If Biden can't fire Drumps DOD loyalists

[jpak]

Could he reassign them to some remote hellhole?

[Wellstone ruled]

1. Oh yes he can.

[Happy Hoosier]

2. They are political appointees.

He can fire them.

[jpak]

4. TY

[DeminPennswoods]

8. Or Biden can use Trump's new EO and have

OPM reassign them as "schedule F", then fire them.

[exboyfil]

3. I think the most favorable interpretation is that Trump is covering his tracks

A less favorable one is that this is Plan C (if Plan B with the courts and legislators doesn't work)

[Spazito]

5. I thought appointees served at the will of the President...

and can be removed by the President at any time?

[dware]

9. Yes, that's true.

Political appointees serve at the pleasure of the President and can be fired at any time.

[BusyBeingBest]

6. He can fire them. I don't know why CNN and other places are

saying otherwise. There's nobody that's un-fireable.

[jpak]

7. Yes that's what I heard on CNN

[Mike 03]

10. I'm confused too about how that talking point even got started.

It makes no sense. Besides, Orange Prick just pushed through an executive order removing protections from civil servants. So even if they are somehow not appointees for some technical reason, they are sitting ducks, and probably not welcome inside the Pentagon.

[BusyBeingBest]

11. Something about these people being able to "burrow" into their jobs

and not get fired unless there's a clear case to do so. But as you say, there's now an EO that removes protections. Even without that, people are still reassigned, fired or forced to resign if they don't do their jobs. It's dumb.

[NCjack]

12. Biden's DoD can create the traditional "F Troop" and assign them to

the posts with high "misery" scores.

[Hela]

13. Loopholes about civil service protections

I saw a tweet yesterday discussing it. Here's one article I found:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/10/politics/trump-officials-ousted-burrowing/index.html

"At the same time, political officials who are allied with Trump are taking on new roles that put them in career positions, which come with civil service protections.

Michael Ellis, an official on the National Security Council, shifted over to the National Security Agency as legal counsel, which takes him out of a political appointee role at the White House and into a civil servant position, two sources confirmed to CNN. This makes Ellis harder to fire once the Biden administration comes in, the sources said, adding that the strategy is called "burrowing."

"It happens in every administration but is unprecedented in a position of this nature," a Senate Democratic aide told CNN."

[StarfishSaver]

16. Many of these civil servant positions have probationary periods during which they can be terminated

And even if they can't be fired, they can be reassigned pretty much wherever the administration wants them to go.

[LisaL]

14. Why can't he fire them?

NT

[StarfishSaver]

15. He can fire any political appointee he chooses

And if they're career appointees, he can reassign them.

[Hela]

17. Article about that Executive Order

https://federalnewsnetwork.com/commentary/2020/10/executive-order-obliterating-civil-service-protections-gets-an-f/

It doesn't look like that order strips protections from civil servants being fired. It has more to do them being hired: allowing these kinds of appointments to positions that formerly required an open competitive process which avoided the whole appointee situation.