USA Gov Policy

Can the Courts block President Trump from firing US Government Officials?

Isn’t Donald Trump the “boss” of Executive Branch employees?  Can’t he fire and hire these workers at will?

As with so many legal questions, the answer is – it depends.

As far as Donald Trump is concerned, he has the unequivocal power to control those employed by the Executive Branch. By his Executive Order “Restoring Accountability to Policy-Influencing Positions Within the Federal Workforce,” the President asserts that “Article II of the United States Constitution vests the President with the sole and exclusive authority over the executive branch, including the authority to manage the Federal workforce to ensure effective execution of Federal law.”  

 President Trump explains that “[a] critical aspect of this executive function is the responsibility to maintain professionalism and accountability within the civil service.  This accountability is sorely lacking today.  Only 41 percent of civil service supervisors are confident that they can remove an employee who engaged in insubordination or serious misconduct.  Even fewer supervisors –- 26 percent — are confident that they can remove an employee for poor performance.”

To remedy this situation, the President asserts that “[a]ccountability is essential for all Federal employees, but it is especially important for those who are in policy-influencing positions.  These personnel are entrusted to shape and implement actions that have a significant impact on all Americans.  Any power they have is delegated by the President, and they must be accountable to the President, who is the only member of the executive branch, other than the Vice President, elected and directly accountable to the American people.  In recent years, however, there have been numerous and well-documented cases of career Federal employees resisting and undermining the policies and directives of their executive leadership.  Principles of good administration, therefore, necessitate action to restore accountability to the career civil service, beginning with positions of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character.”

Therefore, “[p]rinciples of good administration…necessitate action to restore accountability to the career civil service, beginning with positions of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character.”

But what exactly does Article II of the US Constitution say? “[The President shall] have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Court of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.” 

It wasn’t until 1926 that the US Supreme Court decided affirmatively what authority Article II gives the President over the dismissal of Executive Branch employees, in the case of Myers v. United States.  When a postmaster challenged his removal from office, Chief Justice (and former US President) William Howard Taft, took the opportunity to state that “Article II grants to the President the executive power of the Government, i. e. , the general administrative control of those executing the laws, including the power of appointment and removal of executive officers—a conclusion confirmed by his obligation to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” 

Chief Justice Taft seemed to believe this power to be fairly extensive, writing that “[t]here is nothing in the Constitution which permits a distinction between the removal of the head of a department or a bureau, when he discharges a political duty of the President or exercises his discretion, and the removal of executive officers engaged in the discharge of their other normal duties. The imperative reasons requiring an unrestricted power to remove the most important of his subordinates in their most important duties must, therefore, control the interpretation of the Constitution as to all appointed by him.”

According to Justia, “the result of [the Myers decision] was a rule that, as was immediately pointed out, exposed the so-called ‘independent agencies’ – the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and the like – to presidential domination.”

This “loophole” led to the 1935 Supreme Court decision in Humphrey’s  Executor v. United States.  Humphrey was a member of the Federal Trade Commission, who was removed from his post by President Franklin Roosevelt over a difference of opinion regarding public policy.  In distinguishing the Myers case, Justice George Sutherland wrote that ‘[a] postmaster is an executive officer restricted to the performance of executive functions. He is charged with no duty at all related to either the legislative or judicial power. The actual decision in the Myers case finds support in the theory that such an office is merely one of the units in the executive department and, hence, inherently subject to the exclusive and illimitable power of removal by the Chief Executive, whose subordinate and aide he is. . . . It goes no farther; much less does it include an officer who occupies no place in the executive department and who exercises no part of the executive power vested by the Constitution in the President.’”

However, a member of an independent agency, such as the Federal Trade Commission, was entitled to different treatment by the Chief Executive. “The Federal Trade Commission is an administrative body created by Congress to carry into effect legislative policies embodied in the statute,” Justice Sutherland wrote. “Such a body cannot in any proper sense be characterized as an arm or eye of the executive. Its duties are performed without executive leave and, in the contemplation of the statute, must be free from executive control…We think it plain under the Constitution that illimitable power of removal is not possessed by the President in respect of officers of the character of those just named, [the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the Court of Claims]…”

The reason to treat an appointed member of an independent agency differently than one appointed to a department of the Executive branch lies in the separation of powers enumerated in the US Constitution. The Court noted that “[t]he authority of Congress, in creating quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial agencies, to require them to act in discharge of their duties independently of executive control cannot well be doubted; and that authority includes, as an appropriate incident, power to fix the period during which they shall continue in office, and to forbid their removal except for cause in the meantime. For it is quite evident that one who holds his office only during the pleasure of another, cannot be depended upon to maintain an attitude of independence against the latter’s will. . . .”

