Then how does Bannon propose that we "drain the swamp"? It can't be done overnight, of course, but it won't be done at all if people aren't made to pay for their crimes. Nobody likes the IRS other than hardcore Dems - assuming that they couldn't get a conviction in DC seems like they simply bailed on doing so. Sorry, but this decision is not sitting well with a lot of people, not just me.
1. Trump is simply not filling all the slots. This is huge. He’s draining by attrition. But this should have been done long ago anyway.
2. It’s a swap out process. How did Jimmy Johnson rebuild the Cowboys? One draft at a time. Each month, flip a few out. As you start to get more people in Deputy and Assistant positions, they will start replacing with their own people as well.
3. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I just spent a week in the Reagan archives. NOTHING happens quickly or easily, I don’t care who the guy at the top is. For one thing, you put people in place under you to carry out your orders-—but you have to give them enough autonomy and flexibility to operate on their own. So . . .
When you have a policy-—ANY policy-—it starts to go through all the relevant departments. I saw some routine discussion papers on the budget to take out this item, or include that. Sometimes 10 people would have to sign off on it, because it affected each person’s department differently. For example, Murray Weidenbaum, Reagan’s head of the Council of Economic Affairs, a VERY powerful position given that the economy was task #1 in 1981: he was lobbying against any immigration reform because it would upset the economic numbers. Now, he wasn’t (that I could tell) FOR or AGAINST illegals . . . but he was given a job by RR to put juice back in the economy and he was trying to do that as he saw it.
The only place I could find that RR had very hands on, direct control over specific outcomes was in the National Security Decision briefs (NSDDs) where he (and it was his language, you could tell) very specifically said “We will do x, y, z with Russia in the following order.” But even those had been thoroughly circulated to every single relevant department head.
Much of this is less “swamp” than a titanic bureaucracy in which people you trust to get things done are required to go through certain steps and have certain resource limitations.
So, for example, DOJ: Sessions has 50 things more important than Lois Lerner right now. He sits on EVERY trade negotiation and his DOJ lawyers have to examine every treaty, every agreement for criminality. No one except Trump can speak directly with DOJ-—did you know that? Only if you have a White House counsel present. But, for example, Pence cannot call Sessions on the phone and say, “I think you should prosecute x”. It would be viewed as an ethics infringement that would get back to Congress & start yet another investigation.
Then, after you do all that, you are faced with your DOJ attorneys who have looked at, say, Lerner, and send you a report that says, “Yes, we can prosecute, but we would lose, because THIS piece of evidence, would be countered like THIS in a court, and it would not result in a conviction.” Now, no head of any legal department is going to proceed with any prosecution they don’t think they are 100% certain they can win. Too many other things to prosecute.
Hope this helps.