April 9 (UPI) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday continued to use his executive powers to retaliate and punish perceived political adversaries, stripping security clearances and ordering the Department of Justice to open investigations into two former officials of his previous administration.
Via memorandums, Trump targeted former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency head Chris Krebs and former Department of Homeland Security Chief of Staff Miles Taylor.
Krebs had attracted the ire of Trump in the days following his 2020 election loss to Democratic challenger Joe Biden by refuting his claims of widespread voter fraud by stating it was “the most secure” election in U.S. history. Trump fired him days later.
Taylor had left the DHS in 2019. However, he later revealed in a book published ahead of the 2020 election that he was the anonymous author of a 2018 opinion piece in The New York Times in which he called himself “part of the resistance inside the Trump administration. In the piece, he stated that many Trump appointees had vowed “to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s’ more misguided impulses.”
Trump signed the memorandums in the Oval Office on Wednesday, bashing both men.
From the Oval Office, Trump described Taylor as having behaved “like a traitor” and his actions were “like spying.”
“I think he’s guilty of treason,” Trump said.
Concerning Krebs, Trump accused him of having weaponized the federal government while continuing to spread false claims and disinformation that the 2020 election was “rigged.”
“We’re going to find out about this guy, too,” he said, “He’s a wise guy.”
Trump targeting Taylor and Crebs is expected to prompt criticism from Democrats and government watchdog organizations.
“A steady stream of lies & still living in the past while he destroys the economy,” Democrats of the House Homeland Security Committee said in a statement on X.
“Chris Krebs did the job Trump appointed him to do & Miles Taylor spoke the truth. Weaponizing the gov’t against those who failed to cow to him won’t make us forget that his presidency is a disaster.”
Rep. Daniel Goldman, D-N.Y., called on congressional Republicans to condemn “this egregious weaponization of the government.”
“Trump’s direction to DOJ to investigate Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor because he doesn’t like what they said is an unprecedented abuse of power by a President of the United States,” he said on X.
Since returning to the White House on Jan. 20, Trump has used his pen to sign executive orders and memorandums to punish his perceived opponents, from critics to lawyers who prosecuted him to law firms connected to those lawyers.
“I said this would happen,” Taylor said on X following the signing of the memorandum. “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.”
