and Joe Biden walks into an empty West Wing?
We are already aware that, over the past four years, the federal government has lost experienced scientists, diplomats, and law enforcement personnel at all levels as a result of the Trump regimes mismanagement or harassment of skilled people.
We also know that the Trump regime is dead set on removing civil service protections for upper and middle level personnel as well. I believe that the president may have actually signed one of his executive orders to effect such a change. (side note: remember when the GOP was aghast at President Obama’s use of such orders?). So it should come as no surprise if President Trump begins to dismantle the federal agencies as he heads for the door.
And it apparently started last night:
The Trump administration has fired the heads of three federal agencies, in the wake of the 2020 US election.
The administration fired Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Bonnie Glick, deputy administrator of the US Agency for International Development, and Neil Chatterjee, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
Ms Gordon-Hagerty, who was on Donald Trump’s shortlist to replace former national security adviser John Bolton in 2019, was forced to resign on Friday, according to the New York Post. She was the first woman to oversee the National Nuclear Security Administration.
Republican senator Jim Inhofe, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, issued a statement on Friday, in which he said that the energy secretary Dan Brouillette “effectively demanded” Ms Gordon-Hagerty’s resignation.
Ms Glick was replaced by the acting administrator John Barsa, who had to step down from his more senior role under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, which limits how long someone can serve in a role.
While, Mr Chatterjee, who is a former aide to Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, was sacked as chairman, he will remain at the agency as a commissioner, according to NPR.
Obviously a new administration will replace senior directors and leadership with their own people. But this may be an indication that President Trump is testing a scorched earth policy before he leaves. To think that we should all be experiencing a sigh of relief over the Biden election…may be a short lived phenomenon. It seems odd that with 90 days left in his term that the president would be thinking about personnel changes…and it sucks that experience teaches me to think like this.
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