Yesterday the Washington Post reported the obvious: more than a month after the Justice Department abruptly terminated all 47 of the Obama-era United States attorneys, all 93 U.S. attorney positions remain vacant. The Trump administration has taken no official steps to fill those essential positions.
What may appear to be inaction or negligence really amounts to active measures. The evisceration of prosecutorial leadership weakens the system of checks and balances that hold a presidential administration accountable. It also confirms what Trump advisor Steve Bannon has said on multiple occasions: Donald Trump is out to dismantle the Federal Government as we know it. The results could be deadly for democracy.
It’s hardly unusual for a new administration to dismiss the U.S. attorneys left over from a previous one. Like most federal agencies, the Justice Department employs thousands of professionals who remain from one administration to another, but its key leadership consists of political appointees. February’s mass firing was remarkable for its suddenness: attorneys received no warning and were told to leave immediately.
Still more remarkable: the Justice Department dismissed these key administrators without a serious plan to replace them.
One of those U.S. attorneys, Preet Bharara, had received personal assurance from Donald Trump that his position was safe. We should be concerned that Bharara was investigating, among other things, Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price. According to ProPublica, Price “traded hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of shares in health-related companies” while as a member of Congress he was sponsoring legislation related to the health-care industry.
Some observers believe Bharara also posed a direct threat to Trump himself. If indeed the FBI has been investigating transactions moving between Trump Tower and the Russian Alfa Bank, as some have concluded, Bharara would have supervised any prosecutorial action.
In other words, U.S. attorneys would play a critical role in holding Donald Trump legally accountable. But there are now no U.S. attorneys.
Back in February Bannon described the Trump agenda as “the deconstruction of the administrative state.” Conservatives have long represented smaller government. Folks my age all remember Ronald Reagan’s line: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help you.’” Lean, responsive government is a standard conservative value. But a government weakened to the point that it cannot serve the public? That’s a recipe for authoritarianism.
Numerous other signs indicate Trump’s work to collapse government from within. Consider his cabinet appointees. As a presidential candidate Secretary of Energy Rick Perry famously promised to eliminate the agency he now leads. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is known not for her support of public education but as an advocate for siphoning public education funds to privately run schools, especially supporting religious institutions with federal dollars. Environmental Protection Agency director Scott Pruitt is a climate science denier. Less than two years ago Trump’s new nominee to head the Export-Import Bank, Scott Garrett, voted to discontinue it, calling it a “corporate welfare program.” All these appointments aim to destroy the government’s ability to influence public affairs.
Judged according to his nominations, Trump’s governing philosophy most resembles a termite colony’s plan for urban development.
If that sounds a little too suspicious, why not ask Steve Bannon? According to Bannon, all these people “were selected for a reason, and that is deconstruction.”
The effects of this deconstruction are just beginning to manifest themselves. According to the White House Transition Project, the Trump administration has filled only 10 percent of “critical leadership positions” in the government. That’s less than half the normal rate at this point in a new administration, and it guarantees “the worst stand up of government in the past forty years.” Perhaps most devastated is the Department of State. At a time with active military operations in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, not to mention rising tension with North Korea, seven of State’s top nine positions stand empty. For a president who complained loudly about security failures at Benghazi, it’s remarkable that Trump has nominated no one to be the assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security.
One might attribute these vacancies to administrative inefficiency, but staff depletion also leaves the government vulnerable to misconduct. As recently as Tuesday, Trump had failed to nominate inspectors general for ten government agencies. Again, the theme is accountability, as inspectors general provide independent oversight to prevent and root out government corruption.
It is telling that Trump’s proposed budget slashes almost every aspect of government – except for the people who carry guns. Compare the proposed 29 percent cut to the State Department with a 9 percent increase in Defense and a 7 percent increase to Homeland Security. There’s also $2.6 billion for Trump’s border wall. Among domestic concerns, the only other increase involves $1.4 billion for school vouchers, a strategy to undermine public education. (The Department of Education would face a 14% cut.) In short, a Trump budget would move the United States away from a functioning democracy toward something more like authoritarianism.
Trump won the election, but he hardly enjoys a mandate to destroy our government. For a candidate who won only 46.1 percent of the popular vote, Trump aims to govern like a dictator by undermining our system of checks and balances and reducing the country to a militarized state. That may seem far-fetched. But Trumpism is part of a global phenomenon, one that poses a special threat to the West. According to Stanford political scientist Larry Diamond, “We can now talk of a crisis” even in the most “mature” democracies. We see the effects not only in the US but also in key allies like the UK, France, and Germany. When people distrust their own institutions, democracy falters and authoritarianism seems more palatable. If Americans of good conscience don’t stand up for those institutions now, democracy really could fail.