“Donald Trump spent four years railing against a “deep state” of career federal workers he claimed was undermining his administration from the inside. When Joe Biden takes office this week, he may actually have one.
And just last week, the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board announced that David LaCerte, a Trump appointee who had been serving as deputy associate director at the Office of Personnel Management, would be joining the agency for a three-year term as a senior adviser and executive counsel. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a nonprofit that supports government workers who protect the environment, flagged the move as a “political hire” of an “unqualified crony senior executive.””