Therefore, “[w]hether the power of the President to remove an officer shall prevail over the authority of Congress to condition the power by fixing a definite term and precluding a removal except for cause, will depend upon the character of the office…we hold that no removal can be made during the prescribed term for which the officer [of an independent agency] is appointed, except for one or more of the causes named in the applicable statute.”

The distinction between these two cases and the status of the affected employee becomes clear.  If you are an employee of the Parks Department, which is a branch of the Department of the Interior, or if you work for Veteran’s Affairs, which is a Cabinet-level department of the Executive branch, or even if you are an inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services,  under the authority of the Myers case, you can be removed from office by the President.

However, if you are an appointed member of the Federal Trade Commission or the head of the Office of the Special Counsel, then depending on the language of the statute Congress enacted to create your office, you can only be removed for “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.”

Humphrey’s Executor has recently been cited as the underlying basis for a temporary restraining order (TRO) granted to Hampton Dellinger, a Special Counsel of the Office of Special Counsel, who received a notice of termination from the Director of the Presidential Personnel Office.  Dellinger sought an order reversing that termination from the District Court in Washington, DC.

In granting his application, the lower court noted that “[t]he Office of Special Counsel is an independent agency originally created by the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978… [to] ‘safeguard’ federal civil service employees ‘who “blow the whistle” on illegal or improper official conduct.’” (Citations omitted.)  As such, “[t]he effort by the White House to terminate the Special Counsel without identifying any cause plainly contravenes the statute, which states, ‘[t]he Special Counsel may be removed by the President only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.’ 5 U.S.C. § 1211(b). This language expresses Congress’s clear intent to ensure the independence of the Special Counsel and insulate his work from being buffeted by the winds of political change.”

Citing to the US Supreme Court, the District Court stated that the high court has previously upheld “its observation in Humphrey’s Executor…that Congress’s ability to impose removal restrictions ‘will depend upon the character of the office’…[h]ere we have a statute that incorporates Congress’s [intention to place] restrictions on removal.”  Thus, Dellinger’s request for a restraining order was granted, and he was not removed from office.

When the DC Court of Appeals refused to intervene, the Trump Administration turned to the US Supreme Court – who also refused to intervene.

“[T]his Court typically does not have appellate jurisdiction over TROs,” the Court wrote. “In light of the foregoing, the application to vacate the order of the United States District Court…is held in abeyance.” 

In other words, the Supreme Court punted, awaiting further action by the District Court, who planned to hold a hearing to give both sides a full opportunity to be heard. Yet, not all the Justices wanted to wait for the District Court’s fact finding.

“The [District] court effectively commanded the President and other Executive Branch officials to recognize and work with someone whom the President sought to remove from office,” Justice Neil Gorsuch writes. “To be sure, throughout the Nation’s history, various presidentially appointed officials like Mr. Dellinger have contested their removal – and courts have heard and passed on their claims. But those officials have generally sought remedies like backpay, not injunctive relief like reinstatement.”

On this basis, Justice Gorsuch would have vacated the TRO and remanded the case to consider what other remedies were available to Bellinger other than reinstatement.

There will be other government officials who Donald Trump will seek to remove from office, and some of those persons will be employed by “independent agencies,” and will be subject to statutory requirements controlling the basis for their removal.  This will certainly serve as an impediment to their removal from office.

But in the meantime, the President is free to remove whatever other employees he chooses from their jobs.

Stay tuned – this battle has only just begun. 

Judge John Wilson (ret.) served on the bench in NYC

For many who supported Donald Trump’s return to the White House, the past two months have been breathtaking.  Of course, for those progressive Democrats who preferred “Sleepy Joe” Biden’s term in office, every day brings a new horror.

During an interview with CNN‘s Jake Tapper, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) summed up the perspective of the left: “Donald Trump is a chaos agent…[h]e’s unleashing chaos on the American people. We are not losing in court. We are actually winning in court. The Trump administration is losing. We are partnering on at least 79 different lawsuits that have been brought related to about 35 different illegal or unconstitutional executive orders. And the Trump administration continues to lose in court, after court, after court… Donald Trump is intentionally unleashing extremism and outrageous things on the American people to try to disorient everyday Americans. Donald Trump is not a king. We will never bend the knee. Not now, not ever.” 

Remember when the party out of power was called the “loyal opposition?”

