The Democratic Party’s Stay Behind Program
A “stay behind” program is something intelligence agencies and special operations forces prepare in advance of an enemy invasion. During the Cold War, we set up programs like this in Europe for activation in the event the Soviets invaded and overran the territory of NATO allies. We recruited assets. We buried caches of weapons and munitions. We prepared to resist.
The federal bureaucracy is doing the same thing in advance of Trump’s inauguration.
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is changing the civil service rules to make it harder for the incoming Trump administration to dismiss federal employees and put in place its own people.
During the first Trump administration, President Trump issued an executive order creating something called Schedule F. Put simply it reclassified many senior positions in the federal government as “at will” positions. What this meant in practice was that the President could remove these individuals readily and put in place his own people.
Ultimately, Schedule F never took effect, because the rule was implemented at the very end of Trump’s term, and Biden abandoned it immediately on taking office. Trump has made clear, though, that he intends to reinstate Schedule F on Day One of his new administration.
“Here’s my plan to dismantle the deep state and reclaim our democracy from Washington corruption once and for all, and corruption it is,” Trump said last year. “First, I will immediately re-issue my 2020 executive order restoring the president’s authority to remove rogue bureaucrats. And I will wield that power very aggressively. Second, we will clean out all the corrupt actors in our national security and intelligence apparatus, and there are plenty of them.”
In terms of getting down to the hard work of regaining control of the Swamp and curtailing the extra-constitutional power of permanent Washington, there are few more critical issues. The bureaucracy has become so large and so powerful, that it operates largely outside the control of America’s elected representatives. The President has to have the ability to put in place his people, not just at the Cabinet level but throughout the vast reaches of the federal government.
The men and women who inhabit the Swamp at its senior levels understand that. They have no intention of allowing a man elected by a bunch of average Americans from the provinces to actually gain control over the government. They are superior and born to rule after all.
So, OPM is locking in new rules designed to prevent Trump from putting his own people in place. Under Trump’s Schedule F certain positions “of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character” were designated as being exempt from civil service protections. This meant Trump could choose who filled those positions.
OPM just issued a new rule designed to dramatically narrow the definition of “policy-related” jobs to noncareer political appointments only. This means a very large number of positions would be designated as outside the scope of Schedule F. Many, many bureaucrats who otherwise might be fired will now be protected.
The new rule also puts in place a whole series of other limitations on moving people from a protected civil service status to one that would allow the President to remove them. Of course, the OPM rule also includes an appeal process so that every single individual removed by the President can now protest and demand additional layers of bureaucratic scrutiny.
Trump’s return to Washington is a critical first step in regaining control over the vast federal bureaucracy. This 4th branch of government, which appears nowhere in the Constitution, now operates largely beyond the control of any of the President and Congress. Both the Heritage Foundation and America First Policy Institute have endorsed reviving Schedule F, going so far as to create lists of some 50,000 current career civil servants whose positions need to be reclassified to allow the President to remove them at will. There have been, in fact, even broader proposals such as converting the entire federal workforce into at-will employees and outlawing collective bargaining at federal agencies.
A great many people talk about draining the Swamp and regaining control over the federal government. Very few of them stop to consider what is really going to be involved. When you throw in contractors over ten million people work for the federal government. Many of these people spend their entire lives working in or around Washington, DC in massive institutions that only in the broadest sense consider themselves accountable to the American people. Overwhelmingly the men and women who run this vast enterprise despise both Donald Trump and his supporters.
Trump is in short moving into hostile territory when he takes the oath of office in January. He will be surrounded by enemies. Those enemies are already preparing their resistance. The Democratic Party’s stay-behind program has already begun.