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milestogo

(19,408 posts)
Mon Jan 27, 2025, 07:15 PM Jan 27

Robert Reich: Here's how Trump's vengeance machine works

Trump’s vengeance machine is even more dangerous than it was before. The Biden administration had given security protection to Trump’s former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, his former top aide, Brian Hook, and former national security adviser, John Bolton. That was because of credible intelligence showing all three in danger of being killed by agents of Iran. During the first Trump administration, they had authorized the drone strike that killed the powerful Iranian general Qassem Suleimani in early 2020, and Iran is out to get them.

The outgoing Biden administration privately told the incoming Trump administration that the threat against the three continued. “As recently as the end of last week, two separate government representatives, two separate government agencies called,” Bolton told the New York Times. “They said our current assessment is that the threat level remains the same.”

But on Tuesday, with no explanation, Trump revoked their security protection. They are now at the mercy of Iranian agents in America. What had they done to deserve this treatment by Trump? They had committed the sin (in Trump’s mind) of being more loyal to America than to him. Pompeo had warned Republicans at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2023 not to look to “celebrity leaders” with “fragile egos”. Hook was part of the old Republican foreign-policy establishment (Trump fired Hook on Monday). Bolton had become an outspoken critic of Trump.

If you think Trump’s nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel, will protect them from violence, think again. All three are on Patel’s enemies list, which is basically Trump’s enemies list. (I’ll have more to say about Patel next week when he’s up for Senate hearings.) This is how the Trump vengeance machine works. Trump is the mob boss who keeps his hands clean while others do his dirty work.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/27/trump-vengeance-critics

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