Biden administration is busy “Trump-proofing” the DOJ, independent watchdog warns
- September 5, 2024
Steven Richards, Just the News
An independent watchdog group is warning that the Biden administration is busy working to blunt the impact that a Trump presidency might have on the Department of Justice using special authority to appoint without competition select career civil servants to key roles.
The warning comes from nonpartisan government watchdog Protect the Public’s Trust after the group obtained appointment records through a Freedom of Information Act request showing other efforts by the Biden administration to ensure friendly civil service employees are appointed at other agencies and cement into place progressive agency rules.
“So what they’re doing is they’re using a hiring authority that’s outside of the normal competitive process for hiring career officials,” Protect the Public’s Trust Director Michael Chamberlain told the “Just the News, No Noise” TV show Tuesday.
“Normally to be hired into a career civil service job it takes a listing in usajobs.gov and they’ll have several candidates, and they’ll go through a competitive process to choose these. But, the DOJ is using a process outside of that, the non competitive process, to hire hundreds of attorneys into areas that are going to be vital to protecting the Biden Harris administration’s policies from a Trump administration or another future administration,” he continued.
Chamberlain says that because of the special authority the Biden Administration is using to hire these employees, known as Schedule A, some of those appointees may receive special career civil service protections before Donald Trump would start a second term if he wins the election, hamstringing his administration’s ability to control its own Justice Department or to “Trump-proof” the federal government.