Stop me if you've heard this before. Officials within the United States government are conspiring against Donald Trump to undermine whatever decisions he may make. It might as well be 2017 again. 

According to a new report from Natasha Bertrand, who was such a purveyor of the Russian collusion hoax that she was nicknamed "Fusion Natasha" after Fusion GPS, Pentagon officials are coordinating how they'll respond if Trump orders U.S. troops to assist with illegal immigration:

Pentagon officials are holding informal discussions about how the Department of Defense would respond if Donald Trump issues orders to deploy active-duty troops domestically and fire large swaths of apolitical staffers, defense officials told CNN.

....

“We are all preparing and planning for the worst-case scenario, but the reality is that we don’t know how this is going to play out yet,” one defense official said.  

Trump’s election has also raised questions inside the Pentagon about what would happen if the president issued an unlawful order, particularly if his political appointees inside the department don’t push back.    

“Troops are compelled by law to disobey unlawful orders,” said another defense official. “But the question is what happens then – do we see resignations from senior military leaders? Or would they view that as abandoning their people?”

The bureaucracy truly lives in a world unto itself. Those who inhabit it believe they have the innate right to override elected officials despite the powers in question being designated to those elected officials. There should not be any "informal discussions" about how the Department of Defense will respond to orders from Trump because the only right answer is to obey them. 

It is not illegal for troops to be used to help secure the border, for example. The border is specifically designated as a federal responsibility. Using troops to help carry out deportations would also not be domestic "law enforcement" as the article describes. Just because someone makes it into the United States, that does not mean they suddenly aren't subject to the federal laws they broke. Further, the use of troops under the Insurrection Act to quell violent protests, another possibility mentioned in the article, has a long-standing precedent. 

Any officials who are conspiring to do anything but carry out orders given by the president should be fired immediately. The American people aren't doing this for another four years. They are sick of overpaid, underworked bureaucrats pretending voters don't matter. Of course, government officials are already looking to circumvent the possibility of being fired as well. 

“My email has been inundated on this topic,” one defense official said of Schedule F. “Definitely going to be a busy couple months.”    

After Trump issued Schedule F the first time, late into his last term, the Pentagon and other federal agencies were tasked with making lists of which employees would be moved into that category. At the time, defense officials tried to include as few civilian employees as possible to limit the impact to the workforce, sources said. The department is making similar lists now. 

The Office of Personnel and Management issued a rule in April that aimed to strengthen guardrails protecting federal employees. But “there are still ways a new administration could work around these protections,” a defense official said, even if it might take several months to do so.    

It is not the job of government officials to "shield" civilian employees from the consequences of Schedule F, an executive order that makes it easier for said employees to be fired for misconduct or inefficiency. Whatever lists are made should be done honestly so that the American people can have a real account of how much of their money is being wasted paying people to do jobs that aren't needed. 

Keep in mind, all of this nonsense is couched under the guise of refusing "illegal orders," but there is no evidence Trump has any intention of giving one. Instead, what we are seeing is a repeat of the same garbage we saw during his first term. The bureaucracy feels threatened, and it is now preparing to fight a war from within the deepest realms of the federal government. 

That can't be allowed to happen this time. Every top leader at every agency needs to be fired, with few exceptions. The entire government workforce, at least within the Beltway, is a left-wing cesspool that needs to be drained. No one should be safe, and the protective bubble they've built around themselves must be punctured. Federal employees are not more virtuous than private sector employees, and they shouldn't be treated as such.

Luckily, I have a feeling Trump and his team are ready to go in hard this time. Those officials whispering behind closed doors better get their resumes in order.