On Day One, President Trump Took Meaningful Steps to Rein In Administrative Abuse, Protect Due Process, and Improve Government Transparency

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.
By way of background, the first Trump administration took meaningful action to rein in unfair regulatory abuse, protect Americans’ due process rights, and improve government transparency through commonsense measures like requiring federal agencies to provide people and businesses with fair notice of what the agency thinks the law prohibits or requires before bringing an enforcement action, requiring agencies to bear the burden of proving legal violations, and requiring agencies to make all guidance documents publicly available on their websites. For example, in his first administration, President Trump issued Executive Order 13924, which established a regulatory bill of rights. President Trump also issued two other landmark Executive Orders on agency transparency and administrative due process: Executive Order 13891, titled “Promoting the Rule of Law Through Improved Agency Guidance Documents,” and Executive Order 13892 , titled “Promoting the Rule of Law Through Transparency and Fairness in Civil Administrative Enforcement and Adjudication.” The common themes: fundamental fairness, transparency, and due process—all of which are core, shared American values.
Nonetheless, on day one of his administration, President Biden reversed course without meaningful explanation, summarily canceling these laudable actions—and many more—by Executive Order 13992, titled “Revocation of Certain Executive Orders Concerning Federal Regulation.” The primary justification the EO offered for this action was that “executive departments and agencies [] must be equipped with the flexibility to use robust regulatory action to address national priorities” for the Biden administration, and that President Trump’s EOs somehow “threaten[ed] to frustrate the Federal Government’s ability to confront these problems.” This line of reasoning, taken to its conclusion, suggests a view that the government’s favored policy ends justify the administrative means used to achieve those ends, and that government efficiency trumps individual liberty, due process, fairness, and the rule of law.
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.
This provision has not received the attention of some of President Trump’s more high-profile actions to tame the administrative state and bring its activities in line with the Constitution, such as the EO on Restoring Accountability to Policy-Influencing Positions Within the Federal Workforce. But revoking EO 13922 brings landmark orders from the first Trump administration back into effect, and they relegate Biden’s misguided EO 13922 to the dustbin of history.
To be sure, given the size and scope of the modern administrative state, President Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency, better known as DOGE, have their work cut out for them in their efforts to right size the federal government and bring its activities in line with the Constitution’s demands. Executive Orders are not a panacea for all that ails the administrative state. Legislation might be required—or at least more desirable, for the sake of permanency—in some instances. Indeed, as illustrated here, because Congress had not demanded the kind of transparency and due process protections that President Trump demanded in his first administration, it was all too easy for President Biden to simply wipe them away with a pen stroke. Moreover, certain other executive actions must comply with the Administrative Procedure Act’s various procedural requirements. And, as appropriate, it may behoove the Administration, in partnership with DOGE, to proceed in a methodical manner that invites Congress to be a leading participant in the work of reforming the administrative state.
President Biden admitted much when he said that due process and bureaucratic transparency denied his agencies “flexibility.” It is unsurprising, if disappointing, that a President would want to deny Americans basic rights out of a desire to hold on to useful power. But that’s why President Trump’s action to restore these rights on day one of his administration is such a hopeful sign. If President Trump continues to prioritize reforms to the administrative state and to expect his agencies to treat citizens as citizens and not as subjects, the second Trump administration could be unlike any we’ve seen for a century.
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