With mere hours left in President Biden’s term, his loyal political appointees are scrambling to secure cozy civil service jobs in the federal bureaucracy before President Donald Trump’s team arrives. This maneuver, frequently known as “burrowing in,” isn’t a mere bureaucratic formality. It is one of the very tactics that allowed Obama-era officials to undermine Trump’s first term from within. Now, thanks to lax oversight, committed partisan activists are once again looking to stand in opposition to Trump’s America First agenda.
Once these last-minute conversions from political activists to career civil service are granted, the bureaucrat is given full public sector protections. Keep in mind the number of bureaucrats greatly outweigh the number of political appointees Trump will get to set in place. There were about 4,700 posts requiring presidential appointment in March 2024. This is dwarfed by the total of 2.3 million non-defense, non-postal workers reported the same month. Furthermore, with a 2024 survey of federal employees suggesting 43 percent would vote Democrat versus 33 percent for Republicans, a plurality of the bureaucracy is already highly mobilized against the incoming President.
When Biden partisan appointees are embedded in this environment, you can expect these new “career” employees to be armed with the political know-how, network, and willingness to throw a wrench in the plans of their new boss. Left unaddressed, this quiet takeover stands to cement an unaccountable class of bureaucrats, loyal to Biden’s worldview, inside our government.
You might think federal law would block partisan loyalists from sneaking into career positions that influence national policy. After all, federal law does guarantee that personnel management shouldn’t allow unfair treatment based on political affiliation, and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has enacted rules on burrowing in, including a reporting requirement mandated by Congress. In reality, these guardrails, which largely took effect after the Obama administration already abused the process, leave the door wide open for ideologically-driven hires to embed themselves against the best interests of the incoming administration.
A 2016 Government Accountability Office review proves this point: during the Obama administration, eight different agencies implemented 17 political-to-career conversions that violated OPM’s own policies. That wasn’t a mere technical glitch; instead, it was an active effort to defy the rules designed to protect the first Trump administration from subversion.
Leandra English provides a clear case study in how burrowing in can blow up. She worked as an Obama appointee in OPM, where her boss (another Obama appointee) oversaw her conversion into a senior career spot at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) mere days before President Trump took the oath of office. Less than a year later, in November 2017, English ended up atop the controversial agency. When she was replaced, English sued, launching a legal battle that tied up the legitimate leadership choice for months. While the Trump administration ultimately prevailed in court, immeasurable damage was done. A deregulatory effort at the CFPB wound up stalled, proving just how much chaos a single, embedded partisan can cause.
OPM’s mandated reporting only goes through September 30, 2024 (before the 2024 election concluded), but we already know that 30 Biden appointees had applied for conversion to career slots in 2024 alone. Successful conversions often see jaw-dropping pay raises. On average, partisan appointees re-entering the government snagged salary bumps around 19 percent. In one case this past year, there was a pay hike of 74 percent, amounting to an eye-popping $87,000 raise.
Once shielded by bureaucratic protections, these holdovers can quietly obstruct Trump’s agenda from the inside. When politically motivated actors operate behind the scenes, they can delay, derail, or outright defy orders with near impunity. After all, research shows that only 4,000 tenured federal employees were dismissed for poor performance or misconduct in all of fiscal year 2021—one-quarter of one percent of the entire federal workforce. It’s a very real threat that imperils both effective governance and the fundamental principle that the elections decided by the American people should have consequences.
Just as the Constitution begins Article I by granting all legislative power to Congress, it starts Article II by providing that the “executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” The federal bureaucracy, as sprawling and imperious as it is, has elevated itself over and against the interests of the sole constitutional wielder of executive power. The practice of burrowing highlights how politically savvy saboteurs can undermine a President from inside his own branch of the federal government. Fortunately, there are a number of reforms that could be implemented to prevent damage from current burrowing and reduce the practice going forward.
First, just as DOGE has promised to lend scrutiny to last-minute Biden spending sprees, the incoming staff at OPM should review all recent conversions from Biden political appointee to career employee. This includes ensuring a timely publication of its report that covers burrowing from October 2024 through January 20, 2025. OPM must also impose an immediate moratorium on political-to-permanent conversions to prevent late-movers from the Biden administration from sneaking past the gatekeepers. Finally, OPM shouldn’t be afraid to re-open any personnel cases where its procedures were not followed properly in the weeks leading up to January 20.
These short-term actions are important, but one long-term solution lies with the reimplementation of Schedule F. Created by Executive Order in the first Trump administration, it would reclassify confidential policymaking roles in an effort to prevent bureaucrats from undermining the Chief Executive of the country, the President. Despite being oft-maligned by the left, Schedule F would strongly discourage rabid partisans from burrowing in when they could be discovered and fired more easily.
All Americans should want our incoming President to be successful and unhindered by partisan saboteurs. The stakes are high: we face a national debt of $36 trillion and rising, a regulatory state that has prevented economic growth, a growing culture of government dependence. Restoring American greatness will require a government that is ready to make it happen, led by a President who is committed to a vision of government of, by, and for the people. Burrowing stands in direct opposition to this mission—which is why the incoming administration must be keenly aware of the risk it poses.
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