Even if Schedule F is not reimposed — or if it comes back but is then limited by Congress or the courts — experts say there are already so many existing exemptions across the federal bureaucracy that a future president determined to pursue mass firings would have plenty to work with. Someone with Trump’s willpower will find a new methodology if Schedule F falls.

The system has become Balkanized over a matter of decades, with a hand from Democrats as well as Republicans, to the point where experts say there are effectively dozens of civil services — not one — all covered by separate authorities with different rules and protections.

Broadly speaking, the U.S. Intelligence Community is not covered by the so-called competitive service jobs appointed under Title 5. Thus, Schedule F wouldn’t have the same impact because intelligence employees are already exempt from most protections.

Intelligence Community posts do have some due process rights — but those are typically developed within individual agencies, and they do not get to appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board. So presidents already have wide latitude to purge intelligence positions, so long as the agency head goes along and voters or Congress do not punish them.

Schedule F does not affect a category called the Senior Executive Service, which includes some of the most senior career government officials.

But agency heads could target those protected SES officials in other ways, sources close to Trump said. They could reassign them to backwater jobs or install political appointees and sympathetic career officials on performance review boards who could deliver adverse reviews that could lead to termination.