They are doing it to dumb down the country and to muzzle the truth. They deliberately made it a hardship for scientists to continue to do their work, so they quit. He admitted this. He said they can't fire them so they will make them quit. Trump wants to suck up to big oil, so even though he is to stupid to think up convoluted schemes like this, he has plenty of henchmen to do his dirty work.

I have always believed one of the marks of a third-world country is the ineffectiveness of their government, which leads to stagnation/bribery....if nobody is left that knows what is going on, (or they are simply learning new "ropes" ) drumpy's transformation of our formerly great nation will be complere.

Yeah if you are going to destroy the country do this Putin's getting his money's worth

Yes, very much a plan but I don't think he is the one who thought it out, he just oked it.

Part of his war on science.

Sonny Perdue was an embarrassment as governor of Georgia.
Now he's an embarrassment to the entire country.