Fired ‘Deep State subversives’ remain on the job

Robert Spencer writes for PJMedia.com about the continuing influence of bad actors within the federal government.

Remember back in Trump’s first term, when the New York Times published an article from an anonymous low-level government bureaucrat who boasted of doing everything he could to impede Trump’s agenda instead of implementing it? The deep state, the Times told us in May 2024, was “kind of awesome,” in that it imposed far-left policies upon the American people no matter who the president was and what he wanted. But Trump moved decisively as he began his second term, firing numerous government employees who were determined to obstruct his agenda. There’s just one problem: many of them are still on the job.

Politico, which profited handsomely from Deep State subsidies before Trump’s second term began, reported happily on Monday that “Trump has fired a host of Democratic appointees at independent boards and commissions across the government,” but “there’s just one catch: Some of them are still working.” It seems that “many of them decried Trump’s summary termination notices as illegal and made various attempts to remain in their posts, including suing.”

These efforts, Politico admits, “have proven largely futile against the administration’s brute force strategy: The overwhelming majority have in fact left, accepted new jobs, dropped their lawsuits, or been otherwise forced out — quite literally locked out of their former agency offices in some cases.” And even worse for the Deep Staters, “the Supreme Court, meanwhile, has signaled that it will continue to expand the president’s power to fire board members who run regulatory agencies.”

There are, however, a few plucky heroes in this story, or at least that’s how Politico tries to portray them: “Yet a handful of officials have successfully resisted, either because they were reinstated — at least temporarily — by lower-court judges, or because they have simply managed to maneuver around the White House’s orders and directives. Those officials’ resistance” — resistance! — “could end up shaping how courts view crucial, pending questions about the hiring-and-firing powers of the presidency, and whether Congress can create federal agencies with some degree of independence from the chief executive.”

The post Fired ‘Deep State subversives’ remain on the job first appeared on John Locke Foundation.