'Constitutional crisis': Experts slam Vance’s 'very dangerous' effort to gut federal workforce

Although Donald Trump has made a concerted effort to distance himself from Project 2025, his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), wrote the forward for "Dawn's Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America" — the forthcoming book by Project 2025's chief architect: Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts.

Project 2025 is Heritage's 900-page blueprint for a second Trump Administration, and one of its many controversial proposals is gutting the United States' federal workforce and replacing it with MAGA loyalists — which is also proposed in Trump's own Schedule F.

Politico's Ankush Khardori, in an article published on August 12, examines Vance's connection to Schedule F.

READ MORE: Trump is losing it because he's afraid of losing

Khardori notes that Schedule F "would strip civil service protections from potentially tens of thousands of federal employees so that they can be replaced by Republican political appointees."

"Most provocatively, Vance has suggested in a series of interviews this year that Trump should defy the Supreme Court if the justices invalidated the effort," the Politico reporter explains. "The episode is worth scrutinizing not just because the proposal is a key piece of Trump's likely governing agenda if he wins in November. It also suggests Vance, whom Trump touts as a Yale-educated lawyer, is oblivious to the underlying legal and practical mechanics of this sweeping overhaul as well as the realities of today’s Supreme Court."

Khardori elaborates, "The fact is this proposal is almost certainly unlawful and unworkable — but that doesn’t mean the Court would block it. The conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court has proved more than willing to contort itself to achieve Republican goals, so there's no reason to assume any legal challenge to such a policy would result in a clash between Trump and the Court."

Kenneth Warren, a St. Louis University professor known for his expertise on administrative law, is vehemently critical of Schedule F.

READ MORE: Inside the GOP plot to silence Texas voters

Warren told Politico, "What Trump is trying to do is create a sort of authoritarian type of government where he can manipulate the civil service system to do what he wants. That's very, very dangerous."

UC Berkeley Law School professor Daniel Farber, similarly, told Politico, "This could turn into an enormous quagmire if they tried to implement it."

Vance, however, is doubling down on his defense of Schedule F.

The "Hillbilly Elegy" author told Politico, "If the elected president says, ‘I get to control the staff of my own government,’ and the Supreme Court steps in and says, 'You're not allowed to do that' — like, that is the constitutional crisis. It's not whatever Trump or whoever else does in response."

READ MORE: 'Has he met his boss?' Vance mocked after whining about Dems turning tables on the GOP

Read Politico's full report at this link.