{"id":16333,"date":"2025-02-04T21:53:17","date_gmt":"2025-02-04T21:53:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=16333"},"modified":"2025-02-04T21:53:18","modified_gmt":"2025-02-04T21:53:18","slug":"trumps-early-moves-are-terrifying-washington-a-legal-resistance-is-imminent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=16333","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s early moves are terrifying Washington. A legal resistance is imminent."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“Trump allies are purging the Justice Department and FBI<\/a> of perceived enemies. Elon Musk, empowered by Trump, has deployed a band of loyalists to take over the federal spending apparatus<\/a> managed by the U.S. Treasury. Trump\u2019s temporary pick to lead federal prosecutions in Washington says anyone who resists Musk\u2019s efforts could be breaking \u201cnumerous laws<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The White House is attempting to freeze virtually all federal grants<\/a>, which nonprofits say is already wreaking havoc on programs for vulnerable Americans. With almost no notice, the administration has dismantled the agency responsible for international aid<\/a> and offered millions of federal employees a buyout<\/a> with questionable legal authority. Trump fired many of the internal watchdogs<\/a> \u2014 inspectors general \u2014 who would review these decisions.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Many of Washington\u2019s legal veterans say they\u2019re most alarmed and perplexed by Musk and his amorphous role in efforts to make massive, abrupt and ill-explained changes to the operations of the federal government. He routinely uses his social media platform, X, to characterize some government-funded programs as \u201ccriminal\u201d and relished, for example, putting USAID \u2014 the agency responsible for administering international aid programs \u2014 through a \u201cwood chipper.\u201d Those claims of illegality have been coupled with a chorus of Trump\u2019s MAGA allies characterizing the agency as a hotbed of progressive causes, suggesting the agency drew Trump allies\u2019 ire for political reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musk has sent a team of allies to take control of computer systems at Treasury and in the Office of Personnel Management, which are responsible for delivering appropriated funds and overseeing the entire federal workforce. It\u2019s unclear what responsibilities they have. Amid reports some of those incursions have been met with pushback, Washington, D.C.\u2019s interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin \u2014 a conservative culture warrior who was a prominent conspiracy theorist about the Jan.6 attack<\/a> \u2014 offered to use his office to protect Musk\u2019s efforts.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/02\/04\/trump-government-retribution-legal-battles-011469<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Trump allies are purging the Justice Department and FBI of perceived enemies. Elon Musk, empowered by Trump, has deployed a band of loyalists to take over the federal spending apparatus managed by the U.S. Treasury. Trump\u2019s temporary pick to lead federal prosecutions in Washington says anyone who resists Musk\u2019s efforts could be breaking \u201cnumerous laws.\u201d<\/p>\n

The White House is attempting to freeze virtually all federal grants, which nonprofits say is already wreaking havoc on programs for vulnerable Americans. With almost no notice, the administration has dismantled the agency responsible for international aid and offered millions of federal employees a buyout with questionable legal authority. Trump fired many of the internal watchdogs \u2014 inspectors general \u2014 who would review these decisions.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Many of Washington\u2019s legal veterans say they\u2019re most alarmed and perplexed by Musk and his amorphous role in efforts to make massive, abrupt and ill-explained changes to the operations of the federal government. He routinely uses his social media platform, X, to characterize some government-funded programs as \u201ccriminal\u201d and relished, for example, putting USAID \u2014 the agency responsible for administering international aid programs \u2014 through a \u201cwood chipper.\u201d Those claims of illegality have been coupled with a chorus of Trump\u2019s MAGA allies characterizing the agency as a hotbed of progressive causes, suggesting the agency drew Trump allies\u2019 ire for political reasons.
\nMusk has sent a team of allies to take control of computer systems at Treasury and in the Office of Personnel Management, which are responsible for delivering appropriated funds and overseeing the entire federal workforce. It\u2019s unclear what responsibilities they have. Amid reports some of those incursions have been met with pushback, Washington, D.C.\u2019s interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin \u2014 a conservative culture warrior who was a prominent conspiracy theorist about the Jan.6 attack \u2014 offered to use his office to protect Musk\u2019s efforts.”<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/02\/04\/trump-government-retribution-legal-battles-011469<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[617,431,221,1598,33,201,170],"class_list":["post-16333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-bureaucracy","tag-democracy","tag-donald-trump","tag-elon-musk","tag-fbi","tag-rule-of-law","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16333"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16334,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16333\/revisions\/16334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}