WASHINGTON — For those who may have pissed off President Donald Trump, the message is sinking in: Retribution is coming, and fast.
Former White House national security adviser John Bolton, who has written a damning book about Trump’s first term, lost the Secret Service agents assigned to protect him from assassination threats in Iran.
Also missing details was public health scientist Anthony Fauci, whose handling of the Covid-19 pandemic was described by Trump as a “disaster” and who has been the target of far-right ire ever since . (In response, Fauci hired his own personal security team.)
Former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley, whose portrait was suddenly removed from the Pentagon wall, broke with Trump after being photographed at a church during George Floyd racial justice protests . Defense officials said they did not know who ordered the demolition or why.
Trump also revoked the security clearances of dozens of former national security officials who signed a letter during the 2020 campaign that said emails on Joe Biden’s son Hunter’s laptop contained “Russian Typical markers of information action”.
All of this happened within days — and sometimes hours — of Trump’s inauguration.
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One question facing Trump in the 2024 campaign is whether he will use the power of the presidency to retaliate against his perceived political enemies. For some, the answer has already arrived.
David Laufman, a former senior Justice Department official who served in both Republican and Democratic administrations, said: “There were plenty of early warning signs that confirmed people’s worst fears about a second Trump administration and its impact on the U.S. The impact of the rule of law. “The real question remains what checks and balances are in place to prevent the United States from slowly building an authoritarian state. “
The White House did not respond to questions about whether Trump personally ordered the actions or whether the motive was retaliation. In interviews with reporters in recent days, Trump has defended the Secret Service details of eliminating Fauci, Bolton and others.
After Trump took office, former national security adviser John Bolton’s Secret Service agents were removed from their posts.
“I think he’s a very stupid man,” Trump said of Bolton, adding that the government could not permanently pay the Secret Service to protect personnel. (Former presidents receive lifetime security details.)
“When you work for the government, at some point your security details are compromised,” he told reporters. “You know, you can’t have them forever.”
Meanwhile, a White House spokesman said the former national security officials deserved to lose their security clearances.
“These individuals abused their previous positions in government to help sell a public relations fraud to the American people,” said White House National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes. “They used their privilege to interfere in the presidential election and greatly damaged the credibility of the intelligence community. President Trump’s actions are restoring credibility to our nation’s institutions.
Trump’s comments about whether he would retaliate may shock observers. Last month, in an interview with NBC News “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker, Trump was asked whether he would punish his predecessor, President Joe Biden.
“I don’t want to go back to the past,” he said. “I want our country to succeed. Retribution will come through success.
Still, he was visibly outraged by the way he was treated by courts, prosecutors and Democratic officials.
“I spent four years of hell with these scumbags,” Trump said in an Oval Office interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity last week. “I went through four years of hell. I spent Millions of dollars in legal fees and won, but I did it the hard way and it’s really hard to say that they shouldn’t have to go through that too.
The Trump administration’s moves so far have created varying degrees of difficulty on the receiving end. Milley’s portrait was unveiled 10 days before Trump was sworn in. Its sudden disappearance from the Joint Chiefs of Staff wall may have been a warning to future chiefs of staff: If they fall out of favor with the commander-in-chief, they too may be erased from Pentagon history.
Bolton said he was taking private security measures because of the loss of Secret Service messages. In 2022, the Justice Department charged a member of Iran’s feared Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps with conspiring to murder Bolton, possibly in retaliation for the Trump administration’s killing of an Iranian general two years earlier.
Bolton told NBC News that Biden first provided Bolton with security details in December 2021 and has updated them every six months since then, most recently last month.
“This is part of an act of retaliation,” Bolton said.
“It doesn’t matter to him [Trump] Severity,” he added. “Everything he does makes him feel better.”
A portrait of former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley was suddenly removed from a Pentagon wall.
He said members of the U.S. intelligence community told him days before Trump was sworn in that the assassination threat had not changed or gone away.
“They were playing with his life, not only hurting his career opportunities, but putting a man’s life at risk to punish him for criticizing Donald Trump,” said Rosa Brooks, a former senior Defense Department official in the Obama administration. and co-leads the Future of Democracy Project, sponsored by the Brennan Center for Justice.
If Iran harmed Bolton in some way, it could force the United States to respond militarily, escalating tensions and bringing the two countries closer to war.
Denying security clearances to co-signers of Hunter Biden’s letter could cause financial hardship for some who currently work in the private sector and are required to fulfill government contracts.
One person whose security clearance was revoked said in an interview, “They are hurting financially now and the country is hurting because these are people who have decades of experience and are continuing to serve the government after they retire.”
“This serves no legitimate policy purpose,” the person continued, speaking on condition of anonymity. “From the perspective of free speech and our rights as American citizens, we have every right to warn the American people that the Russians continue to engage in these information operations to influence American politics and elections.”
However, it is unclear how much consideration the new government took when announcing this punitive measure. Mark Zaid, an attorney representing some of those who signed the letter, said in an interview that most no longer have security clearances.
The executive order revoking his security clearance also covers Bolton, saying he was taken away for publishing “sensitive information obtained from his time in the administration” in his memoir, “The Room Where It Happened.”
Bolton said he didn’t know if he would lose his security clearance.
“To me, it doesn’t matter at all,” he said.
This article originally appeared on NBCNews.com
