by Robert Schmad
The Biden-Harris administration has deployed a little-known hiring mechanism to staff key divisions of the Department of Justice (DOJ) ahead of the 2024 election, according to documents provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation by Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT).
Hundreds of people, primarily lawyers and judges, have been appointed to the Environmental and Natural Resources (ENRD) and Antitrust and Immigration Review divisions of the DOJ using its “Schedule A” hiring authority since President Joe Biden took office, documents shared with the DCNF by PPT show. Schedule A hiring does not require appointments to be made on the basis of merit and appointments do not expire at the end of the current president’s term, meaning these bureaucrats will stick around even if former President Donald Trump takes office in 2025, according to the Office of Budget and Management.
The hiring process is intended to benefit people with “intellectual disabilities, severe physical disabilities or psychiatric disabilities” but it can also be used to staff specialist positions as chaplains, scientists, and attorneys or to fill critical hiring needs, according to federal regulations.
“The Biden-Harris administration and its allies have already signaled their intent to hamstring their successor and prevent a future president from reversing their agenda,” PPT director Michael Chamberlain said in an advance copy of a press release shared with the DCNF. “Exploiting non-competitive hiring authorities to fill career civil service positions could be just another component of this scheme. It’s no wonder that the public’s trust in its government has all but disappeared.”
The DOJ used Schedule A to hire well over 100 immigration judges for its Immigration Review division, per the documents. Immigration judges are responsible for deciding “whether a noncitizen may remain in the United States or must leave the country,” according to the DOJ.
At the end of the 2020 fiscal year, around when Biden took office, immigration courts had a backlog of roughly 1.3 million cases, according to the DOJ. That number had ballooned to 3 million under the Biden-Harris administration, PBS reported in January.
“The administration is also using Schedule A to install immigration judges — again, outside of the normal merit-based system — who will rule on cases of those in a position to benefit from the administration’s immigration policies,” PPT’s press release reads.
The DOJ also used Schedule A to hire a massive glut of trial attorneys for its ENRD division, which is responsible for enforcing environmental laws like the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act. The division focuses on climate change, environmental justice and defending the interests of Native American tribes, according to its website.
“The ENRD is a vital office in advancing the Biden-Harris administration’s energy and climate policies, and the placement of Biden-Harris loyalists is a means to defend those policies even if a future Trump (or other) administration seeks to change them,” according to PPT.
The DOJ also took the opportunity to use Schedule A to beef up its antitrust division with an army of trial attorneys, according to the documents. Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan has adopted an aggressive stance to antitrust enforcement, bringing action against Amazon, Meta, Kroger, Microsoft and Nvidia, among others.
“Until recently, antitrust enforcement was a relatively technical and non-partisan division,” PPT’s press release reads. “But the Biden-Harris administration’s increasingly aggressive implementation has sparked complaints of politicized enforcement.”
PPT characterizes these DOJ appointments as one pillar in a broader effort to “Trump-proof” the federal government ahead of November’s election.
The Biden-Harris administration has advanced a federal rule that would make it more difficult for the president to fire career bureaucrats. Employees at the Environmental Protection Agency agreed to a new contract in May that will allow them to avoid being fired so long as their work is conducted with “scientific integrity,” Politico reported.
An army of left-of-center civil society organizations, like the American Civil Liberties Union and National Immigration Law Center, are also rapidly drafting litigation to counter actions taken by a possible second Trump administration.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division both denied PPT’s records requests.
The DOJ did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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Robert Schmad is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
