The Biden administration is actively seeking to sabotage Trump’s second term by filling every federal agency with Democrat activists. Known as “burrowing,” it involves turning political appointees into permanent civil service employees just before an administration leaves office. Concerns about burrowing first gained widespread attention during the Reagan administration, as outgoing Carter officials sought to solidify their influence by converting political appointees into career roles. This practice has since become a recurring issue during transitions between administrations, particularly when power shifts between parties. This maneuver allows partisan operatives to secure long-term positions within agencies, where they wield significant influence shielded by civil service protections. While the media often brushes this off as routine staffing, the reality is a deliberate attempt to embed ideological allies deep inside the government, ready to resist future policy changes.
To borrow a phrase from the late William F. Buckley, we must “stand athwart history yelling stop” before this administrative rot solidifies any further. Reports suggest that Joe Biden, whose presidency has become a caricature of cognitive decline, has already nudged over a thousand political operatives into career roles within federal agencies—with almost none being properly reported as a result of a glaring loophole. Some expect that number to eclipse 3,000 by the end of his term—a grim milestone even Obama, the patron saint of bureaucratic entrenchment, failed to reach.
The Strategic Design of Burrowing
This isn’t mere happenstance; it’s a deliberate siege of the federal bureaucracy. Career positions were designed to insulate governance from the whiplash of elections, preserving nonpartisan stability and continuity. Yet the Democrats, ever adept at exploiting these safeguards, have turned the system into a weapon. By embedding loyal operatives into “neutral” roles, they create a policy firewall impervious to political change. This will be the most formidable challenge for Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team, led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. Musk, a proven innovator with experience dismantling bureaucratic inefficiencies in industries like space exploration and electric vehicles, brings a disruptive mindset essential for tackling government bloat. Ramaswamy, a sharp entrepreneur and vocal critic of the administrative state, combines policy knowledge with a relentless commitment to reform. Together, they represent the outside-the-box leadership needed to confront a federal workforce entrenched with partisan loyalists. The burrowers will smile and nod as the DOGE team introduces reforms, then quietly deploy every bureaucratic and administrative trick in the book to stymie their efforts. From endless procedural delays to obscure rule interpretations, the burrowers will exploit the machinery of government itself to obstruct change. Biden’s administration clearly understands what Trump learned too late in 2016—burrowers aren’t passive placeholders. They’re partisan operatives who wield their positions to resist, obstruct, and sabotage any incoming conservative reform.
The Legal Framework of Burrowing
While the law requires the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to report instances of burrowing to Congress, neither OPM nor the House Committee on Oversight and Reform or the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs have made this information public. Transparency in this process is crucial—doing so serves the public interest and would help guard against potential abuses.
The process itself has evolved since the Carter administration. Initially, burrowing occurred with little oversight, but growing concerns about abuse prompted the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to implement stricter reviews. By the Reagan era, the practice gained attention, particularly when outgoing Carter appointees were fast-tracked into civil service roles. Over time, the process became more formalized, requiring multi-tiered reviews to ensure compliance with hiring guidelines. Yet, loopholes remain—such as inadequate reporting and bypassing OPM altogether—which allow agencies to exploit the system, making today’s burrowing efforts even more opaque and problematic. Today, agencies are required to submit a request to OPM whenever they seek to hire a current political appointee or one who has served in a political position within the past five years. OPM then conducts multi-level reviews of each application to ensure the conversion adheres to federal hiring guidelines. However, this process is far from airtight. On occasion, agencies have bypassed OPM entirely and converted political appointees without proper review. When this happens, OPM performs retroactive evaluations and, if necessary, issues corrective actions, such as re-advertising the position. Notably, the U.S. Court of Appeals recently upheld the firing of an appointee who had been improperly converted into a career role without OPM oversight.
The Obama administration’s extensive burrowing in 2016 created such a severe problem that the OPM updated its rules in 2018. These new guidelines required agencies to notify OPM of any attempted burrowing—but in practice, compliance remains woefully inconsistent. Agencies often skirt these requirements, and a glaring loophole exacerbates the problem: the Biden administration can hire loyalists from both Biden and Harris’s presidential campaigns—a combined pool of over 10,000 Democrat operatives who can be fast-tracked into career roles.
This month alone, the federal government added approximately 60,000 new employees—a staggering number. Hidden among them are likely 2,000 to 3,000 Democrat loyalists being quietly “burrowed” into civil service positions. These hires, shielded from public scrutiny, will serve as obstacles to Trump’s incoming administration, exploiting the sheer volume of federal hiring to obscure their presence within the bureaucracy.
The FBI and Wray’s Last Stand
The FBI provides a particularly troubling example of this phenomenon under Director Christopher Wray. With Trump set to take office, Wray’s final days at the bureau are anything but idle. Once Wray officially steps down, Deputy Director Paul Abbate is expected to take over on an interim basis until Trump’s pick, likely Kash Patel, receives Senate confirmation. But Wray has one last trick up his sleeve.
The Washington Times reports that Wray has begun promoting senior officials into protected positions within the Senior Executive Service (SES), effectively burrowing them deep within the FBI. This move is calculated to obstruct Trump’s reforms, ensuring that Patel faces resistance from entrenched bureaucrats loyal to the status quo. Sources within the bureau describe this as a deliberate effort to create a partisan leadership structure immune to Trump’s oversight.
Adding to the challenge, there are reports that Wray is formulating a plan to delay Patel’s entry into the agency by three to four months. Such a delay is critical to Wray’s strategy because it would give entrenched bureaucrats time to consolidate their influence, entrench their positions, and sabotage any incoming reforms. The additional months would allow Wray’s allies to set up internal roadblocks, bury critical information, and create a culture of defiance that will be difficult to dismantle. For Trump’s administration, these delays mean that Patel will face an already fortified internal opposition the moment he assumes leadership. Such a delay could severely hamper Trump’s ability to clean house at the FBI, giving Wray’s allies time to entrench themselves even further. This effort doesn’t even account for the scores of Democrat activists from the Biden and Harris campaigns who are being quietly hired as permanent civil service employees in the DOJ and FBI. The risks of this scheme are substantial—especially given Trump’s justified distrust of the bureau after years of politicized investigations and leaks. Nevertheless, Wray remains undeterred, betting that congressional inertia will allow his plan to succeed.
If Wray’s gambit works, Patel will face an uphill battle. Burrowed FBI officials could leak information, resist directives, and create endless delays without fear of repercussions. This would be disastrous for Trump’s efforts to restore integrity to the FBI and would embolden dangerous elements within the bureaucracy.
Restoring Accountability
Burrowing is no clerical footnote; it’s a battlefield tactic in the Left’s war to entrench its ideology within the machinery of government. For Democrats, this strategy isn’t ancillary—it’s central to their long-term play for power. Republicans must respond in kind, with a clear-eyed recognition of the challenge and a strategy grounded in transparency, accountability, and reform.
The administrative state cannot remain a partisan stronghold disguised as a neutral institution. If conservatives hope to achieve lasting victories, they must confront this hidden entrenchment head-on. The battle for America’s future isn’t just fought at the ballot box—it’s waged in the corridors of power, where burrowers dig in and wait.
Trump’s victory on November 5th marks the beginning of a new chapter, but the fight is far from over. As he prepares to take office on January 20th, his administration must be ready for the entrenched opposition it will face. The machinery of government has been rigged, and restoring accountability will require bold, decisive action. Anything less would be surrender.
A. Muse is an entrepreneur and social media influencer.