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Trump planted his own 'deep state' partisans in government agencies to undermine Biden: report
January 19, 2021
According to a report from Politico, Donald Trump and members of his inner circle have gone to extraordinary lengths to place appointees in positions in government agencies whose sole purpose will be to undermine the administration of incoming President Joe Biden.
While the president has complained that the "deep state" -- in his mind, those people being government employees taking part in a grand conspiracy to ruin his presidency -- he is reportedly has created his own with an eye on undermining Biden so he can run against the incoming president in 2024.
According to the report, "A higher-than-usual number of Trump administration political appointees — some with highly partisan backgrounds — are currently "burrowing" into career positions throughout the federal government, moving from appointed positions into powerful career civil service roles, which come with job protections that will make it difficult for Biden to fire them."
While it's not unusual for the White House to attempt to place highly competent staffers in positions of power to see initiatives through over multiple administrations, the choices Trump has been making have watchdogs concerned.
According to the report, an executive order signed by Trump has allowed some positions to be filled without proper oversight to allow "political appointees circumvent the usual merit-based application process for career civil service jobs, while moving career policymakers into a new job category with far fewer legal protections."
"The Office of Personnel Management is required to report any conversion of political appointees into career positions to Congress on a quarterly basis — meaning lawmakers only know now what has happened through September of last year," Politico reports. "But there are also gaps in terms of which agencies must be included in the reports, which are not required to be made public. The disclosures are also dependent on agencies identifying the employees shifting into career slots and reporting them to OPM."
According to Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, "There's real questions about whether OPM has served as a true guardian to stop bad conversions from happening."
An aide close to Biden stated they are very aware of what Trump has done and they are working on remedies.
"We've identified some people already, but we don't know how many there are in total, or where exactly they're placed," the person said. "The incoming administration will have to evaluate it and think about alternative placements [for the burrowers], and that will take time and create more distractions and burdens for them."
You can read more here.
REVEALED: Trump spent flight to Georgia Senate rally asking allies if his coup would succeed
January 19, 2021
Two days before the infamous riots at the United States Capitol building, President Donald Trump flew down to Georgia to campaign for Sens. David Perdue (R-GA) and Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) in two races that would determine control of the United States Senate.
However, according to new reporting from Axios's Jonathan Swan, Trump was totally unenthusiastic about campaigning for the two Republican senators and was instead obsessed with overturning the results of the 2020 election.
<p>At one point during his flight down to Georgia, Trump asked Federalist Society co-founder David McIntosh to assess his chances of remaining in power despite the fact that he had definitively lost the election to President-elect Joe Biden.</p><p>"What do you think my odds are?" Trump asked him.</p><p>"It doesn't look great, sir," McIntosh replied.</p><p>"Yeah, you're probably right," replied a sullen Trump.</p><p>Trump apparently didn't remain depressed for long, however, as two days later he would encourage his followers to march to the Capitol building, where they would start a riot that would leave five people dead.</p>
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Trump constantly humiliates his followers when his conspiracy theories fall apart: Morning Joe
January 19, 2021
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough bashed the latest conspiracy theory going around among President Donald Trump's supporters as he prepares to leave office.
The "Morning Joe" host said he's heard that some Trump backers are convinced that President-elect Joe Biden won't even serve his term and will instead abandon Washington, D.C., almost immediately after Inauguration Day and hand over the office he won to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and other Fox News villains.
<p>"A good friend of ours has a friend who is caught up in all the conspiracy theories, and now the new conspiracy theory is Joe Biden is going to move back to Delaware on the 21st of January and he's going to basically turn the government over to AOC and everybody," Scarborough said, "and there are educated people who believe this. There are former elected officials of large cities who believe this, and they're always made a fool of, because these conspiracy theories never come true. That was Donald Trump's whole presidency."</p><p>"The evangelical community is split in half because people believed the lies for four years, only now are they waking up to realize they have been lied to by someone they set up as an idol," he added. "These lies, it's not a bug. It's the feature of the Trump presidency."</p><p>Scarborough wondered why they keep enduring the humiliation of believing in lies.</p><p> "There was a column this weekend, I'm not sure who it was, maybe you can remind me, of someone saying how humiliating it was to be a Trump follower, Qanon follower, because your entire life is telling people of a cataclysmic event, and it never comes," Scarborough said, "and you're humiliated. Then you have to talk about the next end-of-the-world moment, and those never come, as well. That was Donald Trump's policy."</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube">
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