# Federal Agencies Hub The executive branch is the part of the federal government that *does* things — enforces the law, runs the programs, writes the regulations, fights the wars, cuts the checks, and collects the taxes. Under [[Federal Government]] it is the Article II arm, and it is by far the largest: roughly 2.2 million civilian employees across 15 cabinet departments and dozens of independent agencies, commissions, and corporations, all nominally answerable to the President. This is the terrain of the contemporary capture project. Where [[Congress]] is being bypassed and the [[Judiciary]] reshaped, the executive branch is being **seized and rewired from the inside**. [[Project 2025]] is, structurally, a chapter-by-chapter operating manual for exactly the bodies mapped below — who to install, what to dismantle, which career staff to remove under [[Schedule F]], and which functions to terminate through [[DOGE]]. [[Unitary Executive Theory]] supplies the legal claim that the President may command all of it without interference. This map is organized by the standard tiers of the executive branch so the targets, and the order of operations, stay legible. → **[[Executive Branch Org Chart]]** — ASCII-art map of the whole branch on one page: President → EOP → the 15 departments and their component agencies → Cabinet-rank officials → independent agencies. The executive-branch companion to the [[Congressional Committees Tree]]. → **[[Intelligence Community Tree]]** — ASCII-art map of the 18-element U.S. Intelligence Community, grouped by parent department (ODNI at the top; 8 DoD elements; the standalone CIA; and the intelligence offices inside DOJ, DHS, State, Treasury, and Energy), with NIP/MIP budget flags. → **[[Presidential Line of Succession]]** — ASCII-art map of the statutory succession order (VP → Speaker → president pro tempore → the Cabinet in department-creation order) plus a process-flow of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment's inability machinery. → **[[Federal Reserve System Tree]]** — ASCII-art map of the central bank: the seven-seat Board of Governors, the FOMC and its 2026 voting rotation, and the twelve regional Reserve Banks by district — with the Warsh handoff, Powell's stay-behind, and the [[Trump v. Cook]] removal fight flagged. → **[[Monetary Policy Transmission Flow]]** — ASCII process flow of what happens *after* the FOMC votes: the target range → the administered rates that are the actual levers (IORB, ON RRP, the standing repo facility, the discount window) → the money market → the yield curve → the five channels → output, hiring, and prices. The process companion to the Federal Reserve System Tree. Current as of August 2026, with the long end visibly decoupled from the policy rate. → **[[Combatant Commands Map]]** — ASCII-art map of the 11 unified combatant commands (7 geographic + 4 functional) and the operational chain of command that bypasses the [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]] entirely: President → Secretary of Defense → combatant commander. Current commanders as of July 2026, the three dual-hats (SACEUR, NORAD, [[NSA]]), and the INDOPACOM → PACOM renaming. → **[[DHS Component Tree]]** — ASCII-art map of the [[Department of Homeland Security]] one level deeper than the org chart: the eight operational components (CBP · ICE · USCIS · TSA · Secret Service · Coast Guard · FEMA · CISA) with current heads and major sub-units, the headquarters tier, and the gutted oversight offices. As of July 2026, half the operational components run on acting heads. → **[[DOJ Component Tree]]** — ASCII-art map of the [[Department of Justice]] one level deeper than the org chart: the law-enforcement components ([[FBI]] · [[DEA]] · [[ATF]] · Marshals · Prisons), the litigating divisions, the [[Office of Legal Counsel]] and Solicitor General, the 93 U.S. Attorneys, the immigration courts, and the internal-oversight tier. The mirror image of the DHS tree — nearly every seat is confirmed, and the top three are all the President's former defense lawyers. Current as of August 2026, with the Deputy Attorney General's chair empty. → **[[Federal Workforce Structure Tree]]** — ASCII-art map of the federal civilian workforce as a *legal* structure rather than an organizational one: the competitive service, the seven excepted-service schedules (including [[Schedule F]] and the newer [[Schedule G]]), the [[Senior Executive Service]], the appointee layer, the systems outside Title 5, and the four agencies meant to enforce all of it. Current as of August 2026, after [[Executive Order 14410]] moved roughly 8,000 senior career positions out of the merit system. → **[[How a Federal Agency Is Dismantled]]** — ASCII process flow of the 2025–26 playbook as a *procedure*: the lapsed reorganization authority it works around → headcount attrition → the reduction in force → function transfer by [[Interagency Agreement]] → the