WELCOME TO THE ‘TRANSITION FROM HELL’
Two weeks before
Election Day, President Donald Trump startled official Washington with an executive order that threatened to unravel the country’s 140-year-old civil service system. The White House insisted the move—which makes it easier to fire government lawyers, scientists and other employees in policy-making positions by placing them in a new job classification—was designed to remove incompetent people who are protected under current rules. But outraged observers in and outside the administration feared it gave Trump more latitude to dismiss people he views as disloyal or working to undermine his agenda.
To those in Joe Biden’s circle, however, the action was regarded as a direct threat: a portent of the damage Trump would be able to do while still in power over the 78 days between Election Day and Inauguration Day, when the powers of the presidency will change hands. And Trump’s actions in the period immediately following Biden’s victory have done nothing to allay those concerns.
True, during their remaining time in office, lame-duck presidents throughout U.S. history have used executive orders, as well as presidential pardons, regulatory decrees, judicial appointments and even military action, to help secure their legacy, undermine the guy who just defeated them or pay back friends and foes alike. But given that Trump has pushed—some might say obliterated—the normal boundaries of how a president behaves, many D.C. insiders worry he may supersize the chaos an outgoing commander-in-chief can cause. And, in fact, Trump has already disregarded the rules of how an outgoing president behaves, first by refusing to concede the election and then by blocking the Biden team’s access to secure workspaces, security clearances and funds dedicated to the work of the transition.
The October executive order looks like Exhibit A in what could be a very long list of actions to undermine the transition. Some in the Biden camp point out the order could conceivably result in Trump issuing hundreds of pink slips between now and Inauguration Day, which might throw the work of a long list of government agencies from the Centers For Disease Control to the
