The three top federal agencies responsible for protecting the nation — the Departments of Justice, Defense and Homeland Security — are all being run by acting officials, as the United States endures one of its most sensitive national security crises.
The leadership vacuum is the product of President Trump’s tempestuous relationships with his Cabinet secretaries and tendency to replace them for long periods of time with acting officials who lack Senate confirmation — a pattern that has led to turmoil atop critical federal agencies for much of his presidency.
Never has the absence of confirmed leaders seemed more pronounced than now. All three agencies were being led by acting officials in the run-up to the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, where extremist Trump supporters who embrace the president’s false claims of election fraud stormed the building to demand that lawmakers dispute President-elect Joe Biden’s victory during a pro forma certification of the electoral college vote. Continue reading.