Kurt Schlichter: Tactics, Techniques and Procedures to Keep Deep State

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Donald Trump must move hard and fast to get his agenda enacted. He’s going to be opposed not only by the bureaucrats of the Deep State but by, to some extent, the courts, congressional Democrats, and soft Republicans. Fortunately, President Trump, as chief executive – the unitary executive – has tremendous authority. He and his appointees, as well as Republicans in Congress, must use it. They will feel considerable pressure to be soft and weak, not only from the regime media but from the spineless establishmentarians. They must reject it, and fully exercise the power the American people have granted them.

There are practical limitations to Donald Trump’s soon-to-be-recovered power. He will have to fight the regime media every step of the way, and it will gleefully lie about him and attempt to intimidate members of his administration to compel obedience. Everything he does will be challenged in the courts, and while we have more favorable judges than we used to, the problem with alleged judicial conservatives is sometimes they tolerate the libs. When it comes to prosecution, there are some venues – like Washington DC – where you can’t convict a Democrat, and that will allow them not to answer for their crimes. There are legal considerations. Some laws are crystal clear and limit what he can do, while other laws are ambiguous, meaning he can push the outside of the envelope. And it’s going to be tough making new laws. The filibuster remains a thing – the Republicans will not do what the Democrats promise to do and get rid of it for him to ram through his agenda. Whether that’s a good idea or not is a moot point. We must fight the battle on the battlefield where we’ve landed.

At the threshold, the Trump administration and its congressional allies must understand what they are up against – a bunch of people who are absolutely determined to maintain the failed status quo. As someone with military command, executive officer, and staff experience – as well as 30 years of being a lawyer – I’ve learned a few tricks of the trade for getting stuff done in the face of institutional opposition.

First, they must resolve to never be reasonable. The fake “reasonability” argument is a weapon they always deploy against a change agent. If you try to change things, you will be told that what you’re ordering is not wise, practical, or possible. You cannot listen to this. Remember, by the time you’ve issued your order as either the President or one of his senior executives, you’ve already decided it’s wise. This is not a discussion. You expect what you order to be done.

Civilians don’t like this kind of leadership. They will tell you why you can’t do what you want to do. You can’t ever accept that. When confronted by a bureaucrat telling you that what you want done cannot be done, tell them that you are blessed with people paid to make your intent come to fruition. In other words, you need to tell the guy telling you, “Sir, what you’re asking me to do I can’t do, or I don’t know how to do, or it’s not even my job,” that it is now his job and that you expect him to figure out how do it. Period. You’re a leader. It’s not your job to figure out how to fulfill your intent. That’s why you have subordinates. That’s why you have a staff. It’s their job to figure out how to make X happen. It’s their job to make X happen. Bureaucratic staffers love to play dumb and/or powerless. When they do that, they’re seeking to make their problem – which is the mission you just gave them – into your problem. Refuse to accept that. One outstanding general I worked for had a rule. You don’t ever come to him with a problem unless you have a solution. As the leader, it’s not your job to figure out the details of how stuff gets done. That’s for them to do. And you must demand they do it.

Sometimes they will hide behind lawyers and claim what you want is illegal. That’s supposed to stop you cold. Nah. When bureaucrats want something done, they figure out how to get it done. So, never trust the lawyers when they tell you something is impossible. It’s their job to figure out how to do it legally (I let my fellow non-attorney combat arms officers in on the secrets of how to manage lawyers in this edition of Infantry magazine years ago).

Another favorite tactic is to simply delay in the hopes that you’ll forget. Don’t tolerate delays. Always have your loyal chief of staff standing with you with a notepad so he can take down the deadline you’ve given the staff to report to you that the mission is completed. In the interim, he can follow up. You expect results by a set time within a time frame that you consider reasonable, not that they consider reasonable, and then you enforce it.

What if they don’t comply? Isn’t it true you can’t fire civil service folks? No, it’s not true. You can do it. It might be hard, but the biggest law firm in the world is the United States Department of Justice. The federal government has hordes of lawyers with nothing better to do than to defend lawsuits brought by hack bureaucrats who you canned for insubordination. Fire them, have security walk them to the door with their junk in a banker’s box, and if they think you’re wrong, they have a remedy. They can go to court. Another great general I knew had a problem with civilian workers who told him he couldn’t fire them. His answer was not what they hoped for. He explained, “Maybe not, but by the time you sue and get your job back, I will be retired, and you will be old.”

