Accountability in the Deep State

10 Pages Posted: 20 Apr 2018

Date Written: April 9, 2018

Abstract

In October of 2017, Joel Clement – a federal civil servant who had headed the U.S. Interior Department’s Office of Policy Analysis since 2011 – wrote a stinging resignation letter to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. In it, Clement accused Zinke and President Trump of having “waged an all-out assault on the civil service by muzzling scientists and policy experts like myself.” The story behind Joel Clement’s resignation – a story still unfolding as of this Article’s writing in early 2018 – provides a window into the relationship between the political leadership and the civil service at the Interior Department in the first year of the Trump administration. It also serves as a jumping-off point to revisit the value in having a civil service with some independence from politics, and to consider mechanisms to protect that independence. In this Article, I explore those questions through the lens of Clement’s resignation.

Suggested Citation

Kitrosser, Heidi, Accountability in the Deep State (April 9, 2018). UCLA Law Review, 2018 Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3159550

Heidi Kitrosser (Contact Author)

Northwestern Pritzker School of Law ( email )

750 N. Lake Shore Drive
Chicago, IL 60611
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
135
Abstract Views
981
Rank
381,795
PlumX Metrics