AG MERRICK GARLAND GETS A ROUSING SENDOFF IN VIDEO THAT COULD BE OF ASSISTANCE TO TRUMP & PAM BONDI:

The big test for Trump’s new Admin is how they deal with a government staffed largely by people that gave Biden’s team standing ovations.

These bureaucrats are the final boss that he must defeat to Make America Great Again.pic.twitter.com/5wAycqzsBX

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) January 17, 2025

Related: Lessons About the Civil Service and Political Appointees.

The first Trump administration (“Trump I”) was chronically frustrated by the difficulties it had staffing the government with loyal employees. As a result, disloyal civil servants exploited the opportunity to build up an impressive track record materially harming the operational integrity of Trump I. There are examples aplenty of how, but for this essay, a few James Sherk documented should suffice:

• Career employees in the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division refused to prosecute cases they ideologically disagreed with, even when the facts showed clear legal violations. This included Civil Rights Division career staff refusing to work on cases charging Yale University for racial discrimination against Asian-Americans and protecting nurses from being forced to participate in abortions.
• Career staff at the Department of Education assigned to work on politically sensitive regulations, including the Title IX due process regulations, would either produce legally unusable drafts that would never withstand judicial review or drafts that significantly diverged from the Department’s policy goals. As a result, political appointees had to draft the regulations primarily by themselves.
• Department of Health and Human Services career staff circumvented President Trump’s hiring freeze issued soon after taking office by crossing out new hires’ start dates on their hiring paperwork. Staff used Sharpie pens to retroactively adjust the start dates to January 19, 2017—the day before President Trump took office.
• Career lawyers at the National Labor Relations Board routinely gave political appointees misleading legal analyses. They would only cite cases supporting their preferred position and omit contrary precedents. Some career lawyers refused to draft documents whose positions they disagreed with.

Read the whole thing.