LA Times

At first glance, President-elect Donald Trump’s most controversial Cabinet nominees — Matt Gaetz, Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — are an odd list of ideologues and eccentrics chosen for political loyalty more than any substantive qualifications.

But there’s a more important and potentially more dangerous factor that ties their nominations together: They are foot soldiers in a power grab that, if it succeeds, would weaken the institutional guardrails that limit the president’s powers and concentrate more authority in Trump’s hands.