Trump’s Fifth Week, Continued: Institutional Overhauls and Government Restructuring
Trump's fifth week continues to see significant shifts in U.S. institutions and escalating tensions with Mexico.
The fifth week of Trump’s second term has brought a wave of institutional changes, continuing the shake-ups reported in The Introspective’s previous coverage. On Thursday, Kash Patel was confirmed as FBI director after previously serving as principal deputy director of national intelligence in Trump’s first administration. Patel, known for promoting conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, has since announced plans to relocate more than 1,500 employees from Washington, D.C.
Trump has also intensified his overhaul of military leadership. On Friday, he fired Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, announcing that Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine would replace him. That same day, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dismissed Navy Chief Lisa Franchetti, continuing the administration’s rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies in the military.
Meanwhile, a federal judge ruled in favor of the Trump administration in a lawsuit filed by federal employees against Elon Musk and Trump over the dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), allowing the disbandment to proceed. The Associated Press has also sued the administration after being barred from attending presidential events, including press briefings.
Tensions with Mexico are rising following Trump’s executive order designating six Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. In response, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has proposed constitutional reforms aimed at strengthening Mexico’s sovereignty. Concerns over sovereignty violations were further fueled by the CIA’s disclosure of an ongoing drone surveillance program targeting cartels within Mexico.
Domestically, Trump’s administration is poised to take greater control of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), an independent government agency, by firing its board of governors—an unprecedented move that could disrupt the 250-year-old institution.
Additionally, the Justice Department has deleted its database tracking police conduct among federal law enforcement officers. This follows an earlier expansion of presidential pardons for Jan. 6 rioters, which now includes individuals with gun and drug-related charges.
FBI Leadership Shake-Up
Lawyer and former prosecutor Kash Patel was sworn in as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Thursday, a controversial appointment after a history of spreading “deep state” conspiracy theories and alleging that the government is hostile to conservatives. In an interview last year, Patel vowed to dismantle the agency.
“I’d shut down the FBI Hoover Building on Day 1 and reopen it the next day as a museum of the ‘deep state,’” Patel said in a report by The New York Times.
“Then, I’d take the 7,000 employees that work in that building and send them across America to chase down criminals. Go be cops. You’re cops—go be cops.”
FBI directors are typically appointed to 10-year terms to insulate them from political influence.
Patel has previously spread disinformation about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, falsely claiming that Democrats had prior knowledge of the insurrection and that undercover FBI agents encouraged rioters to enter the building—claims that were debunked by a Justice Department report in December 2024. He has also promoted COVID-19 vaccine misinformation, advertising an unproven pill on Truth Social that he claimed could reverse the effects of the vaccine.
“Spike the Vax, order this home-run kit to rid your body of the harms of the vax. Huge discount now by ordering via link below,” Patel wrote in a post.
Following his confirmation, Patel emphasized the FBI’s “national security mission” in an interview Friday.
“Anyone that wishes to do harm to our way of life and our citizens, here and abroad, will face the full wrath of the DOJ and FBI,” Patel told NBC Washington.
“If you seek to hide in any corner of this country or planet, we will put on the world’s largest manhunt, and we will find you and we will decide your end state.”
Since taking office, Patel has announced plans to relocate more than 1,500 employees from Washington, D.C. Of those, 1,000 will be sent to field offices across the country, while another 500 will be reassigned to a bureau facility in Huntsville, Alabama, aligning with the Trump administration’s broader efforts to downsize the federal government.
Military Restructuring and Leadership Purges
Additional federal changes were announced Friday after President Donald Trump fired Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the advisory board that provides military counsel to the president and secretary of defense. The move comes as Trump’s second administration continues its crackdown on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies. The CIA also dismissed a dozen officers who worked on DEI initiatives.
“I want to thank General Charles ‘CQ’ Brown for his over 40 years of service to our country, including as our current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He is a fine gentleman and an outstanding leader, and I wish a great future for him and his family,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
Brown, the second Black general to serve as chairman, will be replaced by retired Air Force Lt. Gen. John Dan “Razin” Cane. Brown served just 16 months in the role, overseeing military operations amid the conflict in Ukraine and turmoil in the Middle East.
That same day, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired Navy Chief Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to serve on the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“Under President Trump, we are putting in place new leadership that will focus our military on its core mission of deterring, fighting, and winning wars,” Hegseth told CNN.
In that same report, Hegseth had previously called Franchetti a “DEI hire” in his 2024 book, The War on Warriors, claiming that naval operations would “suffer” under her leadership.
“If naval operations suffer, at least we can hold our heads high. Because at least we have another first! The first female member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—hooray,” Hegseth wrote.
These firings come as the Department of Defense announced Friday that it would dismiss 5,400 probationary employees—those who have been on the job for less than a year and have not yet obtained civil service protection—starting next week. A previous Introspective report highlighted plans to reduce the civilian workforce by more than 8%.
USAID Disbandment and Press Freedom Concerns
Following lawsuits by employees over plans to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), a federal judge ruled Friday that the Trump administration can place thousands of employees on leave, including those stationed overseas.
“The government has made a colorable case that the actions challenged in this case are essential to its policy goals,” wrote U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols.
Nichols also stated that the claims made by the unions and the federal government in the lawsuit were fundamentally different.
“Weighing plaintiffs’ assertions on these questions against the government’s is like comparing apples to oranges. Where one side claims that USAID’s operations are essential to human flourishing and the other side claims they are presently at odds with it, it simply is not possible for the Court to conclude, as a matter of law or equity, that the public interest favors or disfavors an injunction,” he wrote.
