Column: Trump wants to turn the federal bureaucracy into an 'army of suck-ups.' Here's how that would be a disaster

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

60% : New appointees at the Internal Revenue Service would likely be ordered to audit prominent Democrats' tax returns, an action Trump demanded during his first term.
56% : Like any president, Trump would undoubtedly stock the top levels of the government with loyal appointees.
52% : "We will pass critical reforms making every executive branch employee fireable by the president," Trump said early in his campaign.
42% : At the Pentagon, Trump has promised to fire senior military officers he considers "woke."
41% : What happens to scientists and policymakers at the FDA and other health agencies if Trump installs Kennedy and the anti-vaccine crusader pushes his lifelong agenda?
36% : Trump has proposed them himself.
35% : "Donald F. Kettl, a retired professor of public administration at the University of Maryland, noted that if a new Trump administration fired just a few employees in each agency, the rest would quickly get the message.
33% : Trump has claimed he knows nothing about the report, although its lead author says he briefed the former president on its contents.
32% : But Trump has said he wants the department to be "completely overhauled" and purged of anyone who participated in investigations of his past conduct.
28% : Trump later denounced those aides as "RINOs," Republicans in name only, and promised to appoint true loyalists in a second term.
26% : Most of the others are civil servants, including FBI agents, NIH scientists, National Park rangers and IRS auditors -- all of whom would be affected by the changes Trump has proposed.
26% : "The changes Trump has proposed, Shea said, "would mean that if you told your boss that what he or she was proposing was illegal, impractical [or] unwise, they could brand you as disloyal and terminate you.
17% : Trump said last year that he wants the authority to remove at will anyone he considers to be a "rogue bureaucrat."
15% : Kelly told the New York Times in 2022 that Trump also wanted the IRS and the Justice Department to investigate former Secretary of State (and 2016 election rival) Hillary Clinton, former CIA Director John O. Brennan, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and other people he saw as enemies.
12% : "Retired Marine Gen. John F. Kelly, who served as Trump's White House chief of staff in 2017 and 2018, said after Trump left office that the then-president had demanded that the IRS investigate several of his perceived enemies, including former FBI Director James B. Comey and Deputy Director Andrew G. McCabe.
1% : If Trump gets his way, Justice Department prosecutors would immediately launch criminal investigations of President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, former President Obama and others who have incurred Trump's wrath.

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