President Donald Trump’s drastic personnel moves amount to “highly illegal” activity, according to New York University law professor Ryan Goodman.
Trump adviser Elon Musk has been granted unprecedented access to meddle with various government agencies, including the U.S. Treasury, the General Services Administration, and the Office of Personnel Management. He has taken particular interest and glee in all but shuttering the United States Agency for International Development, whose website was taken down and replaced with a message stating that staffers have been placed on administrative leave. Additionally, Musk has offered scores of federal employees a “buyout” to get them to leave their jobs.
The president has gone so far as to fire certain federal employees, including those at the Department of Justice involved in his ill-fated prosecutions.
Goodman appeared on Wednesday’s OutFront on CNN, where Erin Burnett asked him about the legality of the moves.
“USAID, which we were just talking about extensively, Department of Education,” Burnett said. “Now they’re trying to dismantle it cuts at [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration], National Weather Service, CIA, FBI. Elon Musk, currently the driving force behind that. And even Speaker Johnson, it appears, says he doesn’t know what is happening. Is it legal?”
Burnett’s guest replied that not only is what Musk doing illegal, but members of the administration are most certainly aware of that:
There are a couple of things that I
think stand out to me as highly illegal. So, one is actually also something going on in the Justice Department when you said firing people. The purging of the FBI career servants, public servants, and DOJ public servants is a violation of the civil servants statutes. I think they even know it. And [Attorney General] Pam Bondi coming in and saying, I’m going to effectuate the weaponization executive order. That’s what it’s all about.So, I think that’s a very serious problem. And then eliminating some of these agencies – USAID, DOE – you can’t do that as a president. That would mean we have like, a king.
Watch above via CNN.