Avoiding that "corruption" really did a whole lot of good with the actual, literal wannabe serial-assaulting autocrat who is in office, you're so very right.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/12/13/...
House Republicans revive obscure rule that allows them to slash the pay of individual federal workers to $1:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/house...
Both have been extensively reported and are well-understood. In the interest of fairness that Trump and his cronies do not deserve, they claimed significantly after-the-fact that the former request for the names climate workers was "not authorized." This is a lie, and a bad one, and the truly damning thing is that they think--perhaps even correctly--that the lie will be taken by their listeners. "Alternative facts" (hat-tip to Trump's mouthpiece Conway for that gem) are the measure of the autocrat: make the people doubt everything to exhaust them, to instill the notion that there is no truth, and to prevent them from focusing on what you are actually doing. It provides cover when suspicions are actually aroused by something you are doing to fade away, and then it is as if it never was.
We must protect scum,because otherwise it only takes a single bullshit "this person is scum" campaign to strip a person of their rights.