Now Trump Is Deploying Intimidation Tactics That Even Nixon Would've Tried to Keep Secret

President Nixon: "If we can get [Daniel Ellsberg] tied in with some Communist groups, that would be good...That's my guess, that he's in with some subversives, you know...Well, I want to get that out, Don't worry about [Ellsberg's] trial. Just get everything out. Try him in the press. Try him in the press. Everything, John [Attorney General John] Mitchell get everything out. Leak it out. We want to destroy him in the press."

— Richard Nixon to John Mitchell , Charles Colson, and Henry Kissinger, June 29-30, 1971. (As compiled from the White House tapes by Stanley Kutler).

In Wednesday's sheaf of useless executive memorandums, the president made specific threats against two American citizens who once worked for him. From NBC News:

Christopher Krebs, the former head of the federal government's top cybersecurity agency, said Joe Biden won the 2020 elections, contradicting Trump's claim that the election was stolen. Miles Taylor, a former Department of Homeland Security official, wrote an anonymous memoir that criticized Trump's handling of classified documents and other conduct during his first term.

One memorandum Trump signed directed the attorney general and the homeland security secretary to "take all appropriate action to review" Krebs' activities. Another directed the homeland security secretary to review Taylor’s activities as a government employee. The memo relating to Krebs described him as a "significant bad-faith actor who weaponized and abused his Government authority." The other memo said Taylor "stoked dissension by manufacturing sensationalist reports on the existence of a supposed 'resistance' within the Federal Government."

Trump then gilded the poisonous lily by calling Taylor’s activities, "treasonous."

This is authoritarianism as plain as day, stuff that even Nixon felt obligated to do in secret, and that he fought like a wolverine to keep from becoming public. Taylor has the higher profile of the two but, in many ways, Krebs is the more interesting target, because all Krebs ever did was tell the truth about the 2020 election.

The memo relating to Krebs described him as a "significant bad-faith actor who weaponized and abused his Government authority." Trump fired Krebs in a tweet in November 2020 over the agency’s Rumor Control website, which corrected falsehoods about election integrity, many of which Trump and his allies promoted. Krebs was among the most vocal government officials debunking baseless claims about election manipulation, particularly addressing a conspiracy theory centered on Dominion Voting Systems machines that Trump's lawyers have pushed. As a prominent critic of Trump’s false claims that the election 2020 was stolen, Krebs has been a consistent target for Trump.

Do yourself a favor and read the actual memo he produced on Wednesday explaining why he was demanding an investigation of Taylor. It's the most remarkable combination of genuine existential threat and comic-opera villainy that it reads like the minutes of a meeting between Augusto Pinochet and Boris Badenov.

He illegally published classified conversations to sell his book under the pseudonym “Anonymous,” which is full of falsehoods and fabricated stories. In so doing, Taylor abandoned his sacred oath and commitment to public service by disclosing sensitive information obtained through unauthorized methods and betrayed the confidence of those with whom he served. Where a Government employee improperly discloses sensitive information for the purposes of personal enrichment and undermining our foreign policy, national security, and Government effectiveness –- all ultimately designed to sow chaos and distrust in Government — this conduct could properly be characterized as treasonous and as possibly violating the Espionage Act, and therefore makes such employee ineligible for access to national secrets.

(An aside: It really is time for us to take the Espionage Act out back, tie it to a tree, and shoot it in the head. It's too old to take care of itself.)

Now, apparently, it will be treasonous to say that the president lost in 2020. Failing to give aid and comfort to a vulgar talking yam will be the new standard. Nixon was such a piker.