There doesn't seem to be a single federal agency that isn't in chaos, one year and change into the Trump "presidency." It's probably no surprise that the National Labor Relations Board is in the midst of what appears to be an all-out war between its Trumpites and non-Trumpites, but the sheer breadth of the chaos is ... yikes.
At the center of the controversy, which has pitted civil servants against political appointees, conservatives against liberals and, on occasion, conservatives against other conservatives, are Peter Robb, the NLRB’s bare-knuckled general counsel, and board member William Emanuel, a controversial Trump appointee with deep ties to business. [...]
The second and more elaborate NLRB controversy concerns Emanuel's decision not to recuse himself in December from Hy-Brand Industrial Contractors, a pro-business ruling in which the NLRB’s inspector general later concluded Emanuel had a conflict of interest. After the inspector general issued his report, the NLRB vacated the ruling. [...]
Meanwhile, the NLRB’s inspector general, David Berry, is investigating a second NLRB member, Mark Pearce, who is one of the board’s two Democrats. [...]
Berry, in turn, stands accused by the National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation, the legal arm of the anti-union National Right To Work Committee, of disclosing confidential board deliberations improperly in his report on Emanuel, and in a follow-up report issued one month later.
Weeeeee. The three separate issues appear to be the predictable administration efforts to weaken the board's ability to protect workers, the Trump admistration's insistence on appointing new members with such deep conflicts that they are expected to have to recuse themselves from much of the board's work, and a deep hate between everybody and everybody. But it's a hell of a read; importantly, it doesn't look like there's any end in sight.