Trump Signs Order Shuttering Four Government Entities
The order also terminates the Presidential Management Fellows Program and several committees across various agencies.
Published by The Lawfare Institute
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On Feb. 19, President Donald Trump issued an executive order eliminating “non-statutory components and functions” of “unnecessary government entities” and reducing their operations and personnel “to the minimum presence and function required by law.”
The entities named in the order are the Presidio Trust, the Inter-American Foundation, the United States African Development Foundation, and the United States Institute of Peace. The Presidio Trust oversees a national park in San Francisco, and the latter three focus on international peace and development.
The order prescribes a number of actions that drastically reduce the entities’ capabilities. It directs the Office of Management and Budget director or agency head to reject funding and grant requests that are deemed “inconsistent” with the order. Additionally, it stipulates that the director of the Office of Personnel Management will “withdraw the regulations at title 5, part 960, Code of Federal Regulations.” Doing so eliminates the Federal Executive Boards, which consist of the top officials from each agency and “ensure the swift dissemination of cross-agency information, facilitate cross-agency leadership and career development, share best practices, advance agency priorities in local communities, and achieve cost savings through collaborative resource sharing.”
The order also ends the Presidential Management Fellows Program—a two year, entry-level fellowship for graduates with advanced degrees—by revoking Executive Order 13318.
The order directs agency heads to terminate the Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid, the Academic Research Council and the Credit Union Advisory Council, the Community Bank Advisory Council, the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Long COVID, and the Health Equity Advisory Committee.
It also directs various assistants to the president to identify other agencies or committees “that should be terminated on grounds that they are unnecessary.”
Read the order here or below.
