Biden moves to protect federal workers from Trump ‘deep state’ purge

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Washington Examiner

The Biden administration has finalized rules that could protect the jobs of millions of federal employees as former President Donald Trump promises to “destroy” what he calls the “deep state” if he wins a second term in the White House.

President Joe Biden says the new rule will combat corruption and partisan interference to ensure civil servants can do their jobs, but the Right sees the decision as a way to protect an entrenched federal bureaucracy from a Republican president.

 

“It is high time for reform, and Joe Biden and his fellow corrupt deep state backers know this,” reads a statement from the Heritage Foundation-led Project 2025. “The bloated and uncontrollable administrative state needs to be streamlined, right-sized and depoliticized — which has not happened in nearly the past 50 years.”

The call for a smaller federal government dates back decades and is a traditional plank of modern conservatism. But the push has become infused with Trump’s claims that the bureaucracy has been turned against him, first with the Russia investigation and today with prosecutions focused on his handling of classified documents and role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Project 2025, a conservative policy and staffing project, says the federal government should be held accountable to voters, “not weaponized against them.”

At issue is a wonky but important distinction about the policymaking power of federal government employees and whether or not the president can hire and fire them. Both sides say the other is trying to politicize the issue.

The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents employees at 35 government agencies, cheered Biden’s announcement.