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It’s not just Kash Patel. Many Trump picks have suggested retribution.
- By cigaretteman
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Brainwashed morans:
Rep. Matt Gaetz’s recent withdrawal as President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general represented a significant early setback for Trump’s nascent effort to wreck shop in American government — and possibly seek his promised retribution against his political foes and the “enemy within.”
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But the Florida Republican was hardly the only Trump selection apparently girding to use political and legal power against perceived MAGA enemies.
Trump made a Gaetz-esque pick for FBI director over the weekend in Kash Patel, who is best known for writing a memo arguing, erroneously, that the Justice Department launched the probe into the 2016 Trump campaign’s alleged links to Russia.
And there are at least eight other Trump choices for senior government posts who have made clear their desire to get rid of, target and even prosecute the undesirables, from attorney general to secretary of state to staffers set to work in the White House.
There is a thin line between retribution and a plausibly justified housecleaning. But many comments by Trump’s picks tend toward Trump’s promises of the former. And often, the vows to take drastic action to right wrongs involve relatively thinly constructed theories of supposed anti-Trump and anti-MAGA malfeasance.
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Patel’s comments are some of the starkest.
On Trump ally Stephen K. Bannon’s show last year, Patel pledged to “go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media … who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We’re going to come after you.”
He added: “Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out. But yeah, we’re putting you all on notice.”
Patel went ominously further by naming names in his book last year when he appended a list of 60 “Members of the Executive Branch Deep State,” an inventory of mostly prominent Democrats and Trump critics. He also said Trump “must fire the top ranks of the FBI.”
“Then, all those who manipulated evidence, hid exculpatory information, or in any way abused their authority for political ends must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Patel said. “The only way to stop the corruption is to make it abundantly clear that corruption has consequences.”
Patel’s comments are generally couched as being about pursuing those who committed actual crimes or other wrongs, rather than targeting political enemies. But the supposed wrongs are far from established.
There remains no evidence that the 2020 election was rigged, for instance. And Patel’s comments about law-enforcement abuses generally reference things like the Russia investigation into Trump’s actions during his first presidency and the supposed “weaponization” of the justice system. Multiple investigations of the Russia probe (including one launched by Trump’s attorney general) found little evidence of deliberate political wrongdoing, and Republicans have regularly contorted and stretched the evidence of a supposedly weaponized justice system.
Gaetz’s replacement as the pick for attorney general, former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi (R), made similar if less-pitched comments last year on Fox News.
She said that when Trump reclaimed office, “you know what’s going to happen: The Department of Justice, the prosecutors will be prosecuted, the bad ones. The investigators will be investigated. Because the deep state, last — first term for President Trump, they were hiding in the shadows.
“But now, they have a spotlight on them, and they can all be investigated, and the House needs to be cleaned out. Because now we know who most of them are; there’s a record of it, and we can clean house next turn. And that’s what has to happen.”
Trump’s choice for deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, has called for prosecuting President Joe Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, subpoenaing Vice President Kamala Harris (for allegedly covering up Biden’s infirmities) and subpoenaing elite universities and stripping them “of every privilege” for allegedly promoting hate and bigotry.
After Trump’s criminal conviction this summer, Miller called for Republican lawmakers and prosecutors to mobilize en masse to hit back with subpoenas and investigations.
“Every facet of Republican Party politics and power has to be used right now to go toe to toe with Marxism and beat these communists,” Miller said.
Trump’s pick to lead the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, has spoken about making civil servants want to quit their jobs and to “put them in trauma,” as well as making the attorney general and White House counsel’s office more loyal to the president.
After Trump’s conviction in May, he pushed for Republicans to fight back harder. He said on the social media platform X that “this isn’t just about winning an election to shift the see saw toward our agenda. Its [sic] about demanding that our leaders destroy this threat at every level with every tool. And if you can’t rise to that level of historical awareness, then simply put, you are not needed.”
Trump’s pick for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has pushed for an overhaul of that department that includes firing “woke” generals.
“Oh yeah, and fire any general who has carried water for Obama and Biden’s extraconstitutional and agenda-driven transformation of our military,” he wrote in his book this year. “Clean house and start over.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s pick for health and human services secretary, spoke recently about getting rid of 600 people at the National Institutes of Health. As a candidate for president, Kennedy talked about prosecuting former NIH official Anthony S. Fauci “if crimes were committed.”
Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, in her own book last year decried the fact that Hillary Clinton wasn’t prosecuted for using a private email server and that former intelligence officials like James R. Clapper Jr. and John Brennan weren’t prosecuted for perjury. She also complained about the lack of “accountability” for intelligence officials who signed a letter linking Hunter Biden’s laptop to possible Russian disinformation. (Contrary to how some have portrayed the letter, it didn’t directly say the laptop was disinformation.)
And even Trump’s seemingly consensus pick for secretary of state, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida), has dabbled in the idea of hitting back hard at the other side.
After Trump was convicted and Biden was recorded grinning at Trump’s claim that he was a “political prisoner,” Rubio called Biden “a demented man propped up by wicked & deranged people willing to destroy our country to remain in power.”
Rubio added: “It’s time to fight [fire] with [fire]” — using two fire emojis.
Most of Trump picks haven’t gone as far as Trump, who intermittently pitched retribution as a campaign promise and has made more than 100 threats to prosecute or punish his enemies, according to a recent NPR compilation.
But their words reinforce that he’s aiming to surround himself with people who could be much more amenable to those kinds of drastic actions than in his first term.
