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Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
How Congress Became Hooked on Impeachment
It's impossible to know who the next president will be. But one thing can be said with certainty: regardless of their performance in office, there will be an attempt to impeach them. There's been a vast escalation of impeachment efforts in recent years, turning a once rare gesture into something routine. The latest, notable for how comparatively humdrum it was, came just this week. What little drama accompanied the resolution wasn't about forcing accountability for a president whom many Democrats think has repeatedly violated the law. Instead, it was whether a backbencher — who is facing a competitive primary and thus has a motive for ginning up the Democratic base — would step on his party's messaging on other pressing issues by introducing such a measure. In the end, Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) blinked and decided not to force a vote on his resolution to impeach President Donald Trump, bringing an ignoble end to what was the 13th resolution introduced by House Democrats to remove Trump from office since 2016. (The 14th came on Friday, introduced by Rep. Al Green (D-Texas).) This is the second most impeachment resolutions offered against any president. The only president with more? Joe Biden, who faced 17 different resolutions introduced in the House to impeach him in his four years in office. It's a distinct break from common practice in the post-Watergate era. For all the rhetoric about impeaching Barack Obama, not a single resolution was filed to remove him from office. There were three against George W. Bush, one — albeit a memorable one — against Bill Clinton, two against George H.W. Bush, two against Ronald Reagan and no resolutions offered to impeach Jimmy Carter or Gerald Ford. Impeachment's newfound popularity isn't just limited to the 31 resolutions filed against Biden and Trump combined since 2016. Three different members of Biden's cabinet along with Vice President Kamala Harris were the subject of multiple impeachment resolutions by various Republican lawmakers. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was the target of six different proposals to impeach him, the last of which was successful and resulted inthe second Senate impeachment trial of a cabinet secretary in American history. Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York also introduced two impeachment resolutions to oust Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito from the Supreme Court. Most of these resolutions went nowhere and few even received a vote. But their very introduction made clear that the threat of impeachment is in uncharted territory, having shifted from a rare constitutional remedy to an easy gimmick for fundraising and partisan gain. 'I do think some of it is driven by social media and some of it is real,' said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who notes 'there were impeachments filed against [President George W.] Bush.' In Roy's view, a real impeachment was the one that led tothe brief Senate trial for Mayorkas. 'He was literally ignoring his duty to defend the border of the United States and Texas was suffering.' Meanwhile, Roy snickered at Thanedar's effort. 'The impeachment language directed at President Trump is political, and there'll probably be 20 more filed before the end of this Congress,' he said. In fact, Roy's Democratic colleagues largely agreed with him about Thanedar's efforts, which came as the Michigan lawmaker faces a contested primary back home and while Democrats have tried to focus their entire party's messaging apparatus on combating the Republican tax bill. They confronted Thanedar on the House floor, booed him at a party caucus meeting and some members even went so far as to ask a colleague the name of Thanedar's primary opponent so that they could send campaign donations. It may have marked a new low in the ongoing diminution of the resolution of impeachment, another sign the tool had lost its solemnity and its sting. 'The shame of it is that impeachment has lost its ability to be a form of accountability and a check on the president. And it's been just completely politicized,' said Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-N.Y.), who was elected to Congress in 2022 after rising to national prominence as a lawyer for House Democrats during the first impeachment of Donald Trump. Republicans argue the Democratic efforts to oust Trump also removed taboos in Congress around the constitutional tool, and helped unleash a retaliatory spate of GOP resolutions once Joe Biden captured the White House. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) didn't even wait for Biden's inauguration before fundraising off an effort to impeach him. In 2023, Trump infamously posted on Truth Social his own call for a Biden impeachment, arguing, 'They did it to us.'The desire for revenge among the MAGA base made impeachment resolutions lucrative for those politicians wooing small dollar donors. In one instance, it sparked an internal Republican feud between Greene and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) when they sparred over Boebert launching her own separate impeachment effort, rather than joining Greene's. 'It's purely for fundraising,' griped the Georgia Republican over her colleague's effort to oust Biden. Of the 17 impeachment resolutions introduced to remove Biden from office, Greene introduced six — including three different attempts to oust the then-president on one day in August 2021. Another factor driving the phenomenon is that, unlike simply introducing a bill, launching an effort to impeach an official still remains rare enough to be worthy of a cable news hit. (Thanedar hasn't gotten himself booked yet but he has held multiple 'impeachment town halls'already in his Michigan district and put up billboards touting his effort as well). The result is that, with the obliteration of cultural norms in Congress that once prevented a spree of impeachment resolutions, it's now seen as just another legislative — or promotional — tool, rather than a last resort against an official who has committed high crimes and misdemeanors. As Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) said with a shrug, 'you gotta live by the rules,' noting that members were allowed to freely introduce impeachment resolutions by the rules of the House. Roy's prediction of 20 more impeachment resolutions against Trump by the end of this Congress seems a bit unlikely —- after all, there are only so many times members can introduce similar resolutions of impeachment. But at a moment when Democratic members of Congress are poised for an onslaught of primary challenges and demands from the base that they do something to stop Trump, impeachment resolutions will prove hard to resist — even if there is no chance of success.