Clearly, Representative Jeffries used some extreme rhetoric of his own during his statement, particularly in his discussion of the Trump Administration’s losses in court, reversals which are allegedly based on the President’s “illegal and unconstitutional” Executive Orders.

In a previous article, we discussed that these “losses” are exaggerated.  The Executive Order on Birthright citizenship for the children of illegal aliens was objectively unconstitutional; the freezing of funds for foreign aid is not.

One activity that has led to some confusion (at least among Democrats) is the firing of various government officials such as the heads of various agencies and governmental offices, an example of what Jeffries and his fellow progressives call “chaos.” (For some reason, no Democrat, except for maybe Texas Representative Henry Cueller, ever described the situation at the Southern Border during the Biden years as “chaotic”; but that is a subject for another time.)

“In an unprecedented purge of the military’s senior leadership,” CNN reports, “President Donald Trump  announced he was dismissing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Charles Q. Brown and replacing him with Air Force Lt. Gen. John Dan ‘Razin’ Caine…[m]inutes later, [Defense Secretary Pete] Hegseth released a statement announcing he’d fired Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the chief of the Navy…Hegseth called Franchetti a ‘DEI hire’ in his 2024 book, in which he wrote: ‘If naval operations suffer, at least we can hold our heads high. Because at least we have another first! The first female member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — hooray.’” 

Then there was this story from the Associated Press; “The Trump administration has fired about 1,000 newly hired National Park Service employees who maintain and clean parks, educate visitors and perform other functions as part of its broad-based effort to downsize government. The firings, which weren’t publicly announced but were confirmed by Democratic senators and House members, come amid what has been a chaotic rollout of an aggressive program to eliminate thousands of federal jobs.” 

According to Reuters, “[t]he campaign by President Donald Trump and his adviser Elon Musk to radically cut back the U.S. bureaucracy [has resulted in the] firing [of] more than 9,500 workers who handled everything from managing federal lands to caring for military veterans. Workers at the departments of Interior, Energy, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture and Health and Human Services had their employment terminated…[t]he firings, reported by Reuters and other major U.S. media outlets, are in addition to the roughly 75,000 workers who have taken a buyout that Trump and Musk have offered to get them to leave voluntarily, according to the White House. That equals about 3% of the 2.3 million person civilian workforce.” 

Of course, not everyone fired during this allegedly “chaotic” realignment is taking their severance pay and looking for another job.  Several, particularly the heads of certain federal agencies, have sought to keep their jobs with court actions – and some have been successful.

Judge John Wilson’s (ret.) article concludes tomorrow

The Defense Department’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget addressed the most significant national security priorities for the United States, including strategic competition with China and Russia; disruptive technologies like hypersonic weapons, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing; modernizing America’s ships, aircraft, and combat vehicles; and improving the lives of our servicemembers and their families.

However, like almost all other government agencies, taxpayer dollars have been misspent less wisely on areas not crucial to national security.

In February, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth discussed his priorities of strengthening the military by cutting fiscal fraud, waste and abuse at DOD while also finding ways to refocus the department’s budget.

Hegseth began his remarks stating the Defense Department owes the American people transparency related to steps DOD is taking to accomplish its mission while being good stewards of taxpayer dollars. 

“We shoot straight with you. We want you, the American people — the taxpayers — to understand why we’re making the decisions that we’re making here,” Hegseth said, adding that DOD is working as quickly as possible to execute the priorities of achieving peace through strength by rebuilding the military, restoring the warrior ethos and reestablishing deterrence.  

Prior to getting in-depth on issues related to the department’s finances, Hegseth cautioned viewers to take anything they’ve heard and/or read on the topic with a “gigantic grain of salt.” 

He touched on three areas related to the Pentagon’s finances. 

First, Hegseth said to tackle excess spending and address the issue of fraud, waste and abuse within DOD, the department would be relying on the recently established Department of Government Efficiency.

“Here, and they’re going to be incorporated into what we’re doing at DOD to find fraud, waste and abuse in the largest discretionary budget in the federal government.”

Hegseth noted that DOGE would be given access to systems — with proper safeguards and classifications — to first find redundancies and identify previous priorities not core to the department’s current mission and then get rid of them.  The Secretary emphasized that “…we are focusing as much as we can on headquarters and fat and top-line stuff that allows us to reinvest elsewhere.”

He also addressed reorienting the defense budget inherited from the previous administration.

Hegseth said beginning immediately, the Pentagon will pull 8% — or roughly $50 billion — from nonlethal programs in the current budget and redistribute the funds on “America First” priorities for national defense. “That’s not a cut; it’s refocusing and reinvesting existing funds into building the force that protects you, the American people.”