money choke points (grant termination, apportionment footnotes, pocket rescission) → reclassification of the survivors → the two places it has actually been stopped. The process companion to the Federal Workforce Structure Tree. Current as of August 2026, with the new RIF retention rule taking effect September 2. → **[[How a Federal Employee Is Fired]]** — ASCII process flow of the individual counterpart to the dismantling map: the **five routes out** of federal employment, and the fact that the route is chosen by the *position* — service, schedule, tenure, preference — not by the conduct. Performance or conduct under chs. 43 and 75 → MSPB → Federal Circuit is now the **only** route that ends outside the executive branch. The 3 August 2026 *Federal Register* moved RIF, probationary and suitability appeals to [[OPM]] effective 2 September, each with a no-judicial-review provision; Schedule Policy/Career has no appeal at all. Current as of October 2026, including the MSPB's abolition of the mandatory [[Douglas Factors]] analysis on 5 October. The exit the Federal Workforce Structure Tree does not map. → **[[How an Executive Order Is Issued and Challenged]]** — ASCII process flow of the second term's signature governing instrument: drafting → [[Office of Legal Counsel]] form-and-legality review → OMB circulation → signing → [[Federal Register]] → implementation, then the three challenge tracks — Congress, the post-[[Trump v. CASA]] courts (class actions, APA vacatur, state suits), and the next president's stroke of a pen. → **[[Special Counsel Appointment and Removal Flow]]** — ASCII process flow of 28 C.F.R. Part 600, the regulation the [[Department of Justice]] wrote for itself in 1999 after Congress let the [[Independent Counsel]] statute lapse: the three-part trigger, the off-ramp beside it that has been taken every time since January 2025, the "outside the Government" qualification, the jurisdiction the [[Attorney General]] writes and can expand, the five removal grounds and the fifth that swallows the other four, the confidential report nobody must publish — and § 600.10, which makes every one of those obligations unenforceable by any person. The companion to the DOJ Component Tree. → **[[How a Federal Prosecution Begins and Ends]]** — ASCII process flow of the criminal case the DOJ Component Tree shows the prosecutors for: predication → investigation → the charging decision, with the [[Justice Manual]] approval matrix that routes public-corruption, RICO, FCPA and national-security cases above the district → the [[Grand Jury]] → arraignment → discovery → the plea that ends 98 percent of cases → trial → sentencing → appeal. The declination is the only exit on the map that leaves no record anywhere, and it is the one the supervision layer actually controls. → **[[How a U.S. Attorney Is Appointed and Removed]]** — ASCII process flow of the four ways into the office the DOJ Component Tree counts ninety-three of: presidential appointment with Senate confirmation through the [[Blue Slip]] → the Attorney General's single 120-day interim under 28 U.S.C. § 546 → the reversion that hands the appointment power to the **district court** when that clock runs out → and the three 2025–26 workarounds built to stop that reversion, every one of which has now lost in a circuit. The challenge track at the bottom is the only test an appointment ever gets, and it is run by defendants, not senators. → **[[How a Security Clearance Is Granted and Revoked]]** — ASCII process flow of the personnel-security system the [[Intelligence Community Tree]] and [[Federal Workforce Structure Tree]] both assume and neither maps: the policy stack (EO 13526 · EO 12968 · EO 10865 · EO 13467 · the SEAD series), sponsorship → SF-86 → DCSA investigation → adjudication against SEAD 4's thirteen guidelines → reciprocity, the SCI and SAP access layer on top, the continuous-vetting loop that replaced the periodic reinvestigation, and the **three doors out**, each with less process than the last. The organizing split is eligibility versus access: the due-process package attaches only to the first, which is why the second is the one that gets used. Ceiling: [[Department of the Navy v. Egan]]. → **[[Sanctions Designation Pipeline]]** — ASCII process flow of how a person or entity is actually sanctioned and how they get off: the [[National Emergencies Act]] switch → the IEEPA and program-statute menu → nomination, the "reason to believe" evidentiary memo and listing by the [[Office of Foreign Assets Control]] → the automatic 50 percent rule and correspondent-banking spillover → the license desk where policy flexes → the § 501.807 delisting petition → the two judicial doors that almost never open. The [[Foreign Terrorist Organization]] track runs alongside because 2025–26 practice fused the two. → **[[Inspector General Oversight Tree]]** — ASCII tree of the internal-watchdog layer: the ~74 statutory