according to one of the people. Hemenway is expected to graduate from the University of Virginia in December.

Hemenway, who is in his 20s and started last week, is the third college senior to be hired in short order by the White House. One administration official praised him by saying he’s “really good at what he does.”

James Bacon, 23 and a senior at George Washington University, was hired to be one of McEntee’s righthand men as he tries to fill the Trump administration with loyalists and fire anyone who they suspect of disloyalty.

Anthony Labruna, who is expected to graduate from Iowa State University in May but was dismissed from the Trump campaign in February, was also recently named deputy White House liaison at the Department of Commerce.

Hemenway, who worked on the Trump campaign in 2016, got his start in the Trump administration when he was on the “beachhead” transition team at the Department of Defense and then worked in Department of Defense's White House liaison's office, according to an administration official. At various points during his time at the Defense Department, Hemenway was working to finish his degree, according to two administration officials. He has also worked for Michael Griffin, under secretary of Defense for research and engineering. Hemenway didn’t respond to a request for comment.

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Some officials see the hiring of Dans — a lawyer who previously worked in New York and recently started at the agency, according to two people familiar with the matter — as yet another affront. The job of White House liaison generally entails matching qualified people with political vacancies at an agency and moving appointees in and out of positions when needed.

Dans has “clearly come with some kind of agenda,” said a person familiar with his hiring, who noted Dans doesn’t appear to have much of a background in Title V of the U.S. code, which deals with how the government is organized and how the federal civil service operates. Dans didn’t respond to a request for comment.

In his first weeks on the job, Dans has been meeting with various program offices to get a handle on what they all do. He previously was at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, where he was senior adviser in the Office of Community Planning & Development.

Dans began his legal career as an associate at two New York white-shoe law firms LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae and Debevoise & Plimpton. The American Lawyer reported that when he was working at a lesser-known law firm in 2009, he didn’t get a partnership, which led him to be offered work for the small Miami law firm Rivero Mestre to help out a lawyer for Chevron who had been indicted by Ecuador with a conspiracy to violate environmental rules. Once there, he played a significant role in the legal strategy of the Chevron-Ecuador case, which was one of the biggest civil litigations in history.

Dans is married to Mary Helen Bowers, a former New York ballet dancer who has also trained celebrities, including Natalie Portman for “Black Swan” and Zooey Deschanel, Kirsten Dunst and Miranda Kerr.

Dans is still going through the suitability background check but already is making some people nervous in his new agency, according to the person familiar with Dans’ hiring.

“He’s upsetting all kinds of apple carts without any basis of knowledge,” this person said.

