Watchdog groups are warning that the Biden-Harris administration is embracing a little-known but legal hiring practice of stuffing the federal bureaucracy with career officials who would be difficult to fire if a future president, such as Donald Trump, were to return to the White House.
Protecting the Public Trust (PPT) said in a press release on Tuesday:
The Department of Justice (DOJ) uses “Schedule A” hiring authority to appoint hundreds of lawyers and judges to career civil service positions without competition from other candidates. According to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), Schedule A authority can be used to hire people with “severe physical, mental, or intellectual disabilities,” but also for certain positions, such as pastors, scientists, and lawyers. Unlike other noncompetitive appointments, such as the relatively few political appointments that the President can make, Schedule A positions last beyond the President's term in office.
Immigration Judge
“Although federal law prohibits Schedule A appointments from being 'policy-making or sensitive,' the offices the administration is staffing are some of the most politicized in the Department of Justice,” PPT noted.
For example, according to documents obtained by PPT and provided to The Daily Caller, under Schedule A, the Department of Justice employs well over 100 judges in its immigration review division. These judges will, of course, be deciding the fate of aliens.
“According to the Department of Justice, immigration courts had a backlog of about 1.3 million cases at the end of fiscal year 2020, when President Joe Biden took office,” the Daily Caller wrote. “That number has ballooned to 3 million under the Biden-Harris administration, PBS reported in January.”
So we may need more immigration judges, but given the policies of Biden and his vice president and “border minister” Kamala Harris, we can be sure that Schedule A judges will rule in favor of immigrants who are likely to vote Democratic.
Left-wing lawyer
According to PPT's research, Schedule A allowed the Department of Justice to “employ at least 104 attorneys in the Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD).” According to ENRD's website, “ENRD is America's environmental lawyer and the largest environmental law firm in the country.” But the division isn't just interested in clean air and water. It also “prioritizes actions to address greenhouse gas emissions and the impacts of climate change” and “determines enforcement actions to support communities with environmental justice concerns.”
“ENRD is a crucial department in advancing the Biden-Harris Administration's energy and climate policies, and the placement of Biden-Harris allies there is a way to protect those policies even if a future Trump Administration (or any other administration) seeks to change them,” PPT asserted.
The Justice Department also hired more than 150 lawyers to its antitrust division. “Until recently, antitrust enforcement was a relatively technical, nonpartisan department,” PPT wrote. “But the Biden-Harris administration's increasingly aggressive enforcement has sparked complaints of political enforcement.” Indeed, as the Daily Caller noted, “Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan has taken an aggressive stance on antitrust enforcement, filing lawsuits against Amazon, Meta, Kroger, Microsoft, Nvidia, and others.”
These are just major Schedule A appointments in certain parts of the Justice Department. It is unclear how many such appointments the administration has made across the bureaucracy, because other agencies, such as the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, denied PPT's records requests.
Still, the hiring uncovered by the PPT likely marks “another step in the administration's attempt to set up an 'anti-Trump' agency and block the former president from implementing his policies if he wins the presidential election in November,” the organization argued.
47 Proven Disloyalty
These moves aren't surprising. In early May, Politico reported that the president was looking to “make his legacy Trump-proof” by spending “hundreds of billions of dollars that Congress has already approved but has yet to spend.” “If Trump wins in November and the money hasn't yet left government coffers, he'll seek to cancel most of it.” (Emphasis in original.)
Additionally, the Daily Caller writes:
The Biden-Harris administration is moving forward with federal rules that would make it harder for a president to fire career bureaucrats. Environmental Protection Agency employees agreed to new contracts in May that protect them from firing as long as their work is done with “scientific integrity,” Politico reported.
Left-of-center private organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Immigration Law Center are also rushing to prepare lawsuits to challenge the actions of the second Trump administration.
This has been tried before, with limited success. As President Barack Obama prepared to hand over the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to Trump, he did everything in his power to ensure his successor couldn't undo his actions. He, too, appointed dozens of bureaucrats and “created rules, regulations and policies multiple times a week,” McClatchy reported. Still, Trump has been able to “dismantle much of the unconstitutional 'climate' regime that his predecessor imposed on the American people,” The New American reported.
“The Biden-Harris administration and its allies have already signaled their intention to hamstring their successor and prevent a future president from reversing their policies,” said PPT Director Michael Chamberlain. “Using noncompetitive hiring powers to fill positions with career civil servants may just be another element of this plan. It's no wonder the public's trust in government has all but disappeared.”
