Fire and Brimstone and Hell and Damnation is coming to the Deep State – Donald J Trump
Trump announced a “10-point plan to dismantle the deep state” in a video shared to the Trump War Room Twitter account on Tuesday. The former president said the plan would “reclaim our democracy from Washington once and for all” by eliminating the deep state.
Here are all 10 points of the plan:
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Executive Order to Fire ‘Rogue Bureaucrats’
“I will immediately re-issue my 2020 executive order restoring the president’s authority to remove rogue bureaucrats,” Trump said in the video on Tuesday. “And I will wield that power very aggressively.”
The executive order issued by Trump in October 2020, which was never fully implemented, established a new employment category for federal workers called “Schedule F.”
Under the new category, civil servants with jobs tied to “policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating” effectively lost civil service employment protection for federal employees that had been in place for more than 135 years.
Trump has made it clear that he intends to reinstate the order if elected in 2024. Democrats introduced a provision to last year’s National Defense Authorization Act that would have blocked the order, but the provision was removed from the final version of the bill passed in December. -
Overhaul Federal Agencies, Fire ‘Corrupt’ Officials
“We will clean out all of the corrupt actors in our national security and intelligence apparatus, and there are plenty of them,” Trump said.
“The departments and agencies that have been weaponized will be completely overhauled,” he continued. “So that faceless bureaucrats will never again be able to target and persecute conservatives, Christians, or the left’s political enemies, which they’re doing now at a level that nobody can believe even possible.”
Trump’s pledge to oust the “corrupt” officials that are supposedly in service to “the left” echoes recent Republican rhetoric claiming that conservatives en masse are facing persecution from powerful Democrats.
The GOP-led House established a select committee to investigate the “weaponization of the federal government” this year, although the committee has failed to uncover evidence of a conspiracy, while facing criticism over credibility and the quality of its witnesses.
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Clean Up ‘Corrupt’ FISA Courts
“We will totally reform FISA courts which are so corrupt that the judges seemingly do not care when they are lied to in warrant applications,” Trump said. “So many judges have seen so many applications that they know were wrong, or at least they must have known. They do nothing about it, they’re lied to.”
Federal courts established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) are responsible for reviewing and approving government wiretapping requests. The courts have faced criticism from both ends of the political spectrum for rarely refusing requests and allegedly “rubber stamping” surveillance on U.S. citizens.
Trump has been calling for an overhaul since accusing the courts of aiding a Democratic “witch hunt” by granting a warrant to the FBI for surveillance on his former campaign aide Carter Page, as part of the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
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‘Truth and Reconciliation Commission’
“We will establish a truth and reconciliation commission to declassify and publish all documents on deep state spying, censorship and corruption,” said Trump. “And there are plenty of them.”
What was likely the best-known “truth and reconciliation commission” was established in post-apartheid South Africa in 1995, to identify and expose human rights abuses during more than four decades of the racial segregation policy.
Details of Trump’s proposed commission are unclear. It is also unclear why Trump did not declassify the supposed deep state documents while he was in office from 2017 to 2021.
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‘Crackdown on Government Leakers,’ ‘Fake News’
“We will launch a major crackdown on government leakers who collude with the fake news to deliberately weave false narratives and to subvert our government and our democracy,” Trump said. “When possible, we will press criminal charges.”
The former president has frequently lashed out at the “fake news.” He was particularly critical of “government leakers” who were critical of him.
In 2018, he tweeted that “leakers are traitors and cowards” after The New York Times published an anonymous opinion article titled, “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.” It was later revealed that the article was authored by former Department of Homeland Security official Miles Taylor.
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Make Inspectors General Offices Independent
“We will make every Inspector General’s Office independent and physically separated from the departments they oversee so they do not become the protectors of the deep state,” Trump said.
Inspectors general are tasked with overseeing government and rooting out potential corruption. Trump fired multiple inspectors general during his administration, including his own appointee Michael Atkinson, who had informed Congress of the whistleblower complaint that led to the former president’s first impeachment.
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‘Continually’ Conduct Audits of Intelligence Agencies
“I will ask Congress to establish an independent auditing system to continually monitor our intelligence agencies to ensure they are not spying on our citizens or running disinformation campaigns against the American people,” said Trump. “Or that they are not spying on someone’s campaign like they spied on my campaign.”
Trump has repeatedly accused intelligence agencies in league with the deep state of spying on his 2016 campaign. Details of how a Congress-approved auditing system would work are unclear.
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Move Agencies Away from ‘Washington Swamp’
“We will continue the effort launched by the Trump administration to move parts of the sprawling federal bureaucracy to new locations outside the Washington swamp,” Trump said. “Just as I moved the Bureau of Land Management to Colorado.”
“As many as 100,000 government positions can be moved out,” he added. “And I mean immediately out of Washington, to places filled with patriots who love America. And they really do love America.”
The Bureau of Land Management moved its headquarters in 2020 to Grand Junction, in Colorado’s heavily Republican-leaning Mesa County.
The former president has suggested in the past that residents of Washington, D.C., and other large Democrat-leaning cities do not “love America” as much as residents of those in areas dominated by Republican politics.
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Ban Ex-Officials From Taking Jobs in Industries They Regulated
“I will work to ban federal bureaucrats from taking jobs at the companies they deal with and that they regulate,” said Trump. “They deal with these companies and they regulate these companies, and then they want to take jobs from these companies.”
“Doesn’t work that way,” he added. “Such a public display cannot go on and it’s taking place all the time, like with big pharma.”
Trump is not alone in criticizing the “revolving door” of former federal employees working private sectors jobs in industries they previously regulated, due to the potential for improper use of government connections and conflicts of interest.
However, the former president also faced criticism for allegedly keeping the revolving door open in the other direction while he was in office, appointing a multitude of ex-lobbyists to key positions within his own administration.
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Term-Limit Members of Congress by Constitutional Amendment
“Finally, I will push a Constitutional amendment to impose term limits on members of Congress,” Trump said. “This is how I will shatter the deep state and restore government that is controlled by the people and for the people. Thank you very much.”
There are currently no term limits for members of either house of Congress. Calls to change the rules are not a partisan issue, with both Republican and Democratic lawmakers having spoken in favor of imposing limits. Polls also suggest that a large majority of the public would support term limits.
Passing and ratifying a constitutional amendment is notoriously difficult, however, requiring a two-thirds majority in the House and Senate and ratification from at least 38 states.
The most recent amendment—the 27th—concerns the timing of salary increases for House members. The amendment was ratified in May 1992, more than 200 years after it was first proposed.