Politico
16-05-2025
- Politics
- Politico
How Congress Became Hooked on Impeachment
It's impossible to know who the next president will be. But one thing can be said with certainty: regardless of their performance in office, there will be an attempt to impeach them. There's been a vast escalation of impeachment efforts in recent years, turning a once rare gesture into something routine. The latest, notable for how comparatively humdrum it was, came just this week. What little drama accompanied the resolution wasn't about forcing accountability for a president whom many Democrats think has repeatedly violated the law. Instead, it was whether a backbencher — who is facing a competitive primary and thus has a motive for ginning up the Democratic base — would step on his party's messaging on other pressing issues by introducing such a measure. In the end, Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) blinked and decided not to force a vote on his resolution to impeach President Donald Trump, bringing an ignoble end to what was the 13th resolution introduced by House Democrats to remove Trump from office since 2016. (The 14th came on Friday, introduced by Rep. Al Green (D-Texas).) This is the second most impeachment resolutions offered against any president. The only president with more? Joe Biden, who faced 17 different resolutions introduced in the House to impeach him in his four years in office. It's a distinct break from common practice in the post-Watergate era. For all the rhetoric about impeaching Barack Obama, not a single resolution was filed to remove him from office. There were three against George W. Bush, one — albeit a memorable one — against Bill Clinton, two against George H.W. Bush, two against Ronald Reagan and no resolutions offered to impeach Jimmy Carter or Gerald Ford. Impeachment's newfound popularity isn't just limited to the 31 resolutions filed against Biden and Trump combined since 2016. Three different members of Biden's cabinet along with Vice President Kamala Harris were the subject of multiple impeachment resolutions by various Republican lawmakers. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was the target of six different proposals to impeach him, the last of which was successful and resulted in the second Senate impeachment trial of a cabinet secretary in American history. Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York also introduced two impeachment resolutions to oust Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito from the Supreme Court. Most of these resolutions went nowhere and few even received a vote. But their very introduction made clear that the threat of impeachment is in uncharted territory, having shifted from a rare constitutional remedy to an easy gimmick for fundraising and partisan gain. 'I do think some of it is driven by social media and some of it is real,' said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who notes 'there were impeachments filed against [President George W.] Bush.' In Roy's view, a real impeachment was the one that led to the brief Senate trial for Mayorkas. 'He was literally ignoring his duty to defend the border of the United States and Texas was suffering.' Meanwhile, Roy snickered at Thanedar's effort. 'The impeachment language directed at President Trump is political, and there'll probably be 20 more filed before the end of this Congress,' he said. In fact, Roy's Democratic colleagues largely agreed with him about Thanedar's efforts, which came as the Michigan lawmaker faces a contested primary back home and while Democrats have tried to focus their entire party's messaging apparatus on combating the Republican tax bill. They confronted Thanedar on the House floor, booed him at a party caucus meeting and some members even went so far as to ask a colleague the name of Thanedar's primary opponent so that they could send campaign donations. It may have marked a new low in the ongoing diminution of the resolution of impeachment, another sign the tool had lost its solemnity and its sting. 'The shame of it is that impeachment has lost its ability to be a form of accountability and a check on the president. And it's been just completely politicized,' said Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-N.Y.), who was elected to Congress in 2022 after rising to national prominence as a lawyer for House Democrats during the first impeachment of Donald Trump. Republicans argue the Democratic efforts to oust Trump also removed taboos in Congress around the constitutional tool, and helped unleash a retaliatory spate of GOP resolutions once Joe Biden captured the White House. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) didn't even wait for Biden's inauguration before fundraising off an effort to impeach him. In 2023, Trump infamously posted on Truth Social his own call for a Biden impeachment, arguing, 'They did it to us.'The desire for revenge among the MAGA base made impeachment resolutions lucrative for those politicians wooing small dollar donors. In one instance, it sparked an internal Republican feud between Greene and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) when they sparred over Boebert launching her own separate impeachment effort, rather than joining Greene's. 