Capitol Hill Democrats are pressing the White House to pull out all the stops to gird the executive branch against Donald Trump's promised efforts to tear down federal agencies and restructure them to his liking.

The lawmakers want President Biden to get aggressive — and creative — with unilateral actions in the final weeks of his administration. The idea is both to protect the Democrats’ policy victories and to fortify the Justice Department, the intelligence agencies and other offices in Trump’s crosshairs.

“There’s a lot that the Biden administration can do, and I know that they’ve done some scenario planning,” said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.). “It would be a huge political malpractice for them not to anticipate this scenario and have some plans in place.”

The Democrats are quick to point out that, with Republicans in control of the lower chamber, no major legislative changes are likely in the post-election, lame-duck session. With that in mind, they see Biden as a kind of preemptive firewall against Trump’s vows to claw back their legislative wins and gut large parts of the federal bureaucracy in a “deep state” purge designed to streamline government and root out his executive branch critics.

“I’ve been here long enough to know you can do some really good things in a lame duck,” said Rep. Richard Neal (Mass.), senior Democrat on the powerful Ways and Means Committee.

The Democrats’ concerns have been fed by reports that Trump is eying plans to purge the Pentagon of “woke” generals.

And they were fueled further over his picks for top positions in the next administration, including former Rep. Matt Gaetz........

© The Hill