Trump Burrows Loyalists Inside Government

James Hohmann: “Perhaps as consequential as President Trump firing Defense Secretary Mark Esper via tweet on Monday, which has been widely expected for months, was the hiring of Michael Ellis to be the National Security Agency’s general counsel.”

“As one of the most controversial staffers in the White House over the past four years, Ellis has shown himself to be as much a staunch Trump loyalist as anyone else in the administration. But his new job means that he will no longer be a political appointee. Instead, as a civilian member of the senior executive service, he gets protections that will make it quite difficult for President-elect Joe Biden to fire him.”

“Burrowing down into what Trump derides as “the deep state” will give Ellis, a former Republican campaign operative, a powerful platform from which he could seek to complicate or undermine the incoming Democratic administration’s agenda. This is a preview of the sort of behavior from Trump that many on Biden’s transition team expect, and fear, during the lame-duck president’s final 71 days in power, even as he refuses to concede defeat.”