In the eyes of Washington politicians and lobbyists, President Donald Trump is the most dangerous person in the world.  First, he's a rich white male who has run a generally conservative administration.  Second, he's impulsive and quick to take offense.  And lastly, he's genuinely making progress at taking down the swamp.

However, Trump's progress shows just how deep the swamp is — because no matter how much he does, there's always another monster crawling out.

Some of the monsters are familiar.  Republican Oklahoma senator James Lankford has followed in his predecessor's footsteps by releasing an annual report on examples of inefficient and wasteful spending in the federal government.  Nearly $400 billion in this type of spending was identified in the last report, released in December 2019.  That's nearly $1,200 per American.

Then there are improper payments.  These are dollars incorrectly sent out, usually in the form of accidental overpayments.  Nearly $150 billion was lost to this swampy issue in 2017 alone, from food stamps to Medicaid to the Department of Defense.  There appear to be few or no consequences for the liberal bureaucracy that let this $463 per American slip through their fingers.

The swamp hates Trump's successes on immigration, tax cuts, and deregulation.  But these are familiar monsters.  There are also the ones that bubble up out of nowhere, like the Obama administration's lame-duck discrimination lawsuits against Oracle, Google, and other companies.  These lawsuits were filed between Trump's election and Trump taking office, and they were based on statistics — not actual cases of discrimination.

This is a very swampy issue.  First, it's an abuse of government power to assume that a private-sector entity is engaging in unethical and potentially illegal behavior instead of having actual evidence of bad actions.  Second, even victory can cost millions of dollars — to both the company and to the taxpayers who fund government lawsuits.  Third, these unjust lawsuits have lasted over three years because the swamp is so big that they were missed among all of the other swampy stuff that has bubbled up since 2016.

It would be easy to blame Trump for not ending these lawsuits.  They could be ended quite simply.  However, a president is not supposed to be able to keep an eye on everything — he needs to hire the right people.  Hopefully, labor secretary Eugene Scalia is that right person.  Conservatives can do our part by pushing the administration to return to good government policies — something the swamp hates — and by using these lawsuits as an example to our friends and family of just how many swamp monsters are continuing to surface.

Gregory D. Rohrbough, J.D. is the director of education & government relations for Shannon Speaks, an anti-human-trafficking organization.  He was formerly director of government relations for the Meredith Advocacy Group and the director of communications for the National Right to Work Committee.