This is extremely dangerous stuff. Civil service protections guard all Americans against political appointees pressuring career Feds to turn a blind eye to fraud, waste and abuse. These laws make it hard to fire them for disobeying illegal orders. /1 https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1319802552670691331

There’s something the WH likely overlooked. (FYI @Reinlwapo) Each Fed put in this category will be a “covered executive branch official” for purpose of the Lobbying Disclosure Act. Contacts with tens or 100s of thousands of Feds would count toward the registration requirement./2

But the concern is that Trump is trying to take us back to the spoils system of the 19th century, when corruption flourished. Removing civil service protections would kick down one of the last remaining bulwarks against lawless authoritarian abuses. /3