OPINION:
Although Michael McKenna’s op-ed “Is it time for Trump to assemble a transition team?” (web, July 27) laments the Trump administration’s delays in making political appointments in 2016, this time around the transition team and context will be completely different. Conservatives now actually anticipate a Trump victory, compared to 2016 when a Trump victory seemed improbable, minimizing the pool of applicants for these jobs.
Having helped in previous preelection planning for key presidential appointments, I know that a significant network of experienced former Trump administration personnel are already assembling lists of qualified and conservative candidates. They know firsthand what it takes to tame the administrative state and the savvy, grit and perseverance that is required of appointees to get the job done.
The federal government employs nearly 3 million personnel, many of whom are not conservative and are extremely difficult to fire. A new president may appoint roughly 4,000 new personnel, of which about 1,250 require Senate confirmation — a tough row to hoe when the opposing party controls the Senate.
Those 4,000 presidential appointees will swim in a sea teeming with sharks. Huge agencies such as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which I dealt with for several decades, are filled with burrowed-in, career bureaucrat ideologues who will leak confidential information and ruthlessly use every trick in the system to block conservative agendas.
Right now, conservatives should be consulting the government’s Plum Book to determine which agencies and specific positions will be most likely to employ their skills. A legion of carefully chosen, experienced appointees — combined with the recent Supreme Court Chevron decision, which dealt a blow to the bloated bureaucracy — bodes well for the transformation of the administrative state into a servant of the people’s elected leaders.
JONATHAN IMBODY
Quinton, Virginia
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