OIGs sorted by appointment type (Senate-confirmed vs. agency-head-appointed), the powers the IG Act gives each, CIGIE and its Integrity Committee, the special IGs and what survives of them, and the removal track as written beside the removal track as practiced since January 24, 2025 — the notice-not-cause rule, *Storch v. Hegseth*, the refill from inside the administration, and the FY27 cuts. Additive to [[Inspectors General]] and [[Inspector General]]. → **[[Federal Law Enforcement Agencies Tree]]** — ASCII inventory of every federal civilian officer authorized to carry a firearm or make an arrest, sorted by employing department, with the BJS census counts and the authorizing statute beside each. The organizing finding is that the agency count and the officer count describe two different populations: **42 of the 89 agencies in the census are Offices of Inspector General**, holding 2.6% of the officers, while [[CBP]], [[Bureau of Prisons]], [[FBI]] and [[ICE]] hold 68% of everyone else. Below it, the three doors — DHS cross-designation, Marshals special deputation, § 287(g) — by which the department lines move without a statute, and 5 U.S.C. § 406(f), under which the oversight layer's arrest power is revocable by the Attorney General and reviewable by no court. → **[[Federal Statistical System Tree]]** — ASCII tree of the thirteen principal statistical agencies, grouped by the nine cabinet departments and two independent agencies that house them, with the appointment mechanism and authorizing statute beside each. The organizing finding is an appointment fact: **only four of the thirteen heads are Senate-confirmed**, only three of those hold a fixed statutory term, [[Bureau of Justice Statistics]] lost its confirmation requirement to a 2012 housekeeping statute, and [[Bureau of Transportation Statistics]]'s director is appointed by statute *into the competitive service*. What supplies the independence is [[Statistical Policy Directive No. 1]] — an OMB instrument administered by the [[Chief Statistician of the United States]], a post that is not Senate-confirmed and turned over twice in 2025–26. Below the tree: the three additional CIPSEA-recognized units, the eight directives in force, and where the 2025–26 pressure actually landed. → **[[Census Bureau Org Chart]]** — ASCII org chart of the single agency the [[Federal Statistical System Tree]] treats as one node: the chain of command from the President through [[Department of Commerce]] and the Under Secretary for Economic Affairs, the Director's seat and the 13 U.S.C. § 21 protections attached to it, the directorates and management offices, the six regional offices, and the temporary decennial workforce that is built and dissolved once a decade. The organizing finding: **Title 13 creates the Director and creates no other officer at all**, so the five-year term, the qualification requirement and the sixty-day removal notice protect exactly one seat — and that seat has been vacant since February 2025, its duties performed by a Commerce official, while the unprotected number-two post was abolished and replaced with two appointed deputies in June 2026 by press release. Beside it the oversight layer, with all three census advisory committees terminated by one notice under [[Executive Order 14217]] and GAO's high-risk designation gone since 2023. → **[[Federal Land Management Crosswalk]]** — ASCII crosswalk of the four agencies that manage 607 million acres — [[Bureau of Land Management]], [[United States Forest Service]], [[United States Fish and Wildlife Service]], [[National Park Service]] — against each one's organic statute, its mandate, and what it actually takes to move an acre out. The organizing finding is that **exit difficulty runs opposite to acreage**: 244.4 million acres leave on a Secretary's signature under [[Federal Land Policy and Management Act]] § 203, 193.1 million leave only by trade, 89.3 million require a vote of the [[Migratory Bird Conservation Commission]] and its four legislators, and 80.1 million require an act of Congress. Below it the five levers — monument proclamation, mineral withdrawal, the regulatory rule, the [[Resource Management Plan]], and disposal — of which **only the last moves land at all**, which is why every 2025–26 action used one of the other four. → **[[Federal Whistleblower Protection Crosswalk]]** — ASCII crosswalk of the six channels a federal whistleblower can actually use: the [[Office of Special Counsel]], the agency [[Inspector General]], the congressional-disclosure right at 5 U.S.C. § 7211, the [[Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act]] route that runs through the [[ODNI]] official being complained about, the [[FBI]]'s own closed list under 28 C.F.R. part 27, and the contractor and grantee provisions at 41 U.S.C. § 4712. Against each: who receives it, what retaliation is barred, where the appeal goes, and what happens if the agency