'It's purely for fundraising,' griped the Georgia Republican over her colleague's effort to oust Biden. Of the 17 impeachment resolutions introduced to remove Biden from office, Greene introduced six — including three different attempts to oust the then-president on one day in August 2021. Another factor driving the phenomenon is that, unlike simply introducing a bill, launching an effort to impeach an official still remains rare enough to be worthy of a cable news hit. (Thanedar hasn't gotten himself booked yet but he has held multiple 'impeachment town halls' already in his Michigan district and put up billboards touting his effort as well). The result is that, with the obliteration of cultural norms in Congress that once prevented a spree of impeachment resolutions, it's now seen as just another legislative — or promotional — tool, rather than a last resort against an official who has committed high crimes and misdemeanors. As Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) said with a shrug, 'you gotta live by the rules,' noting that members were allowed to freely introduce impeachment resolutions by the rules of the House. Roy's prediction of 20 more impeachment resolutions against Trump by the end of this Congress seems a bit unlikely —- after all, there are only so many times members can introduce similar resolutions of impeachment. But at a moment when Democratic members of Congress are poised for an onslaught of primary challenges and demands from the base that they do something to stop Trump, impeachment resolutions will prove hard to resist — even if there is no chance of success.
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump's hardball moves leave fired federal workers few paths to fight for their jobs back
After firing tens of thousands of federal workers this year, President Donald Trump has also made it much harder for them to get their jobs back as he imposes his will over the labor agencies that are supposed to protect their rights. He has hobbled independent labor boards, installed a loyalist at a key agency that protects civil servants, and signed an executive order to end collective bargaining for many federal workers. This has left government employees with dwindling options to contest their firings through channels normally available to civil servants, with many turning to the courts for relief or giving up altogether. 'It is significantly more difficult for a federal employee to have their case heard by an independent body,' said former Merit Systems Protection Board member Ray Limon. 'What we're seeing here is a complete elimination of traditional employee due process and investigation of complaints, which is unparalleled in the history of our government.' In an effort to ensure a stable, professional and merit-based workforce across administrations, Congress has long mandated certain due-process protections from arbitrary firings for the more than 2 million federal employees. But as federal employees – ranging from newer 'probationary' workers who were fired en masse, to career civil servants who believe they were dismissed for partisan purposes – seek to challenge their terminations in the second Trump administration, they are finding it harder than ever to push back. Amid sweeping layoffs and resignations, civic groups have stepped in to connect some of these disillusioned workers with new jobs in state and local government. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is fighting in court to defend his mass firings and executive orders. 'President Trump is the chief executive of the executive branch and reserves the right to fire anyone he wants,' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. The reversal of fortunes for fired employees has been most glaring at the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), which was created by Congress in the post-Watergate era to safeguard merit systems in the federal government. The agency often advocates on behalf of employees at the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), which reviews workers' complaints. Hampton Dellinger was one year into his five-year term at OSC when Trump was sworn in. It didn't take long for the Senate-confirmed Biden appointee to break ranks with Trump on a major priority for the new administration: shrinking the size of the federal workforce. Dellinger concluded that Trump's mass firings of probationary workers were unlawful, and successfully urged the MSPB to reinstate 6,000 employees. Advocacy groups hailed the outcome as a landmark moment that could pave the way for additional reinstatements. Then, Trump fired Dellinger. After Dellinger lost a brief court battle over his own termination, Trump turned to two loyalists to fill his role. He tapped Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins in February to temporarily lead OSC, and by late March, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer was slotted into the acting role. Under Greer's watch, OSC dropped its support for reinstating any probationary employees. OSC notified some federal employees in late April that it conducted a 'review' and determined that the firings were proper and were 'in accordance with the new administration's priorities,' according to legal filings and records reviewed by CNN. This was a 180-degree turn from OSC's position under Dellinger. 'We're now seeing OSC not actually do the kinds of things it's supposed to be doing,' said Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, which represented the 6,000 reinstated workers. 