CNN’s Jake Tapper on President Trump solidifying power through appointees and firings. Tapper highlighted Trump’s appointing attorneys and firing inspector general while not informing Congress:

JAKE TAPPER, CNN: In our politics lead, right now we’re going to take a big picture look at President Trump’s rejection of accountability and guardrails. Because yesterday, a federal judge disqualified Trump’s appointee for U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles, Bill S.A. Lee. That’s because interim appointments expire after 120 days, but Trump extended his term in late July. He did that without the approval of the U.S. Senate or the approval of federal judges in the affected district, which the law requires. And frankly, by now, 282 days into President Trump’s second term, this is par for the course for his administration. This latest push at the U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles, followings other firings in U.S. Attorney’s offices, purging the administration of expertise and non-MAGA loyalists, the most glaring example, the former acting U.S. Attorney of the Eastern District of Virginia, Eric Siebert, who was forced out in September after mounting pressure from President Trump to bring charges against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Siebert was replaced by White House advisor Lindsey Halligan, who at the very least, we can say, lacks prosecutorial experience. But she is a loyalist. He also attempted this in New Jersey with loyalist Alina Haba, whom he also tried to install as unconfirmed by the Senate beyond that 120-day window, pushing to skirt the rules and the regulations to install loyalists as U.S. Attorneys. At the same time, the President is ridding the administration not only of non-loyalists, but of guardrails. Earlier this month, again, not complying with the law, the President fired the Inspector General of the Export-Import Bank. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of the Senate Judiciary Committee took issue with this. He tweeted, President Trump takes an oath to uphold the Constitution and the laws, but he hasn’t told Congress he was firing the Export-Import Inspector General. The law says the President has to specifically inform Congress about Inspector General firings, and unless the courts say otherwise, that’s still the law.” Other than that tweet, however, we have heard nary a peep from Republicans in Congress. That Inspector General being fired follows, of course, the January firing by Trump of 17 Inspectors General, whose purpose it is to seek out fraud and mismanagement in their respective federal agencies throughout the Trump administration. In February, President Trump replaced the Senate-confirmed, Biden-appointed Director of the Office of Government Ethics. That’s the office responsible for keeping the executive branch in line with ethics laws, ethics regulations, free from financial conflicts of interest. The office did not respond to CNN’s requests this summer to explain how President Trump is avoiding conflicts of interest when he, for example, privately dined with wealthy investors of his personal meme coin fund, or, for example, accepting this $ 400 million luxury airplane from Qatar to the Pentagon. In addition to nixing oversight, President Trump has gotten rid of pretty much anyone who might provide information that he doesn’t like, or who might otherwise stand in his way. The head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics fired after the agency’s nonpartisan jobs report numbers did not reflect perfectly on Trump’s economy. The general in charge of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, the DIA, fired after the agency’s initial intelligence assessment of damage to Iranian nuclear sites from U.S. strikes made Trump angry. Six members of the Commission of Fine Arts fired this week ahead of their expected review of President Trump’s construction plans to move ahead with his White House ballroom, RIP East Wing. President Trump is even trying to fire people who don’t work for him. On Monday, he asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow him to fire Shira Perlmutter, a top official at the Library of Congress, despite a lower court ruling that found that the official is part of the legislative branch, not the executive branch. Perlmutter’s lawsuit says this is all because Trump disagreed with her report, suggesting that AI models would likely have to license some copyrighted material that they use. It has to be said, this is not a golf tournament where pro golfers can be encouraged to just let Trump win while attendees clap and pretend that he’s actually beating golf pros and he gets the club trophy. This is the presidency of the United States of America. He’s destroying guardrails and flouting laws and purging oversight at the same time that the president is pushing the limits on executive powers, sending troops into cities against the wishes of the mayors and governors, engaging in military strikes against alleged drug traffickers, strikes of questionable legality, pushing the Department of Justice to go after his political opponents. Our system of checks and balances built in by our forefathers is what rules the United States of America. And if the system that checks mistakes and balances overreach is malfunctioning or if it’s gone, if the legislative branch goes on vacation and conducts no checks, if the watchdogs cannot provide any balance because they’ve been fired and replaced with loyalists, if there are no checks and balances, why would anyone expect the American experiment to work?

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