The New York Times: “President Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday that strips job protections from nearly 8,000 federal workers who are in policy-making roles, making it easier for the administration to fire them. The Trump administration previously estimated that as many as 50,000 federal workers could lose job protections under this new policy. Administration officials said Wednesday that there were no plans to include more than the nearly 8,000 positions outlined in an appendix to the executive order, but the president could decide to add more in the future. The jobs covered by the executive order include the heads of agency components, those who run an office or a program, people who develop and write regulations, lawyers involved in setting agency policies and employees who determine which organizations receive grants. The administration recently announced it was looking to restrict grant recipients to those who support the president’s agenda. The order is a response to the resistance that Trump administration officials faced during the president’s first term, when senior career government officials routinely pushed back against policies that appeared to exceed legal boundaries…”

See also Partnership for Public Service – The Politicization of Federal Leadership: Record Non-Senate Confirmed Presidential Appointments and the Hollowing Out of Career Leadership