AFP Foundation on Reining In Administrative Abuse, Protect Due Process, and Improve Government Transparency
By
| January 29, 2025
AFP Foundation regulatory counsel Michael Pepson and Stand Together’s Casey Mattox write on the FedSoc Blog:
As soon as he took office, President Trump issued several Executive Orders aimed at bringing the administrative state in line with the Constitution and the rule of law, including an EO titled Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions. This EO revoked a number of ill-advised executive actions taken by the Biden administration and promises to “be the first of many steps the United States Federal Government will take to repair our institutions and our economy,” including by ensuring Americans are treated fairly by unelected bureaucrats who wield great—unaccountable and often extraconstitutional—power over their lives and livelihoods. One little-noticed provision of President Trump’s EO picks up where the first Trump administration left off on administrative state reform by restoring due process protections and transparency measures the first Trump administration put in place that were inexplicably unwound by the Biden administration to the detriment of the American People.
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But when President Trump returned to office, on day one of his second term he issued an EO that “hereby revoked” “Executive Order 13992 of January 20, 2021.” In so doing, President Trump unwound President Biden’s ill-fated and unexplained decision to deny basic due process protections to Americans facing agency investigations and in-house administrative prosecutions and frustrate efforts to require agencies to be transparent with the regulated community.
