... or did Trump pick him to dismantle agency?

Scott Garrett may have been ousted after seven terms as a congressman, but he may not be going away.

Garrett was nominated by Donald Trump to head the Export-Import Bank of the United States, the federal agency that provides loans to companies that do business overseas and that cannot get private financing. The stated goal is to create a “level playing field” for American businesses to sell in foreign markets.

Garrett, like other Trump appointees, is not a fan of the agency he purportedly would run. In 2014 he told a congressional committee that “when you mix big corporations and taxpayer-backed guarantees, you get a little something that looks an awful like crony capitalism."

In 2015 he told a Town Hall meeting in Lafayette that he would like to see the EXIM eliminated.

During his campaign Trump also spoke against the EXIM. He subsequently told the Wall Street Journal that he was rethinking that position after learning a little bit about the agency, but his nomination of Garrett, a staunch anti-regulation member of the House’s Freedom Caucus, falls in line with his other appointments of people who don’t support the agencies they are set to head, and with what Steve Bannon called the current regime’s plan to “deconstruct” America’s government.

Should he accept this assignment, Garrett will either be embracing the crony capitalism he previously decried, or fulfilling a dream of systematically destroying one more government entity. Either way, he’s managed to put himself back in the public sphere rather than quietly fade away into the private-sector ether.

Trump’s other nominee is former Rep. Spencer T. Bachus of Alabama.