He also said there are certain areas where funds will not be refocused — border protection, fighting transnational criminal organizations, nuclear modernization, submarine programs, missile defense, drone technology, cybersecurity, core readiness and training and the defense industrial base among them. 

The secretary then turned to his third topic: the reevaluation of the Defense Department’s probationary workforce.  He pushed back on recent reports that DOD would do across-the-board cuts of all probationary employees.  

Hegseth said leaders are reevaluating probationary employees “carefully and smartly,” and future manning decisions would be based, in part, on quality of performance. “We’re starting with the poor performers among our probationary employees because it’s common sense that you want the best and brightest. So, when you look at headcount, we’re going to be thoughtful; but we’re also going to be aggressive up and down the chain to find the places where we can ensure the best and brightest are promoted based on merit,” he continued. 

The Secretary added DOD will implement a hiring freeze to take time to identify better hiring practices as they relate to finding the most “hard charging” employees that are central to the department’s core warfighting mission.   

He finished his remarks by discussing transparency and the value he sees in communicating directly to the people. “Our warfighters and taxpayers deserve no less, and we’ll keep reporting back to you from time to time on what we’re seeing.”  

Photo: Frank Vernuccio

Russian influence operations are an important factor in its global hybrid warfare campaigns. In Georgia, a small nation-state located in the Black Sea region, the Kremlin is actively pursuing a campaign of combined military intervention and territorial occupation, economic embargoes, energy leverages, political corruption, and information warfare. Charles Horn, of the Center for New American Security, calls Putin’s Russia the “axis of upheaval.” In 2022, Russian foreign direct investment in Georgia peaked at $105.6 million, before slightly declining to 103.3 million in 2024. It is not the only great power interested in the country. China is also making inroads in Georgia, which serves as a pivotal transit hub for regional trade routes. Beijing, under its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), is leader of the consortium developing the large, Anaklia Deep Sea port infrastructure project, among others. 

Not long ago, Georgia was stabilizing and trending toward the West and future NATO membership. Today, the influence of Russia’s “borderization” tactics are shifting its occupation line deeper into Georgia as it is simultaneously being challenged economically by Beijing. BRI projects underscore China’s growing economic footprint as its moves westward into areas that once were solely under Russia’s sphere of influence. Chinese-made customs control systems have been installed at Georgia’s border checkpoints, including Sadakhlo, Kartsakhi, Kazbegi, Red Bridge, Ninotsminda, and Sarpi, according to reports from the Foreign Policy Research Institute. It suggests that while these installations aim to enhance trade efficiency, they have raised serious concerns regarding the country’s trade infrastructure and national security. Today there are a number of Chinese-led highway modernization projects that will help further China’s requirement for transportation inroads into Russia and Europe.  

The $1 billion Rikoti Pass Road being constructed by Chinese companies includes a 32-mile stretch through the Rikoti Pass in central Georgia with 96 bridges and 53 tunnels, according to Radio Free Europe. China is also building a six-mile tunnel, the longest in the Caucasus, through the Sadzele Mountain. The Chinese company, Sinohydro, is leading the Kobuleti Bypass project. It constructed sections of the Bypass, which is aimed at improving traffic flow along Georgia’s Black Sea coast. The bypass includes tunnels and bridges to facilitate smoother transportation. Georgian political, military, and economic stability is under attack by the great powers of the communist world. As a result, its statehood is being derailed in Tbilisi’s attempt to move along its intended Euro-Atlantic integration path. 

China is making major inroads economically. Russia is, too, while also continuing its occupation of two small counties in the northern border areas of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Russia’s territorial control allows it to challenge Georgia’s sovereignty, independent political leadership, and deters its ability to enter NATO. The Kremlin is exerting control without employing kinetic warfare. It is, however, just as deadly as Kremlin interference increases the risk of authoritarian rule expanding among the country’s ruling elites and serves as a potential flashpoint for war.

Intelligence analysts in Washington say that while Georgia has demonstrated strong public resistance to these efforts, the “growing authoritarian tendencies of its ruling elites—aided by Russian interference—pose a severe risk to the country’s future.” Russia’s normalization policy has evolved into a rollback of democratic institutions and realignment with Moscow. 

Only two years ago, Georgia was granted candidate status to enter the European Union. Since then, Georgia has turned away from the historic opportunity and reintroduced a Moscow-influenced “Foreign Agents’ Law” to silence critics in civil society and what remains of its independent media. When the populace objected for 85 straight days of mass protest, the government cracked down brutally on them. Analysts suggest that the Kremlin’s propaganda in Georgia helps by promoting appeasement as the path to stability while portraying the West as a disruptor. 