Now, when you’re looking at big picture stuff, Trump will want to do a lot of things very fast. He’s got a whole bunch of executive orders to get out, and he needs to get them out all at once – preferably on January 20th. That’s not just because these things need to happen, everything from banning DEI to opening up oil drilling and beyond. It is because you want to overwhelm the opposition. On Day One, Donald Trump must issue a towering pile of controversial orders, along with pardons of every J6 defendant. Why? Well, the J6 prosecutions were a travesty of justice resulting from our two-tier judicial system, and we America First voters expect Donald Trump to end that nightmare for these victims ASAP. But there’s a tactical reason, too. That pardon is going to get all the attention. It’s going to suck all the oxygen out of the room. It’s going to be all that the media can talk about. So, while MSNBCNN is explaining why a grandma should be doing five years at hard labor for walking through the Rotunda taking selfies, the regime media and the Democrats are not going to be able to focus on the dozens of other major executive orders the President Trump also signed. They have limited bandwidth. Overwhelm them. And the beauty of making his marquee tactical distraction the J6 political prisoners is that once he pardons them, there’s nothing anyone can do about it. It’s not like he can go unpardon them. What’s done is done. Let the talking heads bang their empty noggins against a brick wall.

Congress has a job to do, too. Actually, it’s got far too many jobs to do. It must ruthlessly prioritize and then tell us what its priorities are. What is the most important thing that Congress must do? In my opinion, it would be getting the economy on track, which means passing the reconciliation bill. Second, at least for the Senate, is to get Donald Trump’s nominations through. Then there are the investigations of misconduct by the Biden administration. These are all important, but we need to recognize that even if it works more than three days a week, Congress has only limited bandwidth. That’s why they must prioritize. We’re not going to be able to do everything we want to do. That’s impossible, but here’s the thing – the voters will understand that. They might disagree over which is the main priority, but they will respect the fact that the GOP is setting priorities. The Republicans must set them in public. That means John Thune and Mike Johnson need to get out there and explain the priorities so no one is surprised. When you fail to keep your people informed, they worry and start wondering what the hell is happening. If you tell them what’s going on, even if they don’t precisely agree with it, they at least accept it because you’re being transparent. Be transparent. Get out there and set the priorities.

Sadly, we’re just not going to have time to do all the investigations of all the myriad outrages perpetuated by the Biden administration. That’s too bad, but again, we must prioritize. When Congress does choose to investigate, it must do so in a smart way. Witnesses must have a credible threat of a perjury conviction hanging over them to get them to tell the truth. We’ve seen countless Democrat-affiliated hacks get up there and flat-out lie to congressional committees. Why? Because they know that they can get away with it since a Washington, DC, jury will never convict them. That is why the big-name hearings must take place on the road, out with the American people, preferably in venues like the Northern District of Texas, where a conservative jury pool is likely to convict a Democrat of lying to Congress. You cannot hold these hearings in Washington, DC. Sure, the hearing rooms are very impressive, being big, comfortable, and stained by the love of perverted interns, but we won’t get anywhere unless witnesses are afraid of going to jail for lying.

Oh, and there are legal considerations that must be applied to bureaucrats, too. Bureaucrats who ignore directives and spend government time and money on things the executive branch has told them not to will be guilty of a crime. You know what else is a crime? Making false statements to the government. One tactic is to order subordinates to make written reports to a satellite office out in, say, the Northern District of Texas, about their work. That way, if they lie, they lied in a venue where they can get convicted. Refuse to make such written reports, and they’re insubordinate, so you fire them. This is not weaponizing the justice system. You are not framing anyone. You’re simply forcing them to be honest. This is merely holding civil servants accountable.

But weaponization against the administration is still a danger, so the President must direct that the Attorney General personally authorize any investigation of any member of his administration or any elected official. He must de-delegate the authority to conduct criminal probes. Oh no, there goes the independence of the FBI and the DOJ! Except there is no independence of the FBI or the DOJ – they work for the elected President, and their misconduct over the last few years has stripped them of any claim to the benefit of the doubt. We don’t need any more secret investigations of administration figures to frame them and neuter Trump 2.0 like they did to Trump 1.0. The tears of the regime media and the Democrats will only make this sweeter.

In short, the Trump administration must come into office free of any hesitation about exercising the full extent of its lawful power. It needs to understand that it will face, at best, improper and perhaps illegal resistance to implementing the electorate’s will, so it needs to prepare. It needs to ruthlessly cull those who are insubordinate within the bureaucracy, and it’s not a bad thing to challenge what are probably unconstitutional civil service protections that limit the Article II power of the President to hire and fire members of the executive branch. Let’s see how that goes. Worst case? They litigate for a few years while we impose our will. Best case? The Supreme Court shuts down the civil service protection racket.

By the way, there are reports that the deep state is trying to solidify its hold on power with last-minute reclassifications of jobs, renegotiation of union contracts, and similar antics. The President must override all this with an executive order on Inauguration Day. Let the bureaucrats tell it to the judge.

If we’re serious about draining the swamp, we must play smart against the bureaucrats. They will be turning all their evil cunning against us, so our people must demand change and enforce our will. Anything less is accepting failure, and we’ve accepted failure for long enough.

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