ignores it. Two findings. **The strongest forum belongs to the people with the weakest job** — a contractor employee gets a de novo district-court trial with a jury after 210 days of agency silence, while a tenured civil servant is locked into [[Office of Special Counsel]] → [[Merit Systems Protection Board]] → record review, and never sees a jury at any stage. And **the disclosure door and the protection door are not the same door**: a 5 U.S.C. § 1213 disclosure refers your report to the head of the agency you are reporting and protects nothing about your job — that is a separate filing under § 1214, which is where the [[Individual Right of Action]] lives. → **[[National Guard Federalization Flow]]** — ASCII process flow of the three legal statuses a Guard unit can occupy — State Active Duty, Title 32, and federalized Title 10 — and the four statutory doors between them. The map of the 2025–26 domestic-deployment fights: why [[Posse Comitatus Act]] applies to one status and not the others, what 10 U.S.C. § 12406 does and does not authorize, and why every case ended in withdrawal or mootness rather than an appellate ruling. → **[[Immigration Removal Pipeline]]** — ASCII process flow of how a person is actually deported: CBP / [[ICE]] encounter → detainer → the [[Notice to Appear]] → detention and bond (the [[Matter of Yajure Hurtado]] reclassification and the fall 2026 Supreme Court and Fifth Circuit cases) → an immigration judge inside the [[Executive Office for Immigration Review]], a DOJ component → the [[Board of Immigration Appeals]] and the Attorney General's certification power → the petition for review with no automatic stay → execution and [[Third-Country Removal]]; beside it the seven bypass tracks (expedited removal nationwide since 7/17/2026, reinstatement, stipulated and administrative removal, the § 212(f) proclamation and [[Alien Enemies Act]] routes that both failed in court, and self-deportation). Seats verified 2026-09-07. ## The tiers ### [[Executive Office of the President Hub]] The President's own command apparatus — the White House Office, OMB, NSC, USTR, and the rest. The control room from which the rest of the branch is directed. *(Anchor profile.)* ### [[Cabinet Departments Hub]] The 15 great departments of government, from State and Treasury down to Homeland Security and [[Veterans Affairs]]. Each is a sub-MOC linking to its component agencies. ### [[Independent Regulatory Commissions Hub]] The Fed, SEC, FCC, FTC, NLRB, FEC and their kin — multi-member bodies designed with for-cause removal protection to insulate regulation from direct presidential control. The frontline of the [[Unitary Executive Theory]] fight. ### [[Independent Executive Agencies Hub]] EPA, NASA, SSA, GSA, OPM, CIA, and the rest — agencies outside the cabinet departments but inside presidential control. ### [[Government Corporations Hub]] USPS, FDIC, TVA, Amtrak — federal entities run on a business model, with their own boards and revenue streams. ### [[Intelligence Community Hub]] The 18 IC elements — a cross-cutting overlay that runs through DoD, DOJ, DHS, State, Energy, Treasury, and the standalone agencies (CIA, ODNI). ### [[Oversight and Accountability Hub]] The watchdog tier — [[Inspectors General]], GAO, MSPB, OSC, OGE, PCLOB. The bodies that check the rest of the branch from the inside and from Congress, and the opening target of the capture project. ### [[Armed Forces Hub]] The military — DoD (the "Department of War"), the six service branches, the Joint Chiefs, the combatant commands, and the [[National Guard]]. The locus of the officer-purge and domestic-deployment fights. ## Anchor profiles (worked examples) - [[Department of Justice]] — the law-enforcement and litigation apparatus; the [[FBI]] sits here - [[Department of Homeland Security]] — the immigration-and-borders apparatus; [[ICE]] sits here - [[Executive Office of the President Hub]] — the command room where [[Schedule F]] and [[Unitary Executive Theory]] bite first - [[United States Semiquincentennial Commission]] — a temporary, bipartisan congressional commission (America250), worked here as a case study in how a nonpartisan federal body gets overlaid by a presidentially controlled task force and movement-aligned content partners in a charged commemoration year ## Cross-cutting concepts - [[Administrative State]] — the bureaucratic apparatus as a whole, and the campaign to dismantle it - [[Schedule F]] — converting career staff to at-will appointees - [[Project 2025]] — the agency-by-agency blueprint - [[DOGE]] — the vehicle for cuts, closures, and firings - [[Unitary Executive Theory]] — the legal theory of total presidential control - [[Power of the Purse]] — the appropriations check the executive contests through impoundment ## Sibling branch MOCs - [[Federal Government]] — the whole-of-government spine - [[Congress]] — the legislative branch - [[Judiciary]] — the judicial branch