'The administration… is seeking to undermine accountability structures that were put in place to ensure federal employees have redress and civil service protections.' An OSC spokesman declined to comment. The Trump administration has also defanged, at least for the time being, two federal labor boards – which serve as bulwarks against partisan abuses and workplace discrimination by independently reviewing complaints. MSPB and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) are currently without a quorum after Trump fired several members, leaving them operational but unable to function at full strength. The people Trump fired were appointed by President Joe Biden and confirmed by the Senate. For instance, the MSPB can't issue final rulings on workers' complaints without a quorum. And the EEOC isn't able to initiate major litigation or vote on policy rulemaking. One MSPB member that Trump fired has filed a lawsuit to get her job back, which would restore a quorum. But she faces an uphill fight at the conservative-leaning Supreme Court, which has already rebuffed her bid to get back on the job while her legal case plays out. MSPB spokesman Zachary Kurz said the agency 'remains open for business and its work continues,' adding that its 'ability to adjudicate cases is fully functional across its regional offices, and it will continue to process petitions for review.' EEOC spokesman James Ryan said the commission 'is still open for business and taking all charges.' In December, during the presidential transition, the EEOC voted on a bipartisan basis to delegate some of its powers to commission staff, which they could use if a quorum is lost. There are signs that the Trump administration may be slow-walking some MSPB cases. Typically, the agency facing a worker's complaint will defend itself at MSPB. But the lead HR agency overseeing federal civil servants, the Office of Personnel Management, is intervening in more than 40 pending cases involving Justice Department officials that were fired in March, according to filings reviewed by CNN. OPM has asked an administrative judge to pause all of the 40-plus cases, according to the filings. CNN has reached out to OPM for comment about its intervention in these MSPB cases. Limon, the former Democratic-appointed MSPB member, said it is 'very unusual' for OPM to intervene in pending cases like these. It never happened during his three years as vice chairman, he said, but it could be warranted if there is an apparent conflict of interest. One of the cases was filed by Liz Oyer, the former Justice Department pardon attorney who was part of a large group of firings approved by Todd Blanche, the former Trump lawyer who is now deputy attorney general. Oyer claims she was terminated because she refused to bow to pressure from Trump appointees who wanted her to restore the gun rights of actor Mel Gibson, which he lost after a 2011 state domestic violence conviction. 'It does not seem like the MSPB proceeding will be resolved anytime soon,' Oyer told CNN. 'The Justice Department is doing everything they can to delay and avoid providing any information about the reasons for my firing and others. This is frustrating and unfortunate for everyone who lost their jobs and who have no other recourse.' Blanche previously told CNN in a statement that Oyer's 'version of events is false' and 'erroneous.' CNN has reported that some fired workers are struggling to navigate overlapping agencies that handle complaints and to decipher the 'legalese' on government websites. Union stewards often help members through this process but those efforts have been undermined by Trump's recent executive order attempting to end collective bargaining rights for a large share of the federal workforce. Alex Berman, an Internal Revenue Service employee who is a union leader in Philadelphia, said some of his colleagues aren't sure if they are even allowed to talk to their union representatives after Trump's executive order. And in some IRS offices, he said union leaders have been banned from using official time to answer questions from union members, as was permitted under their existing contract when Trump took office. The IRS didn't respond to CNN's request for comment. 'Most employees know what they're supposed to do for their jobs, but don't know what recourse there may be in any given situation, up to and including a firing,' Berman said. 'Without the unions, people are in the dark as to what their rights and responsibilities are.' His group, the National Treasury Employees Union, has repeatedly sued the Trump administration and convinced a judge to block his collective-bargaining ban. It's one of more than a dozen labor unions, anti-Trump groups, and advocacy organizations that launched a legal defense fund to help people 'who have been fired illegally' under Trump. Some terminated employees – like the probationary hires, and the former top OSC and MSPB officials – saw initial success in court, where judges ruled that their firings were unlawful. But the Trump administration has prevailed in reversing some of those decisions, some on a temporary basis, as they are heard by more conservative federal appellate courts. 'The courts will be increasingly important as the administration seeks to close other avenues for redress,' said Perryman, whose group is involved in the legal defense fund. She said more than 1,000 lawyers signed up in the first week to volunteer their time. As morale falls with each round of mass firings, some groups see an opportunity. Caitlin Lewis, the executive director at Work For America, launched a service that is trying to match up thousands of federal employees with jobs in state or local government. 'Oversight authorities and regulatory authorities are being stripped of their powers,' Lewis said. 'The overwhelming sentiment is exhaustion and frustration. They don't feel equipped to take on the system as individuals. As they've been left in this state of purgatory and confusion, their faith is diminishing that the system is going to protect their legal rights.' Her CivicMatch platform has seen a 15-fold increase in activity since Trump took office, with more than 8,000 federal workers expressing interest in new public sector jobs. Many worked at hard-hit agencies like the IRS and the US Agency for International Development. While some workers are mobile, plenty of others are unable to uproot their families in search of new opportunities, especially in an uncertain economic climate. For those who are willing to make the move, however, some states and cities recently stepped up recruitment efforts, to fill their own ranks with veterans of the public service sector – and to stand up to Trump. 'More and more people are unwilling to wait it out,' Lewis said. 'It's a moment of loss for the federal government, but it's a moment of possibility for state and local governments.'
