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Raw Story: Trump's 'retribution tour' just took a 'particularly dangerous' turn: CNN legal expert [View all]
Raw Story - Trump's 'retribution tour' just took a 'particularly dangerous' turn: CNN legal expert
Travis Gettys
April 10, 2025 9:07AM ET
President Donald Trump has ordered the investigation of two of his former political appointees who turned into critics, and CNN's Elie Honig said that would be a major test for attorney general Pam Bondi.
The president targeted Chris Krebs, who ran Trump’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and former senior Department of Homeland Security official Miles Taylor in an executive order stripping their security clearances and directing the Justice Department to open federal investigations of their tenures.
"The retribution tour has now moved on from multi-billion dollar law firms and universities and media outlets, and now it's targeting private, individual citizens," Honig said. "If you look at these proclamations issued on formal letterhead yesterday by the White House, essentially what it does is a couple of things. First of all, it strips security clearances not only from the targeted individuals, Krebs and Taylor, but also from the places where they work. Krebs works for a private cybersecurity firm, Miles Taylor works at the University of Pennsylvania, so it really threatens their livelihood."
"But the far more important thing that Donald Trump has done here is specifically ordered the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation based on scattershot accusations of things that are not, in fact, crimes, and I think that's what really makes this particularly unusual and particularly dangerous," Honig added.
The Department of Justice has a long-standing policy that prohibits investigations opened for political or personal reasons, which Honig said Trump's order clearly violates.
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Travis Gettys
April 10, 2025 9:07AM ET
President Donald Trump has ordered the investigation of two of his former political appointees who turned into critics, and CNN's Elie Honig said that would be a major test for attorney general Pam Bondi.
The president targeted Chris Krebs, who ran Trump’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and former senior Department of Homeland Security official Miles Taylor in an executive order stripping their security clearances and directing the Justice Department to open federal investigations of their tenures.
"The retribution tour has now moved on from multi-billion dollar law firms and universities and media outlets, and now it's targeting private, individual citizens," Honig said. "If you look at these proclamations issued on formal letterhead yesterday by the White House, essentially what it does is a couple of things. First of all, it strips security clearances not only from the targeted individuals, Krebs and Taylor, but also from the places where they work. Krebs works for a private cybersecurity firm, Miles Taylor works at the University of Pennsylvania, so it really threatens their livelihood."
"But the far more important thing that Donald Trump has done here is specifically ordered the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation based on scattershot accusations of things that are not, in fact, crimes, and I think that's what really makes this particularly unusual and particularly dangerous," Honig added.
The Department of Justice has a long-standing policy that prohibits investigations opened for political or personal reasons, which Honig said Trump's order clearly violates.
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/snip
1 replies
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