This is the “Bible” for the top-drawer presidential appointments.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plum_Book
This a book that lists positions in the United States government that are subject to political appointment. It lists around 9,000 federal civil service leadership and support positions in the legislative and executive branches of the federal government that may be subject to noncompetitive appointment nationwide.
These appointments are how you directly control and shape the policy of the federal bureaucracy without time consuming legislation or blocking federal court actions like wholesale firings would entail. All Constitutional and well established by past use. Historically Republicans are terrible at exploiting this, Rats are not!
Looking back at the then incoming 2016 Trump administration, they seemed to have been totally unprepared for this. As a minimum they clearly had the Republican habit of not quickly taking advantage of the Plum Book.! Additionally, I think Trump naively thought he was dealing with “professionals”. He wasn’t! He left US Attorneys in place (Rat administrations fire these guys by the time oath office is complete!), he left Agency heads and their deputies etc. in place far far too long (They all should have been fired and escorted out on Day 1!). Remember his dinners with Comey, etc. Also he should have conducted security & communication audits. His most devastatingly bad pick was the AG. It set him up deliberately or not for all the mess that followed.
Thanks, I wasn’t aware of the Plum Book but you’re dead on the mark.