Georgia’s geostrategic location makes it a vital link between Europe and Central Asia. Soft great power politics permeates the Georgian political landscape from China on its East and Russia, with growing anti-American and West European rhetoric again dominating the country’s media. 

Russian and Chinese tactics target emerging democratic societies worldwide, often working silently, and eroding trust in institutions by manipulating political discourse. It demands a coordinated response from NATO, the European Union, and democratic allies to counter China and Russia’s tactics and to sernly warn those powers against replicating their anti-democratic tactics elsewhere around the globe.

Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.

Illustration: Pixabay

The 2025 Annual Threat Assessment by the US Intelligence Community (IC) was released this week. In addition to an extensive analysis of the war in Ukraine, it includes sections on Russia’s military activities in the Arctic, cyber security, WMD, and space. Russia, aided by China, competes with the West for influence and power. Advanced disruptive technologies are opening new avenues for securing and using Russia’s valuable natural resources and manpower. 

Today Putin controls about 50% of the entire Arctic coastline. He views the region as integral to his country’s economic wellbeing and national security posture. Moscow is developing Arctic oil and gas reserves and hopes to position the country to “reap benefits from expected increases in maritime trade,” according to the IC report. The Arctic was flagged as a geographic location of “increasing concern” for the Kremlin last year when NATO enlarged its membership to include the final two previously unaligned states, Sweden and Finland. 

For Putin, this raises additional serious questions about economic and military competition with Western nations. With the war in Ukraine draining Russia’s treasury and depleting its manpower by diverting working age men to the miliary, Putin is seeking a closer partnership of convenience with China. Beijing’s involvement with Moscow in the Arctic follows a dual track driven by economic power and military ambitions. At the start of the war Russia unexpectedly lost most of its Black Sea fleet and needed China’s financial and materiel help. That extends China’s influence into a resource-rich region of the world and constrains the perceived strength of NATO.  The report also notes that “Russia’s interest in Greenland is focused mainly on its proximity to strategically important naval routes between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans—including for nuclear-armed submarines—and the fact that Greenland hosts a key US military base.” This factor is not lost on China’s leadership.

Chinese President Xi Jinping supports Russian President Vladimir Putin so that he keeps the West, and the US in particular, occupied. “Moscow’s massive investments in its defense sector will render the Russian military a continued threat to US national security, despite Russia’s significant personnel and equipment losses—primarily in the ground forces— during the war with Ukraine,” according to the report. With Chinese assistance, Moscow remains capable of force projection across the globe, with its nuclear and counterspace forces providing ongoing strategic deterrence capability. While Russia’s economy is small, it has an outsized military that includes submarines and bombers with advanced weapons systems. As needed, it imports munitions from Iran and North Korea to circumvent Western sanctions. The IC reports says Russia’s “investments in personnel recruitment and procurement should allow it to steadily reconstitute reserves and expand ground forces in particular during the next decade.” 

Russia developed advanced cyber capabilities, too, and is increasingly compromising sensitive targets for intelligence collection and US critical infrastructure. The report calls it a “persistent counterintelligence and cyber attack threat.” It raises concerns that Moscow is acquiring practical experience in cyber-attacks and operations with wartime military action amplifying its potential to “focus combined impact on US targets in time of conflict.” Creating and stoking political discord in the West, sowing doubt in democratic processes and US leadership, and degrading Western support for Ukraine all are part of Putin’s playbook. According to the report, he also has the largest and most diverse nuclear weapons stockpile, along with deployed ground-, air-, and seas-based delivery systems that are modernized,  mobile and intended to circumvent or neutralize US missile defense system or deter a retaliatory attack. Russia is also expanding its chemical-biological weapons (CBM) capabilities. “Russian scientific institutes continue to research and develop CBW capabilities, including technologies to deliver CBW agents. Russia retains an undeclared chemical weapons program and has used chemical weapons at least twice during recent years in assassination attempts with Novichok nerve agents, also known as fourth-generation agents, against Russian opposition leader Aleksey Navalny in 2020, and against U.K. citizen Sergey Skripal and his daughter Yuliya Skripal on U.K. soil in 2018.”

