Maryland Representative Jamie Raskintop Democrat House Oversight Committeesent a statement this week drawing attention to the fact Donald Trump‘s campaign is navigating the presidential transition process slowly. Both candidates are expected to participate in anticipation of a possible win in November. The process often begins months before elections to allow for adequate vetting of potential staff and political appointees across the administration. It is critical to coordinate with the current administration’s staff to ensure a smooth transition to the new president. So far, the Trump team has missed two key deadlines to sign agreements.

As you may recall, Trump has little respect for this process. fired first transition team Right after the 2016 elections Blocked Joe Biden’s transition team He was unable to access the process when he contested the election in 2020. Still, it might seem odd that Trump’s team is delaying the process yet again, since the campaign will be given money and access to basic services once the documents are signed. But it doesn’t take a very steady genius to understand why they’re dragging their feet. According to the New York TimesUntil all documents are signed, Trump’s campaign can avoid federal rules limiting private contributions to the transition as well as ethics rules prohibiting conflicts of interest. The Trump team doesn’t care about such restrictions.

Trump has refused to get the usual security briefings and has made the excuse that he doesn’t trust the Biden administration (or the “deep state”) and won’t blame himself for it, so at least we won’t have to worry about it. But we can see from this early decision to delay this standard bureaucratic process that our impression that they were not planning to play by any of the usual rules was correct. The corruption that marked Trump’s first term is already evident.

The Trump transition team is led by Howard Lutnick, Trump’s longtime personal friend from the Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald, and Linda McMahon, Trump’s Small Business Administration director and ex-wife and business partner of World Wrestling Entertainment’s Vince McMahon (WWE ) fame.

as McMahon New York Daily News According to reports, he is accused of “knowingly” allowing the grooming, exploitation and sexual abuse of young boys According to a new lawsuit filed on behalf of five alleged victims, he helped run WWE “throughout the 1980s and ’90s.” Such defamatory allegations would likely cause him to resign from any other presidential transition, but given Trump’s own situation, it’s unlikely he would care about such casual accusations for someone with a history of sexual misconduct. This is par for the course for any Trump administration.

Politico reported It is stated that Lutnick caused great consternation among Trump loyalists, who believed that he left behind members of the first administration in order to place his own men in the White House for his own personal interests. Republicans on Capitol Hill are likewise sounding the alarm that he appears to be strengthening his position to lobby on behalf of Cantor Fitzgerald, among other investments, including some very controversial crypto projects.

But Lutnick’s support for Donald Trump Jr., who played a key role in planning the transition, It has a very important ally like. He said he expected to have veto power to “block guys who would create disaster.” He told Axios’ Mike Allen:

“I want a veto power to cut out every single one of these people,” he said, adding that the “advantage” of a second Trump term is that “we now know” who the likely administration officials are.

He claims to implicitly trust Lutnick to pick the right people, telling Politico: “There is no one more loyal and capable than Howard; That’s why my father chose him to help assemble the greatest collection of talent to serve in the United States government. “

Lutnick claims the complaints are all sour grapes from people connected to this issue. Project 2025 They were apparently excommunicated from Trump’s inner circle for making the former president look bad. But tThe Times reported There is a different, much more secretive group that has put together a very similar project called the “America First Agenda” produced by the America First Policy Institute, a group founded four years ago in the wake of the 2020 election. Unlike Project 2025, this group is working directly with the Trump campaign and preparing for a second term. One of its executives is Linda McMahon, co-chair of the Trump transition.

That agenda isn’t as voluminous as the 900-page Project 2025, according to the Times, and it doesn’t include some of the more sensational policies, like banning pornography and banning abortion pills from being sent through the mail, but it’s MAGA through and through. Policies such as mandatory ultrasounds for medication abortions and the designation of only two legal genders, as well as a host of standard issues dating back decades, call for conservative movement policy. They almost claim to have drafted 300 administrative orders We are ready for Trump’s signature.

However, there is something they have taken further than Project 2025. It calls for “eliminating virtually all civil service protections for federal employees by making them at-will employees.” This aspect of the plan is being implemented by none other than Howard Lutnick, who has apparently frozen out any Project 2025 Trump henchmen who signed up with the wrong team.

So you can see why the campaign doesn’t need to bother with the traditional migration process. They are currently vetting hundreds of MAGA loyalists and plan to begin significantly increasing executive power once Trump comes to power. But as with everything else Trump-related, the whole project appears to be on one hand a fraud and on the other a revenge scheme, with loyalists already stabbing each other in the back and showering favors on Mr. Leader. Some things never change.