Former Donald Trump administration official Miles Taylor warned his ex-boss Tuesday that his “loose lips” and frequent remarks about his political advisors will likely jeopardize his administration’s attempts to prosecute them.
Trump’s Justice Department has recently indicted former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, former National Security Adviser John Bolton, and are now reportedly investigating Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis, all of whom Trump has publicly smeared, and on repeated occasions.
“The legal threshold for dismissing a case as selective or vindictive is notoriously high (judges almost never grant it),” wrote Taylor on his Substack “Treason,” with Taylor having served in both the Trump and Bush administrations.
“However, Donald Trump has made it easier for all of his targets. The pattern is unmistakable. Each of these investigations or prosecutions follows months or years of public threats from the president, purges of career prosecutors who resisted, and/or the installation of loyalists willing to ‘find’ a crime. The trail of evidence of his malicious intent is long and wide.”
Bolstering Taylor’s case that Trump’s “revenge investigations” will be compromised by his own words, Comey – who Trump accused of being a “dirty cop” – has already requested his indictment be thrown out, arguing it was “vindictive” and “selective.” Critics have also labeled the indictments of James and Bolton as politically motivated, a characterization both are also likely to use in legal proceedings.
However, Taylor argued that even if all of the defendants ultimately prevail in court, Trump “doesn’t need convictions,” and that the act of targeting his political opponents alone was sufficient enough.
“Even if Comey or James win in the near term and get their cases thrown out, the damage has already been done,” Taylor wrote. “The indictments, the headlines, the legal fees, and the humiliation have already happened. The whole process becomes a tail that will follow them forever. And at the risk of being repetitive these days, I’ll say it again: that is the point.”