A Republican is working to end the ‘deep state’ with a new law that would make it easier for Donald Trump to fire high-level officials who undermine his policies.
Congressman Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) introduced the ‘End The Deep State Act’ this week to further enforce a recent Trump executive order.
The order makes policy-influencing positions within the administration directly accountable to the president, and therefore, the American people.
Trump’s administration implemented a similar policy during his first term, but it was undone by Joe Biden.
Biden then implemented a rule to make it more difficult for presidents to fire policy-influencing workers.
‘This will give the president the latitude to simply hold people accountable,’ Ogles told DailyMail.com.
‘You can’t embed yourself into the deep state, into the bureaucracy, and then simply serve as a detractor and a disruptor for the incoming administration.’
For years Republicans have decried what they call outsized power held by veteran federal bureaucrats working to advance their own objectives and not those of the president or elected officials.
GOP lawmakers and Trump have labeled these officials the ‘deep state’ which the president has vowed to ‘obliterate,’ ‘demolish,’ and, if still standing, ‘destroy.’
‘There is a level of employee within the federal government that’s working against Americans, hard working Americans every single day, and they’re untouchable,’ Ogles said. ‘This fixes that. This creates accountability.’
‘It allows [Trump] to answer the call of the American people, to secure our border, to get rid of the deep state, to fix our education problems and get rid of the woke nonsense within the bureaucracy.’
Just this week a video showed a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employee Brandon Wright telling an undercover journalist how he actively goes against the orders of Secretary Kristi Noem.
‘We don’t let them get in our way,’ he says, referring to the department’s secretaries. ‘I would argue that’s my job.’
Wright goes on to explain how Noem’s orders will get ‘filtered’ as they pass through the upper-ranks of DHS.
‘By the time the actual marching orders get to me and below, we can filter it in a way that steadies the ship,’ the DHS worker says, indicating how Noem’s orders get diluted.
Ogles, who referenced Wright’s interview when speaking to DailyMail.com, said employees like that would be easier to fire under his new bill.
‘You can’t be fired for nonsense, you know, it has to be for cause,’ the Tennessean explained.
‘But you can’t not show up for work. You can’t be the person who is undermining your boss or the President of the United States.’
During Donald Trump’s first term there were many instances of executive branch employees going against the president, the congressman noted.
For example, during Trump’s first term an anonymous Op-Ed was published by Miles Taylor, a high-ranking DHS official, touting how he and others were a part of an internal resistance movement to undermine the president.
Additionally, former FBI Director James Comey publicly announced in March 2017 that he was investigating Trump’s campaign, which the president said was a politically-motivated move to sabotage his administration.
‘One of the things when individual people talk about term limits for Congress, you have to realize is that there is a level of bureaucracy within Washington, D.C., that is going to be there for 20 or 30 years,’ the Republican shared.
‘And it’s become weaponized politically against the American people. You’ve seen it at the IRS, at the FBI, and a whole host of American agencies, and we have to fix that.’
While those in positions appointed by the president can already be fired with relative ease, Ogles says ‘another layer of their bureaucracy’ must be addressed.
‘There’s nothing in this [bill] that says you have to agree with the secretary or the President of the United States,’ the Republican said.
‘You do, however, have to do your job.’