CNN
08-05-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Trump's hardball moves leave fired federal workers few paths to fight for their jobs back
After firing tens of thousands of federal workers this year, President Donald Trump has also made it much harder for them to get their jobs back as he imposes his will over the labor agencies that are supposed to protect their rights. He has hobbled independent labor boards, installed a loyalist at a key agency that protects civil servants, and signed an executive order to end collective bargaining for many federal workers. This has left government employees with dwindling options to contest their firings through channels normally available to civil servants, with many turning to the courts for relief or giving up altogether. 'It is significantly more difficult for a federal employee to have their case heard by an independent body,' said former Merit Systems Protection Board member Ray Limon. 'What we're seeing here is a complete elimination of traditional employee due process and investigation of complaints, which is unparalleled in the history of our government.' In an effort to ensure a stable, professional and merit-based workforce across administrations, Congress has long mandated certain due-process protections from arbitrary firings for the more than 2 million federal employees. But as federal employees – ranging from newer 'probationary' workers who were fired en masse, to career civil servants who believe they were dismissed for partisan purposes – seek to challenge their terminations in the second Trump administration, they are finding it harder than ever to push back. Amid sweeping layoffs and resignations, civic groups have stepped in to connect some of these disillusioned workers with new jobs in state and local government. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is fighting in court to defend his mass firings and executive orders. 'President Trump is the chief executive of the executive branch and reserves the right to fire anyone he wants,' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. The reversal of fortunes for fired employees has been most glaring at the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), which was created by Congress in the post-Watergate era to safeguard merit systems in the federal government. The agency often advocates on behalf of employees at the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), which reviews workers' complaints. Hampton Dellinger was one year into his five-year term at OSC when Trump was sworn in. It didn't take long for the Senate-confirmed Biden appointee to break ranks with Trump on a major priority for the new administration: shrinking the size of the federal workforce. Dellinger concluded that Trump's mass firings of probationary workers were unlawful, and successfully urged the MSPB to reinstate 6,000 employees. Advocacy groups hailed the outcome as a landmark moment that could pave the way for additional reinstatements. Then, Trump fired Dellinger. After Dellinger lost a brief court battle over his own termination, Trump turned to two loyalists to fill his role. He tapped Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins in February to temporarily lead OSC, and by late March, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer was slotted into the acting role. Under Greer's watch, OSC dropped its support for reinstating any probationary employees. OSC notified some federal employees in late April that it conducted a 'review' and determined that the firings were proper and were 'in accordance with the new administration's priorities,' according to legal filings and records reviewed by CNN. This was a 180-degree turn from OSC's position under Dellinger. 'We're now seeing OSC not actually do the kinds of things it's supposed to be doing,' said Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, which represented the 6,000 reinstated workers. 'The administration… is seeking to undermine accountability structures that were put in place to ensure federal employees have redress and civil service protections.' An OSC spokesman declined to comment. The Trump administration has also defanged, at least for the time being, two federal labor boards – which serve as bulwarks against partisan abuses and workplace discrimination by independently reviewing complaints. MSPB and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) are currently without a quorum after Trump fired several members, leaving them operational but unable to function at full strength. The people Trump fired were appointed by President Joe Biden and confirmed by the Senate. For instance, the MSPB can't issue final rulings on workers' complaints without a quorum. And the EEOC isn't able to initiate major litigation or vote on policy rulemaking. One MSPB member that Trump fired has filed a lawsuit to get her job back, which would restore a quorum. But she faces an uphill fight at the conservative-leaning Supreme Court, which has already rebuffed her bid to get back on the job while her legal case plays out. MSPB spokesman Zachary Kurz said the agency 