In space, the Kremlin oversees new antisatellite weapons capable of disrupting and degrading US and allied space capabilities, along with ASAT missiles designed specifically to target US and allied satellites. With Chinese assistance it is also expanding its arsenal of jamming systems and directed energy weapons (DEW). Sanctions and export controls are constraining Russia. It faces deficiencies in its space-based architecture, domestic space-sector problems, and competition for program resources. According to the report, Moscow remains competitive as it prioritizes assets critical to its national security and integrates military space services over civil space projects. Perhaps most concerning to Washington, is Moscow’s development of a new satellite meant to carry a nuclear weapon as an antisatellite capability. Space detonation could have devastating consequences across the globe. 

Although the Russian population is resilient, it continues to pay a heavy price for Putin’s war and concentration of the country’s financial resources on military technologies and activities. Putin’s aggressive behavior is not waning despite the war’s negative impact on Russia’s influence with its partners. It is likely the US, and the West, will continue to face off with a determined Russian leader that does not intend to back down.

Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.

Illustration: Pixabay

The Director of National Intelligence (DNI) released the 2025 Annual Threat Assessment by the US Intelligence Community (IC) this week. The 31-page report analyzes threats posed by foreign state and non-state adversaries and the types of threats facing our nation. It opens by stating that “Russia, China, Iran and North Korea—individually and collectively—are challenging US interests in the world by attacking or threatening others in their regions, with both asymmetric and conventional hard power tactics, and promoting alternative systems to compete with the United States, primarily in trade, finance, and security.”

In its strategic overview of Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine the report cites Russia’s use of that conflict as a proxy for conflict with the West. Putin’s objective, it says, is to restore Russian strength and security in its near abroad against perceived US and Western encroachment. This has resulted, according to the DNI, in increasing the risks of unintended escalation between Russia and NATO. Specifically, it notes that “The resulting heightened and prolonged political-military tensions between Moscow and Washington, coupled with Russia’s growing confidence in its battlefield superiority and defense industrial base and increased risk of nuclear war, create both urgency and complications for U.S. efforts to bring the war to an acceptable close.” 

The assessment further suggests that regardless of how and when the war ends, trends point to Russia’s resilience and “enduring potential threat to US power, presence, and global interests.” China and North Korea’s expanded backing of President Vladimir Putin have also aided Russian efforts. The report notes that the Russian people are relatively passive in accepting the high price of the conflict, making it more likely Putin will remain in power for the foreseeable future. This comes at a defining time in Putin’s career when he is considering his personal legacy.

Economically, Western efforts to isolate and sanction Russia appear to be accelerating the country’s investments in alternative partnerships to offset and circumvent US and Western sanctions and export controls. Russia is taking these actions “even if at the cost of greater vulnerability to Chinese influence.” It is also expanding military cooperation with Iran and North Korea and increasingly willing to play “spoiler” at the United Nations and with the BRICS Group (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) to push de-dollarization policies.

Intelligence assessments point to Russia’s economy as sustaining its fourth largest place in the world despite the war effort. (European countries are analyzed as separate states and not as a single trading bloc.)  It says: “Russia has shown it can navigate substantial economic challenges resulting from the ongoing drains of the war, Western cost imposition, and high inflation and interest rates, for at least the near term by using financial and import substitution workarounds, maintaining low debt, and continuing investments in the defense-industrial base.”

Although Russia has suffered sizable ground force losses, it retains its strategic pillars of military power, including a diverse and robust nuclear deterrent and asymmetric capabilities, with particular strength in counterspace and undersea warfare resources. The IC report says that  Moscow’s air and naval forces are intact and its air force more modern and capable than in 2014 at the start of the war. Of particular concern it its growing arsenal of conventional capabilities, including theater strike weapons that pose a threat to US allies in Europe. Putin’s advanced WMD and space programs now threaten the US homeland and provide key warfighting advantages. The DNI finds that in 2025 “Russia will continue to be able to deploy anti-U.S. diplomacy, coercive energy tactics, disinformation, espionage, influence operations, military intimidation, cyberattacks, and gray zone tools to try to compete below the level of armed conflict and fashion opportunities to advance Russian interests.”

The war in Ukraine, it suggests, has afforded Moscow a “wealth of lessons” regarding combat against Western weapons and intelligence in a large-scale war. It points out that the experience “will challenge” future US defense planning not only with Russia, but also with those states with whom it is sharing the lessons learned. 

Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Department

Illustration: Pixabay

The end of DEI initiatives in the federal government is not popular with those who supported these policies. “With these actions,” the American Civil Liberties Union intones, “the [Trump} administration is not only undoing decades of federal anti-discrimination policy, spanning Democratic and Republican presidential administrations alike, but also marshalling federal enforcement agencies to bully both private and government entities into abandoning legal efforts to promote equity and remedy systemic discrimination. Trump’s executive orders undermine obligations dating back to the Johnson administration that firms doing business with the U.S. government and receiving billions in public dollars are held to the highest standards in remedying and preventing bias.” 

