The Biden-Harris administration may be trying to “anti-Trump” the Department of Justice (DOJ) by hiring full-time employees to some federal jobs, according to a public records request filed by a watchdog group.
According to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) documents obtained by public trust group PPT and shared with Fox News Digital, the administration is using “obscure hiring powers” that bypass the normal merit-based hiring process to fill Justice Department positions that could block former President Trump's policies if he takes office in 2025.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) Schedule A Employment Authority Watchdog groups have noted the government is seeking to fill hundreds of career civil servant positions for lawyers and judges without competitive selection.
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Vice President Kamala Harris and President Biden (AP Photo/Jacqueline Martin)
“The foundation of our democracy, or our republic, is the Constitution, and the Constitution gives decision-making power to the executive branch, to the president, and then to the chief executives and lower-level officials of government agencies, who are supposed to represent the people,” Michael Chamberlain, PPT founder and former Department of Education official, said in an interview with Fox News Digital.
“The president is elected by the people. Any attempt by career bureaucrats in government or by people outside government, especially those within government, to undermine the decision-making ability of the highest and lower-ranking officials seems to me highly undemocratic,” he said.
According to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), Schedule A is intended to hire people with disabilities and certain positions, such as chaplains and scientists, but it also reserves positions beyond the current president's term.
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FBI Headquarters in Washington, DC, July 3, 2023 (Getty Images)
Although federal law limits Schedule A appointments to being “policy-making or sensitive,” Schedule A appointments have been used to staff highly “politicized” departments, such as the Environment and Natural Resources Department (ENRD), which plays a key role in advancing the Biden-Harris Administration's environmental policy and ensuring its continuity in any future changes of administration.
According to the document, the Justice Department's Antitrust Division is staffed with more than 150 lawyers and 100 immigration judges, who “decide whether aliens may remain in the United States or must leave the country.” According to the Department of Justice.
“Until recently, antitrust enforcement was a relatively technical, nonpartisan sector. But the Biden-Harris Administration's increasingly aggressive implementation has sparked complaints of politicized enforcement. The Administration is also using Schedule A to appoint immigration judges, again outside the normal meritocratic system, to adjudicate the cases of people who stand to benefit from the Administration's immigration policies,” PPT said in a news release.
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Former President Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona, on Friday, Aug. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Schedule A was also used to hire ENRD attorneys responsible for enforcing environmental law related to the Administration's climate policies, including collective pursuit of environmental justice and defending the interests of Native American tribes. According to the company's website:.
“ENRD is a critical department in advancing the Biden-Harris Administration's energy and climate policies, and its placement with Biden-Harris allies will provide a way to protect those policies should a future Trump Administration (or any other administration) attempt to change them,” PPT said.
“We were more struck by the size of the hires than the individual names,” Chamberlain said.
Chamberlain added that certain divisions, including the ATF, the Office of Inspector General and the Civil Rights Division, denied sharing the records based on privacy or related exemptions.
Attorney General Merrick Garland will testify before the House Judiciary Committee in June 2024. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Earlier this year, the Biden-Harris administration made it harder to fire federal employees.
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Biden called the rule a “first step in fighting corruption and partisan interference and allowing public servants to focus on what matters most: serving the American people.”
The government's Office of Personnel Management implemented new regulations this year that prohibit career civil servants from being reclassified as political appointees or other at-will workers who are vulnerable to being fired. The Associated Press reported that this was a response to President Trump's 2020 Schedule F executive order, which allowed the reclassification of tens of thousands of the 2.2 million federal employees and sought to reduce job security.
Fox News Digital did not receive a response from the White House by publication deadline.
Fox News Digital's Daniel Wallace contributed to this report.