'remains open for business and its work continues,' adding that its 'ability to adjudicate cases is fully functional across its regional offices, and it will continue to process petitions for review.' EEOC spokesman James Ryan said the commission 'is still open for business and taking all charges.' In December, during the presidential transition, the EEOC voted on a bipartisan basis to delegate some of its powers to commission staff, which they could use if a quorum is lost. There are signs that the Trump administration may be slow-walking some MSPB cases. Typically, the agency facing a worker's complaint will defend itself at MSPB. But the lead HR agency overseeing federal civil servants, the Office of Personnel Management, is intervening in more than 40 pending cases involving Justice Department officials that were fired in March, according to filings reviewed by CNN. OPM has asked an administrative judge to pause all of the 40-plus cases, according to the filings. CNN has reached out to OPM for comment about its intervention in these MSPB cases. Limon, the former Democratic-appointed MSPB member, said it is 'very unusual' for OPM to intervene in pending cases like these. It never happened during his three years as vice chairman, he said, but it could be warranted if there is an apparent conflict of interest. One of the cases was filed by Liz Oyer, the former Justice Department pardon attorney who was part of a large group of firings approved by Todd Blanche, the former Trump lawyer who is now deputy attorney general. Oyer claims she was terminated because she refused to bow to pressure from Trump appointees who wanted her to restore the gun rights of actor Mel Gibson, which he lost after a 2011 state domestic violence conviction. 'It does not seem like the MSPB proceeding will be resolved anytime soon,' Oyer told CNN. 'The Justice Department is doing everything they can to delay and avoid providing any information about the reasons for my firing and others. This is frustrating and unfortunate for everyone who lost their jobs and who have no other recourse.' Blanche previously told CNN in a statement that Oyer's 'version of events is false' and 'erroneous.' CNN has reported that some fired workers are struggling to navigate overlapping agencies that handle complaints and to decipher the 'legalese' on government websites. Union stewards often help members through this process but those efforts have been undermined by Trump's recent executive order attempting to end collective bargaining rights for a large share of the federal workforce. Alex Berman, an Internal Revenue Service employee who is a union leader in Philadelphia, said some of his colleagues aren't sure if they are even allowed to talk to their union representatives after Trump's executive order. And in some IRS offices, he said union leaders have been banned from using official time to answer questions from union members, as was permitted under their existing contract when Trump took office. The IRS didn't respond to CNN's request for comment. 'Most employees know what they're supposed to do for their jobs, but don't know what recourse there may be in any given situation, up to and including a firing,' Berman said. 'Without the unions, people are in the dark as to what their rights and responsibilities are.' His group, the National Treasury Employees Union, has repeatedly sued the Trump administration and convinced a judge to block his collective-bargaining ban. It's one of more than a dozen labor unions, anti-Trump groups, and advocacy organizations that launched a legal defense fund to help people 'who have been fired illegally' under Trump. Some terminated employees – like the probationary hires, and the former top OSC and MSPB officials – saw initial success in court, where judges ruled that their firings were unlawful. But the Trump administration has prevailed in reversing some of those decisions, some on a temporary basis, as they are heard by more conservative federal appellate courts. 'The courts will be increasingly important as the administration seeks to close other avenues for redress,' said Perryman, whose group is involved in the legal defense fund. She said more than 1,000 lawyers signed up in the first week to volunteer their time. As morale falls with each round of mass firings, some groups see an opportunity. Caitlin Lewis, the executive director at Work For America, launched a service that is trying to match up thousands of federal employees with jobs in state or local government. 'Oversight authorities and regulatory authorities are being stripped of their powers,' Lewis said. 'The overwhelming sentiment is exhaustion and frustration. They don't feel equipped to take on the system as individuals. As they've been left in this state of purgatory and confusion, their faith is diminishing that the system is going to protect their legal rights.' Her CivicMatch platform has seen a 15-fold increase in activity since Trump took office, with more than 8,000 federal workers expressing interest in new public sector jobs. Many worked at hard-hit agencies like the IRS and the US Agency for International Development. While some workers are mobile, plenty of others are unable to uproot their families in search of new opportunities, especially in an uncertain economic climate. For those who are willing to make the move, however, some states and cities recently stepped up recruitment efforts, to fill their own ranks with veterans of the public service sector – and to stand up to Trump. 'More and more people are unwilling to wait it out,' Lewis said. 'It's a moment of loss for the federal government, but it's a moment of possibility for state and local governments.'