Of course, no such bullying of private entities was ever necessary – the marketplace dictates corporate policy far more effectively than the government ever could. According to NPR, “President Trump is ending diversity, equity and inclusion in the federal government. But big companies have already been rolling back their DEI promises, for business as well as political reasons…Walmart recently said it won’t renew the funding for the racial equity center it launched in 2020. It joins McDonald’s, Amazon, Facebook, and many others who are ending some diversity programs. A Walmart spokesperson tells NPR that the company is working to make all employees successful. The other companies have said similar things…[b]ack in 2020, it was trendy for big companies to pledge to help workers and help the planet while still making more money. But they couldn’t always follow through…[i]t is always going to be difficult if you are a for-profit publicly traded company to have your leader talk about anything other than maximizing profits…” 

But whether or not it was profitable for a corporation to follow DEI policies is a separate issue from whether or not the federal government may legally pursue such a course of action.  Again quoting from our book, Not Wasting a Crisis; “[under] the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution…the Federal government has the same obligation to provide ‘equal’ – not ‘equitable’ – protection to all as do the States…[d]espite centuries of American jurisprudence ‘prohibiting governmental denial of equal protection,’ and insuring equality before the law for all persons, regardless of race, gender or religion, Joe Biden and his minions continue[d] to ignore the U.S. Constitution and deny equal protection to many people on the very basis of race, gender and religion…governmental [agencies were] tasked with forcing federal agencies to adopt equity principles [in an effort] to determine who [would] receive the advantages of Equity – and who [would] not.”

Clearly, this was a blatantly unconstitutional path for the United States government to follow.  But thanks to the election of a President who has both a respect for the rule of law and a proper reading of the US Constitution, these illegal DEI policies have been halted.

But have they?  Has the snake’s head been cut off – or is that snake actually a hydra?

According to USA Today, “[t]he acting secretary for the Department of Veterans Affairs demanded that his staff report efforts to disguise diversity, equity and inclusion programs targeted for termination by the Trump administration, according to an email obtained by USA TODAY. Acting Veterans Affairs secretary Todd Hunter’s email told his employees that he was ‘aware of efforts by some in government to disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language’…[e]mails with nearly identical language were sent to employees at other agencies, including the Social Security Administration, according to versions USA TODAY has reviewed.” 

This effort to uproot attempts to disguise DEI programs is not mere paranoia.  As revealed by The Daily Mail, “[t]he Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives appeared to try and avoid Donald Trump’s anti-DEI executive order by switching the job title of its Chief Diversity Officer…Trump’s administration ordered federal agencies to place all Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) hires on paid leave pending review and warned authorities not to use ‘coded or imprecise language’ to circumvent the move. But within a day of the order being announced, eagle-eyed online sleuths noticed the ATF’s Chief Diversity Officer Lisa T. Boykin had a new job title, appearing to have been updated to ‘Senior Executive.'” 

Meanwhile, “[i]n November, the organization Judicial Watch sued the Department of Defense in a case related to West Point’s changing the name of its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion office to the ‘Office of Engagement and Retention.’ Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton said at the time that ‘[i]t seems games are afoot at West Point to disguise its radical DEI agenda.'”  However, as reported by Campus Reform, in January of 2025 “[t]he United States Military Academy at West Point…appears to have ended its ‘Diversity and Inclusion Studies’ minor…side-by-side pictures of the West Point website [show] that the DEI minor is no longer present on the academy’s ‘Majors and Minors’ page.” 

There is probably no more difficult a task than to halt, let alone reverse, the existence of a bureaucracy.  Once in place, an initiative such as DEI will be perpetuated by its supporters and adherents. “[O]ne organizational feature that has proved uncommonly resistant to evolutionary pressures is bureaucracy,” writes Todd Jick, Senior Lecturer at the Columbia Business School. “Notwithstanding the many changes today’s organizations face in their competitive env ironment, it seems bureaucracy is binding – and organizations tend to stick to it, for better or worse.”    This is especially true when those bureaucrats are ideologues, convinced of the absolute righteousness of their positions.

Predictably, some members of the DEI establishment have begun to fight back. Time reports that “[a] slew of nonprofit organizations filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration on Wednesday in response to its Executive Orders targeting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs. The case was filed by the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) and Lambda Legal on behalf of the National Urban League, the National Fair Housing Alliance, and the AIDS Foundation of Chicago. The lawsuit…alleges that the Trump Administration is infringing on the organizations’ right to free speech and due process by forcing said organizations to adopt the Trump Administration’s view regarding DEI…plaintiffs argue that the federal funding they rely on to engage with underserved communities and provide social and health services has been compromised.” 

