Are you calling congress "HR"? Congress created USAID, and did not approve it being destroyed.

> But if he does have the power, then it would be perverse if he couldn’t exercise the power due to HR rules.

It's not even established that he has the power. The fact that they do something doesn't mean they have that power.

And given that, it doesn't mean that you get to ignore all other rules.

> You cannot put HR in the way of the duly elected President exercising his powers.

When you're firing thousands of people, some due diligence is in order, no?

> on March 20, two days after Rubio placed Lewin atop the USAID hierarchy

> By March 26, the emails show, Lewin still hadn’t accepted the job offer, and had not filed his OF-306, the federal government's standard pre-employment background screening form; without this document, a federal agency cannot lawfully issue a final job offer or consummate an appointment

> A detailing agreement between the GSA and USAID dated February 14—two weeks after Lewin says he began at USAID—specifes that “commencement of the detail is contingent upon the Detailee’s successful adjudication and receipt of any necessary security clearances and other pre-employment screening required by USAID.

More serious issues than "HR" should have barred him from working, for at least some of the time he did.

Even if it was legal for Trump or Rubio to shut it down, they still have to do it through authorized agents and legal processes. If a "police officer" conducted a search without paperwork on file that establishes their authority to search, it would be illegal, right?

I think appointing people who absolutely should not be doing the jobs they are appointed to is a way of sidestepping all law. They want to destroy all government and what better way to do it than through sheer incompetence with a layer of plausible deniability.

There are other theories of course.

Only Congress had the power. But Congress didn’t call the Executive branch on it, so … here we are.