I want to
add this update (from SALON.com) of the following main article that follows. Both have
the same general topic but with this update a scarier and very worrisome introduction
headline and clearer contents:
“Trump’s 2025 plan includes a nightmare
list of Cabinet picks — and purge of career officials: report”
Trump's top allies are preparing to purge potentially thousands of career civil servants and install MAGA loyalists in key administration positions if he wins the 2024 presidential election, according to Axios (follows and referenced below).
“Trumpworld” is already lining up names of
loyalists to fill top jobs if Trump returns to the White House in 2025,
including former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, who tried to take over the DOJ to
help Trump overturn his election loss on January 6.
Other names for top
administration roles include Kash Patel, a former top aide to former Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) (now Trump’s
Truth Social CEO) and who helped run interference in the Mueller probe; former Trade
Adviser Peter Navarro, who played a key role in pushing Trump's “Big Lie” about the 2020
election; and Stephen Miller, the
architect of Trump's controversial family separation policy and hard
immigration policies.
Trump's allies aren't just thinking about the top jobs —
they're also plotting a purge of career civil servants by radically overhauling
labor protections for tens of thousands of career officials. The plan appears
similar to one pushed by Ginni Thomas (Justice Thomas’ wife), who made detailed lists of disloyal
officials to oust during Trump's tenure.
Axios' Jonathan Swan reported: “The impact could go well beyond typical conservative targets such as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Internal Revenue Service. Trump allies are working on plans that would potentially strip layers at the DOJ, the FBI, all National Security, Intelligence, State Department, and the Pentagon.”
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The Original Story Post: Subject is more promised from a possible Trump second term in office as reported on here from Axios with this headline that should worry everyone in Federal government civilian service or for those contemplating getting a federal government job:
“A
radical plan for Trump’s second term”
FYI: 5 USC PART III, Subpart B,
CHAPTER 33, SUBCHAPTER II: OATH OF
OFFICE
Title 5 — GOVERNMENT
ORGANIZATION AND EMPLOYEES
SUBCHAPTER II—OATH OF
OFFICE
§3331. Oath of office:
An individual, except the President, elected, or appointed to an office
of honor, or profit in the civil service, or uniformed services, shall take the
following oath:
“I, full name, do solemnly
swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution
of the United States against all enemies, foreign, and domestic; that I will
bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation
freely, without any mental reservation, or purpose of evasion; and that I will
well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to
enter. So help me God.”
NOTE: Not an oath to support and defend any man, woman, or
political party, but oath to the United States and Constitution and nothing
else.
The issue: In
the final days of his presidency, Trump quietly attempted to reshape the
federal government in his image: He issued an executive order giving him
the power to fire essentially any civil servant at will.
Trump
and his allies are preparing to reshape the federal government by purging thousands
of civil servants and filling their career posts with those loyal to Trump’s ideology.
The Impact:
If Trump were to regain office, or a like-minded Trump sycophant wants to
follow this lead for civil service employees: Lawmakers know that Trump, if he
is elected again, wants to give himself the power to fire any and or all key
federal workers.
That could go well beyond typical conservative targets
such as the EPA and the IRS. Trump and is allies worked on plans that would
potentially strip layers at the DOJ, in the FBI, and reach into national
security, intelligence, the State Department, and the Pentagon to enable him to
fire employees at will for no reason than political.
The heart of this extremely radical and dangerous plan is derived from Trump’s EO known as Schedule F developed and refined in secret over most of the second half of Trump’s term and launched 13 days before the 2020 election.
That attempt was thwarted by the election of Joe Biden.
But in
laying out a 2024 presidential bid and a White House comeback, Trump has vowed
to enact that order again immediately with his Schedule F plan.
Congress has the power to block him — or any other president
— from executing those plans. But it’s increasingly looking like they won’t use
it.
The House of Representatives passed legislation to codify civil service protections, with six Republicans joining all Democrats in voting yes.
But in the Senate, where 10 GOP senators would be needed to vote in favor,
the prospects for the legislation are grim.
Trump’s intention is to stack mid-level civil service jobs with people
who pledge loyalty to him and to no one or anything else.
Well-funded groups are already developing lists of candidates selected often for their animus against the system — in line with Trump’s long-running obsession with “draining the swamp.”
This
includes building extensive databases of people vetted as being committed to
Trump and his agenda and not their oath to public service.
The preparations are far more advanced and ambitious than
previously reported. What is happening now is an inversion of the slapdash and
virtually non-existent infrastructure surrounding Trump ahead of his what had
in store to implement in his 2017 presidential transition plan.
Trump allied groups operate on multiple fronts: Shaping policies, identifying top lieutenants, curating an alternative labor force of unprecedented scale, and preparing for legal challenges and defenses that might go before Trump-friendly judges, all the way to a 6-3 Supreme Court.
New presidents typically get to replace more than 4,000 so-called
“political” appointees to oversee the running of their administrations.
Below this rotating layer of political appointees sits a mass of government workers who enjoy strong employment protections — and typically continue their service from one administration to the next, regardless of party affiliation.
Officials who came up with Schedule F found it could
apply to as many as 50,000 federal workers large enough to have a profound role
and impact on shaping American life.
Trump, could fire tens of thousands of career government officials with no recourse for appeals.
He could replace them with
people he believes are more loyal to him and to his agenda. Even if Trump did
not deploy Schedule F to this extent, the very fact that such power exists
could create a significant chilling effect on government employees.
It would effectively upend the modern civil service, triggering a shock wave across the bureaucracy. The next president might then move to gut those pro-Trump ranks — and face the question of whether to replace them with her or his own loyalists, or revert to a traditional bureaucracy.
Such pendulum swings and politicization could threaten the continuity and quality of service to taxpayers, the regulatory protections, the checks on executive power, and other aspects of American democracy. Trump’s allies claim such pendulum swings will not happen because they will not have to fire anything close to 50,000 federal workers to achieve the result, as one source put it, of “behavior change.”
Firing a
small segment of “bad apples” among career officials at each agency would have a
chilling effect on others tempted to obstruct Trump’s orders.
My 2 cents: Such an action by Trump would totally and completely
destroy the Federal government’s system and by extension our whole American
democratic way of life.
Of course the Steven
Bannon’s of MAGA, Inc. and others of that same mindset and ilk will praise this
as finally “draining the swamp,” or as Bannon once said: “To deconstruct everything
and build it back in Trump’s image [sic].”
I can’t even imagine or believe
that something like that would or could happen, but if it were, I hope I am not
around to see it.
That is hyperbole, either – it’s my honest assessment of the love I have for our country and all we stand for as good decent people and not Trump sycophants.
I shed blood for our country as a now retired Marine. I then went on to serve the nation and public in various DOD positions for a total of 44 years.
Now to even contemplate our country being under the control of an autocrat like Trump who is by all medical definitions a sociopath and pathological liar at the helm is utterly unthinkable to me and I hope to you, too.
My earlier related post – FYI.
Thanks for stopping by.
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