President Donald Trump on Wednesday directed his Justice Department to investigate two senior officials from his first administration who became critics.
During his presidential campaign and in his first months in office, Trump threatened to investigate his political enemies, but the presidential memoranda he signed before the media in the Oval Office appear to be his first formal directives.
One of Trump’s targets is Miles Taylor, who wrote an anonymous New York Times op-ed titled “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration” in 2018 and the tell-all book “A Warning” in 2019. He also launched a group called the Republican Political Alliance for Integrity and Reform, or REPAIR, and endorsed former President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
While signing the memo, Trump said he believed Taylor was guilty of “treason.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and her chief of staff Miles Taylor depart after the Republican Caucus luncheon on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on March 5, 2019. | Chris Krebs, former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, testifies during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing to discuss election security and the 2020 election process, on Dec. 16, 2020, in Washington, D.C.
Alex Brandon/AP | Greg Nash, Pool via Getty Images
Taylor served as deputy chief of staff to Trump’s former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.
Trump’s other target is Christopher Krebs, who was Trump’s election security director during his first term. Trump fired Krebs over Twitter in 2020 because Krebs was correcting claims and rumors about voter fraud in the 2020 election. His firing came days after his agency and other federal officials released a statement saying the election was the “most secure in American history,” with no evidence votes were deleted, lost, changed or “in any way compromised.”
Following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Krebs said that Trump should be convicted for inciting an insurrection.
During her confirmation hearing, Pam Bondi, Trump’s attorney general who would direct a Justice Department investigation, was asked by Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar if she would provide an assurance that the White House would play no role in cases investigated or brought by the Justice Department.
“Politics will not play a part,” Bondi testified.