Rep. Matt Gaetz’s recent withdrawal as President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general represented a significant early setback for Trump’s nascent effort to wreck shop in American government — and possibly seek his promised retribution against his political foes and the “enemy within.”
Get the latest election news and resultsBut the Florida Republican was hardly the only Trump selection apparently girding to use political and legal power against perceived MAGA enemies.
Trump made a Gaetz-esque pick for FBI director over the weekend in Kash Patel, who is best known for writing a memo arguing, erroneously, that the Justice Department launched the probe into the 2016 Trump campaign’s alleged links to Russia.
And there are at least eight other Trump choices for senior government posts who have made clear their desire to get rid of, target and even prosecute the undesirables, from attorney general to secretary of state to staffers set to work in the White House.
There is a thin line between retribution and a plausibly justified housecleaning. But many comments by Trump’s picks tend toward Trump’s promises of the former. And often, the vows to take drastic action to right wrongs involve relatively thinly constructed theories of supposed anti-Trump and anti-MAGA malfeasance.
🏛️
Follow Politics
Patel’s comments are some of the starkest.
On Trump ally Stephen K. Bannon’s show last year, Patel pledged to “go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media … who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We’re going to come after you.”
He added: “Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out. But yeah, we’re putting you all on notice.”
Patel went ominously further by naming names in his book last year when he appended a list of 60 “Members of the Executive Branch Deep State,” an inventory of mostly prominent Democrats and Trump critics. He also said Trump “must fire the top ranks of the FBI.”
“Then, all those who manipulated evidence, hid exculpatory information, or in any way abused their authority for political ends must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Patel said. “The only way to stop the corruption is to make it abundantly clear that corruption has consequences.”
Patel’s comments are generally couched as being about pursuing those who committed actual crimes or other wrongs, rather than targeting political enemies. But the supposed wrongs are far from established.
There remains no evidence that the 2020 election was rigged, for instance. And Patel’s comments about law-enforcement abuses generally reference things like the Russia investigation into Trump’s actions during his first presidency and the supposed “weaponization” of the justice system. Multiple investigations of the Russia probe (including one launched by Trump’s attorney general) found little evidence of deliberate political wrongdoing, and Republicans have regularly contorted and stretched the evidence of a supposedly weaponized justice system.
Gaetz’s replacement as the pick for attorney general, former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi (R), made similar if less-pitched comments last year on Fox News.
She said that when Trump reclaimed office, “you know what’s going to happen: The Department of Justice, the prosecutors will be prosecuted, the bad ones. The investigators will be investigated. Because the deep state, last — first term for President Trump, they were hiding in the shadows.
“But now, they have a spotlight on them, and they can all be investigated, and the House needs to be cleaned out. Because now we know who most of them are; there’s a record of it, and we can clean house next turn. And that’s what has to happen.”
Trump’s choice for deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, has called for prosecuting President Joe Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, subpoenaing Vice President Kamala Harris (for allegedly covering up Biden’s infirmities) and subpoenaing elite universities and stripping them “of every privilege” for allegedly promoting hate and bigotry.
After Trump’s criminal conviction this summer, Miller called for Republican lawmakers and prosecutors to mobilize en masse to hit back with subpoenas and investigations.
“Every facet of Republican Party politics and power has to be used right now to go toe to toe with Marxism and beat these communists,” Miller said.
Trump’s pick to lead the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, has spoken about making civil servants want to quit their jobs and to “put them in trauma,” as well as making the attorney general and White House counsel’s office more loyal to the president.
After Trump’s conviction in May, he pushed for Republicans to fight back harder. He said on the social media platform X that “this isn’t just about winning an election to shift the see saw toward our agenda. Its [sic] about demanding that our leaders destroy this threat at every level with every tool. And if you can’t rise to that level of historical awareness, then simply put, you are not needed.”
Trump’s pick for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has pushed for an overhaul of that department that includes firing “woke” generals.
“Oh yeah, and fire any general who has carried water for Obama and Biden’s extraconstitutional and agenda-driven transformation of our military,” he wrote in his book this year. “Clean house and start over.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s pick for health and human services secretary, spoke recently about getting rid of 600 people at the National Institutes of Health. As a candidate for president, Kennedy talked about prosecuting former NIH official Anthony S. Fauci “if crimes were committed.”
Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, in her own book last year decried the fact that Hillary Clinton wasn’t prosecuted for using a private email server and that former intelligence officials like James R. Clapper Jr. and John Brennan weren’t prosecuted for perjury. She also complained about the lack of “accountability” for intelligence officials who signed a letter linking Hunter Biden’s laptop to possible Russian disinformation. (Contrary to how some have portrayed the letter, it didn’t directly say the laptop was disinformation.)
And even Trump’s seemingly consensus pick for secretary of state, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida), has dabbled in the idea of hitting back hard at the other side.
After Trump was convicted and Biden was recorded grinning at Trump’s claim that he was a “political prisoner,” Rubio called Biden “a demented man propped up by wicked & deranged people willing to destroy our country to remain in power.”
Rubio added: “It’s time to fight [fire] with [fire]” — using two fire emojis.
Most of Trump picks haven’t gone as far as Trump, who intermittently pitched retribution as a campaign promise and has made more than 100 threats to prosecute or punish his enemies, according to a recent NPR compilation.
But their words reinforce that he’s aiming to surround himself with people who could be much more amenable to those kinds of drastic actions than in his first term.
Death, taxes and Iowa punking Nebraska on Black Friday . . .
These are things one can count on in life.
My TwT column this week touches on the phenomenon:
My TwT column this week touches on the phenomenon:
