This blog is about two bureaucracies. In some ways its a political blog because it deals indirectly with the ‘monkey fight’ realm of politics. The partisan battles we fight.
I have had experience with bureaucracies inside of the two banks I worked in, in Sacramento in both legislative work and in advising in the executive branch and with many years in Washington DC with foreign aid agencies.
We are confronting two giant bureaucracies that are under severe pressure. A level of pressure I have never seen applied to these two agencies. In the IRS case there was deliberate pressure from the White House to ignore the law and bring political corruption to the mandate of the Agency. The Exempt Status department was told to block the application of all applicants that had Republican leanings and the same for pro-Israel applicants. In a number of cases these blocks lasted for three years and effectively cut off campaign funds to Republicans. This is corruption at a level that is inconceivable to anyone who knows the Exempt Status operation. I certainly know it because I managed an exempt church and foundation for eleven years.
The FBI case is still pending at the time I write this blog. Hillary Clinton, while Secretary of State, had a private server at home which she used for email for herself and her friends. Over five years or more she sent and received classified mail on her server. An illegal act if it happened once. It happened over a thousand times. In a few cases she had her staff delete the words ‘classified’ an even worse offense.
Both the IRS and the FBI are large bureaucracies. Roughly 100k employees in the former and 35k in the latter.
Nearly every employee of the IRS knows that his/her organization has been criminally politicized, and no executives have been punished. The whole organization received two budget cuts of 3% in 2014 and 2015 from a Republican Congress which every employee knows.
The IRS employees, all of them, know that with a Republican president and a Republican Congress, the agency will be torn apart and reorganized. What does this mean?
It means that nearly all low level employees who are competent and have a profit making market value have already left. After the results of 2016 election results are known, the remaining competent employees will leave. The IRS will be an angry grave yard.
Mid-level employees who have a good reputation in other government agencies have already moved out of the IRS and the rest will leave with a Republican win.
Even a Democrat president with a Republican Congress will be anxious to fire the entire top echelon to avoid future similar problems and to keep the Congress from further attacks on the agency.
In any case, morale is so low at every level that we will see bad behavior for a decade as people go to work discouraged. They will waste staff money on lavish parties. They will regularly commit fraud. And worst of all, it will be open season on enemies within the agencies. This will mean employment lawsuits will rise as will whistle blowing to the press about real and imagined ills. No intelligent person will accept the top position.
The FBI is on the edge of a precipice right now. If the organization acts as its charter and employees will demand, it will force the Justice Department to indict Hillary Clinton. If the Justice Department under pressure from the White House doesn’t indict, there will be public protests from large numbers of FBI members. The internal FBI turmoil in that case will be public. All the rest of the consequences will be the same as the IRS. Employees will leave and internal conflicts will become large and public.
The FBI is a more vulnerable bureaucracy than the IRS because it has promoted itself as a morally upright organization. It is seriously vulnerable to charges of hypocrisy. Employees will act in their own self interest which will often mean internal brawls that become public and dirty laundry will be spilled everywhere. This will begin in a few months if Ms Clinton is not indicted.
I feel I know bureaucracies fairly well. If you think there is a different likely scenario, please add your comments.