Welcome To The 21st Century American Kleptocracy
Since the dawn of organized governance, those who operate outside the law have sought to bend the forces of justice to their will— whether through bribery, coercion or outright control. We are not talking about this, but from the emperors of Rome purging disloyal senators and turning the Praetorian Guard into a personal enforcer to medieval kings using inquisitions to silence dissent, to 20th-century fascist regimes weaponizing the police and judiciary against political enemies, the criminal mind has always dreamed of mastering law enforcement rather than fearing it.
Right now, two of the world’s most notorious criminals, Elon Musk and Señor T, are “taking aim at federal offices that investigate government malfeasance and protect workers from retribution, summarily firing and replacing five top ethics officials this week in an apparent attempt to consolidate their power over the sprawling federal bureaucracy. Colby Itkowitz, Yvonne Sanchez, Olivia George reported that “Among those fired in the past week: the head of the Office of Government Ethics, which polices high-ranking officials suspected of violating conflict-of-interest rules; the leader of the Office of Special Counsel, which investigates whistleblower reports from government workers— and protects those workers from retribution; the inspector general of the U.S. Agency for International Development, who just Monday released a reort detailing the cost to taxpayers of Trump’s effort to dismantle the agency; the chairwoman of the Merit Systems Protection Board, which hears appeals to firings and other disciplinary actions against federal employees; and the chairwoman of the Federal Labor Relations Authority, which protects federal employee unions from actions taken against them.”
How long— if ever— will it take for MAGA voters to understand that “Trump intends to flout the normal guardrails— and, in some cases, federal law— that constrain public officials [?] Trump has pledged to root out government waste, fraud and abuse, but advocates noted that he is systematically eliminating many of the internal mechanisms already tasked with doing that work. ‘It’s creating a lawless environment in the federal government,’ said Max Stier, president and chief executive of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan group that advocates for a stronger federal government. ‘There’s no truth to the idea that what they’re trying to do is make the system work better.’
“Adding to the concern,” they wrote, “is Trump’s decision to name Douglas Collins, the former U.S. congressman from Georgia recently confirmed to the Cabinet-level position leading the Department of Veterans Affairs, to lead the Office of Special Counsel and the Office of Government Ethics on an interim basis. Critics questioned Collins’s ability to lead three critical agencies at once and denounced the installment of such an ardent Trump loyalist into positions that demand independence. ‘Their plan is quite obviously to remove whoever they want if they disagree with them, even if it’s over political reasons, and make them sue,’ said Kevin Owen, an attorney who works on worker protection laws. He said the firings mark an escalation in the Trump administration’s ‘assault’ on the federal workforce.”
Among the Senate Democrats who voted to confirm Collins were all the ones who lean in a conservative direction whenever it’s safe to like Michael Bennett (CO), Ruben Gallego (AZ), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), Catherine Cortez Masto (NV), Mark Kelly (AZ), John Hickenlooper (CO), Tim Kaine (VA), Jacky Rosen (NV) and worst of all, John Fetterman (PA), Jeanne Shaheen (NH), Maggie Hassan (NH) and Elissa Slotkin (MI).
Trump’s actions already face challenges, primarily around the question of whether he is defying federal law intended to protect government workers and, in some cases, agency heads from arbitrary or politically motivated dismissals.
Hampton Dellinger, the head of the Office of Special Counsel who was fired last Friday in a one-sentence email sent “on behalf” of Trump, sued the Trump administration on Monday, saying his termination was illegal because it violated a law that shields the leaders of independent agencies from removal by the president, “except in cases of neglect of duty, malfeasance or inefficiency.” A federal judge issued a temporary stay allowing him to keep his position in the interim as the case proceeds.
Cathy Harris also sued, on Tuesday, after Trump fired her the previous day from her perch atop Merit Systems Protection Board, which hears appeals to firings and other disciplinary actions against federal employees.
The Office of Government Ethics announced Monday on its website that Trump had terminated its director, David Huitema. Like Dellinger, Huitema was confirmed by the Senate last year to a five-year term.
Susan Tsui Grundmann, chairwoman of the Federal Labor Relations Authority, which protects federal employee unions from actions taken against them, also received her notice of termination earlier this week.
The dismissals come on the heels of Trump’s mass firing of 18 inspectors general working within government agencies to identify waste and abuse. Inspectors general have fewer protections and can be removed by the president without cause, but Congress is supposed to receive at least 30 days’ notice of a termination. Several of those fired in the latest round have sued the administration and said they are confident of their legal recourse.
…Some critics likened the current pace of firings to the atmosphere during the presidency of Richard Nixon, who during the Watergate scandal in 1973 infamously ordered the firing of special prosecutor Archibald Cox, the lead investigator of the president’s role in the break-in. Cox had refused Nixon’s request to drop a subpoena of his White House tape recordings. But top Justice Department officials in turn refused to fire Cox, resigning instead, in an episode that became known as the Saturday Night Massacre and that contributed to the filing of impeachment charges against Nixon 10 days later.
Don Fox, a former general counsel of the Office of Government Ethics and a former acting director of the office who worked with both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, said the removals by Trump “would take us back to the Nixon days and an imperial presidency, and when the law and what it meant was whatever Nixon’s White House said it was. There really were no checks and balances.”
Appointees to independent boards and commissions cannot be fired without cause, making Trump’s firing of Harris and Grundmann illegal, critics said. A similar law is in place for terminating the special counsel, which is what Dellinger argued in his lawsuit that got him temporarily reinstated.
But there are no such protections for the director of the government ethics office. Inspectors general also can be removed by the president without cause, but Congress is supposed to receive at least 30 days notice of a termination, which Trump did not provide in those cases.
Dellinger’s firing is “particularly odious because he’s cutting off the champion of the whistleblowers,” said Norm Eisen, chairman of the State Democracy Defenders Fund, a nonpartisan democracy watchdog group that has organized lawsuits against Trump.
Firing federal workers is a huge piece of Trump’s agenda to shrink the federal government. On Tuesday, the president signed an executive order telling agencies to prepare for “large-scale reductions.” Elon Musk, the tech billionaire who is leading the U.S. DOGE Service, also known as the Department of Government Efficiency, was by his side.
The implication for firing these watchdogs is a “catastrophic end” of accountability inside the executive branch, Shaub said. Purging the federal government, he said, is the first step to authoritarianism so there will be “no one left to say, ‘I won’t follow this illegal order,’ and no one left to point out that ‘this is illegal,’ and no one left to blow the whistle on the illegality.”
“Once you lose all of these guardrails, it’s all over,” he said. “There is nothing similar to a republic left.”
