President Donald Trump told the New York Post Saturday that he will order the stripping of security clearances for several officials and lawyers who have challenged him and his administration.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and New York state Attorney General Letitia James were among two of the most recent targets of Trump’s never-ending revenge tour. It’s suggested that they are getting picked on, in large part, because they’ve both challenged him in court.
In the interview with his favorite gossip rag, Trump said both will see their clearances removed. On Friday, meanwhile, Trump canceled former President Joe Biden’s access to classified information as some twisted form of payback. (Biden barred Trump from receiving intelligence briefings after the end of his first term in response to Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.)
Trump’s actions over the past few weeks make it obvious he is a president who is intent on settling scores. It’s clear that with the help of a complicit administration and enabling Congress, he’ll use his newfound power to carry out retribution against all of his perceived political enemies.
In addition to revoking their access to classified information, this move could also bar the targeted officials from entering federal courthouses, certain law enforcement facilities, and prisons. If enforced, experts say this would be the largest-scale security revocation ever enacted by a commander in chief.
In addition to Bragg and James, Trump said he also plans to strip clearances from former Secretary of State Antony Blinken, former deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, former national security adviser Jake Sullivan, and attorneys Norm Eisen, Andrew Weissmann, and Mark Zaid, all of whom were at some point linked with investigations into Trump.
“Bad guy. Take away his passes,” Trump said of Blinken.
Speaking with reporters on Sunday, Trump said the aforementioned targets were people “we don’t respect.”
“If there are people that we thought that were breaking the law, that came very close to it in previous years, we do it. And we’ve done it with some people,” he babbled.
As Daily Kos previously reported, this is the latest in a series of vendettas against those who served in top positions under Biden or have seemingly attacked the current president. Before this, Trump pulled federal security protection for former top U.S. health official Dr. Anthony Fauci, in addition to former national security adviser John Bolton, former State Department official Brian Hook, retired Gen. Mark Milley, and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, among others.
For many of those in his crosshairs, though, Trump’s move is purely a symbolic action. (As a former president, Biden, for instance, did not have an active security clearance to begin with.) This just goes to show how far—and how low—Trump will go to punish those who participated in high-profile legal challenges against him.
Attorney Zaid, at least, said he would fight the revocation. In a statement this past weekend, he said he was entitled to due process under existing law.
“I’m honored by President Trump bestowing upon me a Red Badge of Courage, but if he and his partisan minions think this will deter me from holding them accountable to the rule of law, they are sadly mistaken,” he told The New York Times. “This highly politicized action reflects far worse upon the Trump administration than it does me.”
If Trump was hoping for a reaction from James, though, he’s certainly not getting one. In a statement to the Times, she said Trump’s actions were “just another attempt to distract from the real work the attorney general is doing to defend the rights of New Yorkers and all Americans.”
“What security clearance?” she quipped.
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