President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he would use the power of the Justice Department to go after two officials who were highly critical of him during his first term in office, including one whose anonymously written New York Times op-ed claiming he was part of the “resistance” to Trump’s presidency captivated the nation for years.
The announcement by Trump that he was targeting former Department of Homeland Security official Miles Taylor, who penned the op-ed, and former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Chris Krebs, whose rejection of Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud during the 2020 election led to his ousting, comes as the president continues to seek retribution on his perceived enemies in ways big and small.
Executive orders signed by Trump on Wednesday strip Taylor and Krebs of any existing security clearance they may still hold since leaving office and orders the Justice Department to probe both former officials.
The president did not specify any alleged wrongdoing by the men that necessitated investigations by the department. But, speaking in the White House, Trump made clear he thinks he knows what the results should be.
“I think what he did, and he wrote a book, ‘Anonymous,’ said all sorts of lies, bad things– and I think it’s, I think it’s like a traitor, like, it’s like spying,” Trump said of Taylor. “I think it’s a very important case, and I think he’s guilty of treason, if you want to know the truth, but we’ll find out.”
Taylor rose to prominence in 2020 after he revealed that he was the author of the famous 2018 New York Times op-ed titled “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.” In it, he wrote that “many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.” Taylor went on to publish a book critical of Trump, who insisted he did not remember Taylor during his time in the administration.
Taylor responded on Twitter, saying, “I said this would happen. Dissent isn’t unlawful. It certainly isn’t treasonous. America is headed down a dark path. Never has a man so inelegantly proved another man’s point.”
Krebs was fired by Trump weeks after the 2020 election after he rejected Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud. On Wednesday, the president zeroed in on those comments, blasting him over his assessment of the contest.
“I think he said this is the safest election we’ve ever had, and yet, every day you read in the papers about more and more fraud that’s discovered,” Trump said. “He’s the fraud. He’s a disgrace. So, we’ll find out whether or not it was a safe election, and if it wasn’t, he’s got a big price to pay, and he’s a bad guy.”
Krebs declined CNN’s request for comment.
The retaliatory actions come the same day Trump took aim at another law firm whose work has drawn his ire. Through an executive order that, among other things, immediately suspends security clearances for employees of Susman Godfrey LLP, the president added the firm to a growing list of law firms on the receiving end of his anger.
The firm represented Dominion Voting Systems in a major defamation lawsuit it brought against Fox News over the network’s 2020 election lies. The right-wing news outlet settled the case in 2023 for a staggering $787 million.
Also on Wednesday, the Justice Department took aim at the American Bar Association, saying employees will no longer be allowed to spend money to engage with group.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in an internal memo obtained by CNN that department attorneys cannot travel to, or speak at, ABA events in their official capacity. Career employees, however, are still able to maintain their ABA membership.
The move comes after the ABA publicly sided with several firms that the Trump administration has attacked through earlier executive orders born out of political retaliation that restrict their ability to do business with the federal government.
Several of the firms targeted are fighting to block the executive orders in court, with some seeing initial success through emergency orders that have temporarily blocked Trump’s efforts.