NDTV
05-05-2025
- Politics
- NDTV
Is The US In A Constitutional Crisis?
Almost a month into Trump 2.0, with Trump's 'muzzle velocity' of Executive Orders (EOs) spreading more disquiet than even the worst-case scenarios had envisaged, the question increasingly looming among US watchers is whether the US is in a constitutional crisis. The US Constitution has stood out for its clear separation of powers among the three arms of the government: The executive (the elected President), the legislature (House and Senate), and the courts. But the trampling that the legislature has been subjected to by the Trump executive threatens to upend the constitutional system of checks and balances. Trump's flurry of EOs have targeted several offices and agencies established by Congress - USAID being the most prominent and well-known - and have terminated spending mandated by Congress, in executive overreach. Predictably, the many afflicted by the EOs have gone to court, and predictably again, the courts have stayed the execution of many of the EOs. Until now, the Trump administration has either abided by the court's restraints or submitted that it would like the court to review its order - in short, enter the process of thrashing the issue out in court. But Vice President JD Vance threw a 'curve ball' by tweeting that just as no court would try to tell a General how to run a war, courts do not have the right to curb the 'legitimate' powers of the executive. The Constitution's founders had not foreseen a situation where the polity would be so polarised that the Congress and Senate would lose sight of their constitutional salience. Rare is the legislator who has voted across party lines in recent years; under the vengeful Trump, rarer still. Hence the refrain: with Trump rampant, and the prospect very real that court orders could be disregarded or defied, how far is the US from a constitutional crisis? The Trump administration's mission is to restore the executive's powers which, it argues, were curbed post-Watergate by the weakened Nixon presidency. His two chief point men to effect this mission are Elon Musk as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DoGE) and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought. The OMB is the White House's gatekeeper, overseeing the actual spending of the programs passed by Congress. Vought is a dyed-in-the-wool Christian Conservative who believes it is his Christian duty to re-establish the primacy of the executive. The congressional outlays, Vought argues, were meant to be a ceiling; instead, they have become a floor. Federal bureaucracy in line of fire Worse, the Federal bureaucracy, he charges, has become a 'fourth branch,' an unelected mass of 2.4 million Federal employees, who are out of control. They are unaccountable and they can't be fired. They have to be brought to heel. Vought was quoted as saying at a conference in 2023: 'We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work... We want to put them in trauma.' Understandably then, a recent article in The Atlantic on 'How Hitler Dismantled Democracy in 53 Days in Germany' by Timothy Ryback, a historian who has written several books on Hitler's Germany, stayed in the magazine's 'Most Read' list for weeks on end. And a reading of 'Autocracy Inc: The Dictators Who Want to Run The World' by the vastly experienced and knowledgeable Atlantic columnist Anne Applebaum, was almost delicious in the many moments of irony it evoked. The playbook followed by MAGA devotees to demonise USAID followed exactly the playbook used by propagandists of Russia and China, as spelled out by Applebaum, in their repeated attacks on US democracy. In the USAID case, it all began at 9 am on February 5 when an independent journalist posted an unsubstantiated claim online that USAID had paid $8 million to Politico, a Washington-based online newspaper. Politico immediately clarified that USAID had paid it only $24,000 for subscriptions, which the journalist acknowledged 10 hours later was indeed the truth. However, by then the post had gone viral. In the next 36 hours, it accumulated 15,000 posts, including from a Republican Representative from the House and from Viktor Orban, Hungary's autocratic Prime Minister whom Trump admires. Conspiracy theorists, meanwhile, had seized upon the online storm to allege that Democrats had used USAID to fund a 'fake news empire.' Orban followed this up with an allegation on X that Politico had financed the 'entire left-wing media in Hungary,' notching 27 million views. Then President Trump jumped in on his Truth Social account to criticize government news subscriptions to the likes of Politico as 'pay-offs' for talking up Democrats. 