I guess it was just Obama's luck that science tended to agree with his views. What a coincidence!

The difference is quite apparent, though:

[Obama Era]: "[...] established scientific integrity standards and previous media guidance “encouraging, but not requiring, USDA scientists to communicate with the media about their scientific findings.”

[Trump memo]: “Starting immediately and until further notice, ARS will not release any public-facing documents. This includes, but is not limited to, news releases, photos, fact sheets, news feeds, and social media content,”

That latter memo was amended/rescinded/watered down a day later after it got to the media. But it probably shows quite clearly what the thinking in the WH is.

> Politicians fund research that benefits their agenda obviously.

That is not obvious, and it is largely wrong. It's the sort of negative stereotype of politicians that got us into this mess.

Most federally funded scientific research is funded through the National Science Foundation. It evaluates grant applications as follows:

"Reviews are carried out by ad hoc reviewers and panels of independent scientists, engineers, and educators who are experts in the relevant fields of study, and who are selected by the NSF with particular attention to avoiding conflicts of interest. For example, reviewers cannot work at the NSF itself, nor for the institution that employs the proposing researchers. All proposal evaluations are confidential: the proposing researchers may see them, but they do not see the names of the reviewers" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Science_Foundation#Gr...)

Then, there are directly-funded institutions, mostly in defence-related subjects. Examples are DARPA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA, Lawrence Livermore etc. 99% of what these institutions do is not "Study: what is worse? Handguns or Muslims?". Instead, it's basic research, the overwhelming majority of which is neither liberal nor conservative. In any case, there are 10 layers of admin between a scientist and the White House, all filled with career scientists who would resist attempts of undue influence and some of which have the phone number of their Congressman or some guy at the Wall Street Journal.

The US executive is also not a single monolithic hierarchy. Witness the episode where the acting Attorney General refused to instruct her lawyers to defend the "muslim ban": the president does not actually have the authority to overrule her. He is required to fire her, and keep firing until he gets an AG who complies.

That may seem like a roundabout way to get to the same result. But in practice, it makes it almost impossible to directly tell the scientists in the trenches what to do. You'd need to to fire everyone in the chain of command, and keep doing so until they all happen to agree with you. And only the very top of these institutions are appointed by the WH.

Research institutions are usually also organised as public-private partnerships with a structure much more independent than the Justice Department outlined above. Here's Lawrence Livermore's:

"The LLNL Director reports to the Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC (LLNS) Board of Governors, a group of key scientific, academic, national security and business leaders from the LLNS partner companies that jointly own and control LLNS. The LLNS Board of Governors has a total of 16 positions, with six of these Governors constituting an Executive Committee. All decisions of the Board are made by the Governors on the Executive Committee. The other Governors are advisory to the Executive Committee and do not have voting rights.

The University of California is entitled to appoint three Governors to the Executive Committee, including the Chair. Bechtel is also entitled to appoint three Governors to the Executive Committee, including the Vice Chair. One of the Bechtel Governors must be a representative of Babcock & Wilcox (B&W) or the Washington Division of URS Corporation (URS), who is nominated jointly by B&W and URS each year, and who must be approved and appointed by Bechtel. The Executive Committee has a seventh Governor who is appointed by Battelle; they are non-voting and advisory to the Executive Committee. The remaining Board positions are known as Independent Governors (also referred to as Outside Governors), and are selected from among individuals, preferably of national stature, and can not be employees or officers of the partner companies."

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Livermore_National_La...)