The Last of the Watchdogs

On inauguration day, President Trump rescinded numerous Executive Orders from prior administrations including one in which appointees within each Executive Branch Agency was required to sign a pledge not to accept gifts from lobbyists, recuse themselves from matters related immediate former employers or clients for 2 years, and not to participate in any matter for which they lobbied the government as a registered lobbyist for 2 years. The pledge also required appointees upon leaving government not to communicate with their former agency or senior White House Senior Staff for 2 years, not to assist others to do so, not to lobby the U.S. government or on behalf of a foreign government or political party, not to accept a golden parachute payment coinciding with the acceptance of an appointment and to make employment decisions on their merits. The President has made a series of unorthodox appointments to head major government agencies including people who have publicly advocated for disbanding and/or radically changing those agencies and calling them “irredeemably corrupt” or other extremely derisive terminology. Also on inauguration day, the President pardoned ~1500 January 6th rioters and commuted the sentences of 14 others.  Then, the DOJ mandated that the FBI turn over the names of all FBI personnel who participated in the January 6th investigations and fired or threatened to fire anyone who refused to comply.  This was preceded by over a dozen firings of senior FBI and DOJ officials who played a substantive role in the January 6th investigations and prosecutions. Ultimately, the names of ~5000 FBI personnel were turned over without much assurance that their names wouldn’t be publicly released posing genuine safety concerns.  But perhaps the biggest body blow to the federal law enforcement community came on January 24, 2025 when President Trump fired 16 inspectors general of the 16 largest, most complex U.S. government agencies and a 17th, the IG for USAID Paul Martin, 2 weeks later. In case that purge wasn’t enough to upend the government’s ability to police itself, Hampton Dellinger, the head of the Office of Special Counsel and David Huitema, Director of the Office of Government Ethics were also fired.  And the upheaval continues unabated.