The lawsuit was filed by the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA), a group representing nearly 2,000 foreign service officers working for USAID, and the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE). The suit alleges that efforts to disband USAID would have “disastrous humanitarian consequences” by halting the agency’s efforts to combat issues such as HIV resurgence and clinical trials.
“By abruptly putting staff on administrative leave, defendants left USAID workers in perilous situations—stranded, without any information or funding to escape,” the lawsuit read, referring to the State Department’s warning for Americans to leave the Democratic Republic of the Congo due to safety concerns in the region.
Many advocates reacted to the ruling, with the president of AFGE calling it a “setback.”
“Today’s ruling is a setback, but we remain committed to our USAID members and the valuable work they do,” AFGE President Everett Kelley said in an interview with Politico.
“We will continue to fight the administration’s illegal efforts to dismantle USAID.”
The Trump administration faced additional scrutiny Friday night after the Associated Press (AP) sued three officials, alleging the organization was barred from attending presidential events.
“The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not be retaliated against by the government,” the AP said in a report, noting that the lawsuit names White House Chief of Staff Susan Wiles, Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich, and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
The lawsuit, obtained by The Introspective, alleges an unconstitutional effort by the White House to control speech, violating the First Amendment. The AP previously drew the Trump administration’s ire after refusing to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America,” as mandated by a past executive order.
“This targeted attack on the AP’s editorial independence and ability to gather and report the news strikes at the very core of the First Amendment,” the organization said.
“This court should remedy it immediately.”
The White House dismissed the AP’s claims in a report by NPR, with spokesperson Steven Cheung calling the lawsuit “frivolous and demented.”
“They are clearly suffering from a severe, debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted their peanut-sized brains,” Cheung said.
According to the lawsuit, AP journalists have been barred from attending events at the Oval Office, Air Force One, and Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence.
U.S.-Mexico Relations: Growing Sovereignty Tensions
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced constitutional reforms aimed at protecting Mexico’s sovereignty after the Trump administration designated Mexican cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations.” The announcement follows a CIA report disclosing an ongoing drone surveillance program over Mexico targeting drug cartels.
“The Mexican people will under no circumstances accept interventions, intrusions, or any other action from abroad that are detrimental to the integrity, independence, or sovereignty of the nation… [including] violations of Mexican territory, whether by land, sea, or air,” Sheinbaum said in a report by Reuters.
The proposed reforms would increase penalties for both Mexicans and foreigners involved in arms trafficking, as most guns used in Mexico originate in the United States. The move opposes Trump’s executive order, as Mexico has long argued that cartels are motivated by profit rather than political ideology.
“We categorically reject the slander made by the White House against the Mexican government about alliances with criminal organizations,” Sheinbaum wrote in a Spanish-language post on X earlier this month.
“If there is such an alliance anywhere, it is in the U.S. gun shops that sell high-powered weapons to these criminal groups.”
A 2023 investigation by CBS News found that many cartels pay Americans to purchase weapons from gun stores and online retailers, which are then smuggled into Mexico through the southwest border.
Reshaping the U.S. Postal Service
President Donald Trump announced Friday that he was preparing to disband the leadership of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) and absorb the independent mail agency into his administration, placing it under the control of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who was sworn in that same day.
“We want to have a Post Office that works well and doesn’t lose massive amounts of money, and we’re thinking about doing that. It’ll be a form of a merger, but it’ll remain the Postal Service, and I think it’ll operate a lot better than it has been over the years,” Trump said in a CBS News report.
The announcement comes after Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who was appointed during Trump’s first term, announced his resignation earlier in the week. While White House officials have stated that no executive orders targeting the USPS are currently planned, it is unlikely that Trump could privatize the agency, as it is authorized by the U.S. Constitution and was established by the Post Office Act of 1792, which outlines federal postal operations.
In an interview with The Washington Post, James O’Rourke, a University of Notre Dame professor who studies the USPS, expressed concern over Trump’s approach, comparing it to a monarch’s rule.
“This is a somewhat regal approach that says the king knows better than his subjects and he will do his best for them. But it also removes any sense that there’s oversight, impartiality, and fairness, and that some states wouldn’t be treated better than others or cities better than other cities,” O’Rourke said.
“The anxiety over the Postal Service is not only about three-quarters of a million workers. It’s that this is something that does not belong to the president or the White House—it belongs to the American people.”
Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union, called the plan an “outrageous” and “unlawful” attack on the agency.
“If this reporting is true, it would be an outrageous, unlawful attack on a storied national treasure, enshrined in the Constitution and created by Congress to serve every American home and business equally,” Dimondstein said in a press release.
Despite years of financial struggles, the USPS—which was founded in 1775—reported a $144 million profit in the first quarter of this fiscal year, marking its first profit since 2006.
Federal Law Enforcement Changes
The Department of Justice faced scrutiny Thursday after deleting a database that tracked the conduct of federal officers.
The National Law Enforcement Accountability Database was first proposed by President Donald Trump in 2020 following the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. It was officially created in 2022 through an executive order by then-President Joe Biden.
“It’s a reckless and harmful decision and a major step backward for transparency and public safety,” said Chiragg Bains, a member of the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization, who led the development of Biden’s executive order establishing the database, in a report.
“Why would you shut this down? This helps no one except bad actors who had no business wearing the badge.”
According to a December 2024 report by the Department of Justice, there were 4,790 instances of federal police misconduct between 2018 and 2023.
In the second Trump administration's fifth week, last-minute developments have added complexity to an already turbulent political landscape. As these changes unfold, the administration’s actions are expected to fuel ongoing debates about the limits of presidential power.