Of course, this lawsuit by a group of NGOs completely ignores the fact that government funding of any initiative is at the discretion of the government, and that the acceptance of federal money entails the acceptance of federal rules.  Ultimately, such a lawsuit is doomed to failure – if not in the lower courts, then ultimately, upon appellate review.

One federal judge has issued an injunction against the firing of 11 CIA officers who were involved in DEI programs at the Agency.  However, the officers did not seek to halt the dismantling of the program, or invalidate the President’s Executive Order.  Instead, according to Fox News, “[f]ormer CIA officer Kevin Carroll, a lawyer representing the CIA employees [noted] that the 11 officers were on temporary assignments relating to DEI initiatives and that none of them had received poor performance reviews…’These people are being fired just because of an assumption that’s been made that they are leftists,’ Carroll said in a statement.” 

In other words, don’t fire us – we had no choice but to do the job we were assigned.  This is a position that may ultimately prove successful, but will need to be established on a case by case basis.

There will, of course, be more lawsuits, injunctions and other developments before DEI is eradicated from the federal government.  But we believe the Trump Administration is off to a good start, and is on firm legal footing in removing an illegal and unconstitutional initiative from practice and enforcement by the United States government.

Judge John Wilson (ret.) served on the bench in NYC

Illustration: Pixabay

Here at usagovpolicy.com, and in the pages of our book, Not Wasting a Crisis, the Lawless Biden Administration, we have detailed the concerted and sustained efforts made by the 46th President (or in any case, the extensive exertions made by members of his Administration) to permanently enshrine the principles of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the federal government.

On the day of his Inauguration in 2020, Former President Joe Biden issued Executive Order 13985, “Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government,” which mandated that “the policy of my Administration [is to] pursue a comprehensive approach to advancing equity for all…[a]ffirmatively advancing equity…is the responsibility of the whole of our government.”

This order was followed by two more: Executive Order 14035, which provided for “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in the Federal Workforce,” and Executive Order 14091,“Further Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government.” 

With these Orders, as we noted in Chapter 16 of Not Wasting a Crisis, “[a] new level of bureaucracy [was] created to ensure that it is a function of the federal government to violate the Equal Protection of the law guaranteed under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.  Every major federal department must use all of their power and authority to ensure that services are provided on the basis of “equity,” not “equality.”

We further asked this question, “How can this be legal?” and provided this answer; “it’s not.  These Executive Orders are utterly and completely unconstitutional, and a blatant violation of the principle upon which this nation was built and stands – equal protection for all.”

Once more, we must humbly admit that we were right.

On the day of his Inauguration, President Donald Trump put an end to this illegal system with his Executive Order “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferences.”   “The Biden Administration forced illegal and immoral discrimination programs, going by the name ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ (DEI), into virtually all aspects of the Federal Government,” the Order states, “in areas ranging from airline safety to the military.  This was a concerted effort stemming from President Biden’s first day in office…[t]hat ends today.  Americans deserve a government committed to serving every person with equal dignity and respect, and to expending precious taxpayer resources only on making America great.”

Pursuant to this Order, “[t]he Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), assisted by the Attorney General and the Director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), shall coordinate the termination of all discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI and “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility” (DEIA) mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the Federal Government, under whatever name they appear…Federal employment practices, including Federal employee performance reviews, shall reward individual initiative, skills, performance, and hard work and shall not under any circumstances consider DEI and DEIA factors, goals, policies, mandates, or requirements.”

Removing DEI initiatives from government offices and programs has been hailed by those who warned of the dangers of these programs for years. “Hiding behind the smokescreen of ‘fairness,'” writes George Leef, the director of editorial content at the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, “leftists have for decades been shoving their collectivist notions down the throats of American students. It took quite a long time for the counterattack to get started, but it seems that DEI is in full retreat.” Meanwhile, Corey DeAngelis of the American Culture Project and Adam Guillette, President of Accuracy in Media, state that “[o]n his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to end ‘radical and wasteful government DEI programs’ in federal agencies.  Trump made the right call. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said he dreamed people would ‘not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.’ DEI ideology is a slap in the face to MLK Jr.’s civil rights agenda to treat everyone equally, regardless of the color of their skin.” 

Judge John Wilson’s (ret.) article concludes tomorrow

Photo: Pixabay