'This could be the biggest scandal of them all, perhaps the biggest in history,' he wrote in all caps. The White House press office hurriedly announced the cancellation of its Politico subscription. Ms. Applebaum is a Senior Fellow at Johns Hopkins, a long-term observer of Russia, and an acknowledged historian of authoritarianism. Her book is a primer on how the growing tribe of autocrats in the post-Cold War world are banding together to expand their sphere of influence. In it, she details how autocrats use the media to sow doubt and confusion about democracy itself. One example she elaborates is eerily similar to the USAID slur campaign. In February 2022, as Russia invaded Ukraine, it alleged that secret US-funded bio labs in Ukraine were conducting experiments with bat viruses. The charge was immediately rubbished but not before conspiracy networks had spread the hashtag #biolab on Twitter, notching up nine million views. MAGA's favourite TV host, Tucker Carlson, played clips on Fox News of a Russian general and a Chinese spokesman discussing the allegation and demanded that the Biden administration should 'stop lying and tell us what's going on here.' The Chinese foreign ministry, Ms. Applebaum recounts, took the story further by declaring that the US controlled 26 bio-labs in Ukraine. Even as Xinhua ran headlines like 'US-Led Biolabs Pose Potential Threats to People of Ukraine and Beyond,' media outlets in Asia, Africa, and Latin America with content-sharing agreements with Xinhua and other Chinese media entities amplified the charge. China's motive, Ms. Applebaum details, was clear: It wanted attention to be diverted from the charge that Covid-19 had spread from its labs in Wuhan. But the story also appealed to conspiracy sites in the US like the Q Anon network, who are virulently anti-vaccination. In an eerie chorus, even as Ukraine joined battle with Russia, the Russian, Chinese, and 'extremist American' interests all repeated the Russian accusations justifying the invasion and parroted that Ukrainians are 'Nazis' and that Ukraine is a puppet state run by the CIA. So successful was the echo chamber effect that, according to one poll, Ms. Applebaum recounts, one out of four Americans believed that the biolab story was true! Conspiracy theories abound The story does not end there. In March 2022, Ms. Applebaum writes, the Russian state media ran a story that Ukraine was planning to use migratory birds as a delivery weapon for bioweapons, first infecting the birds and then sending them into Russia to spread diseases. Russia's ambassador to the UN followed up with a statement about the 'biobird scandal,' warning about 'the real biological danger to the people in European countries, which can result from an uncontrolled spread of bio agents from Ukraine.' What is the larger game plan of autocrats? Ms. Applebaum argues that 'autocratic information operations exaggerate the divisions and anger that are normal in politics (in democracies). They pay or promote the most extreme voices, hoping to make them more extreme, and perhaps more violent; they hope to encourage people to question the state, to doubt authority, and eventually to question democracy itself.' Propagandists also leverage one established social truth: Smear campaigns work. No matter how quick, effective, credible, and resounding the denial, some odium still sticks to the individual or entity smeared. A week ago, President Trump had notched up the highest approval ratings ever for him: 53%. How many would bet that the bulk of his followers will not believe the smear campaign against USAID? President Trump had repeatedly vowed in the election campaign to seek 'retribution' from his enemies. What will happen if the US Federal government uses all the instruments of the state - legal, judicial, and financial - to target one of President Trump's personal enemies? Trump's critics charge this has already begun in the Justice Department, which controls the FBI, with line personnel who had investigated the January 6 Capitol Hill insurrection being targeted. Ms. Applebaum's book came out on the eve of the November election with Trump's return very much on the cards. In it, she had forewarned: 'If he (Trump) succeeds in directing federal courts and law enforcement at his enemies, in combination with a mass trolling campaign, then the blending of the autocratic and democratic worlds will be complete.' Her book's descriptions of the autocrat's playbook hold the promise of being a useful mirror to track the trajectory of Trump 2.0.
