Team Trump interviewing 'aggressive right-wing lawyers' even more MAGA than the Federalist Society: report

01 November 2023

During Donald Trump's four years in the White House, the people he angrily railed against weren't necessarily Democrats. Some of Trump's vitriol was reserved for right-wing Republicans he accused of letting him down — a list that included former National Adviser John Bolton, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, among many others.

The New York Times has been reporting that if Trump wins the 2024 election, he plans to give the federal workforce a major makeover and fill his administration with loyalists who, unlike Tillerson or Bolton, won't question him. Another part of Trump's game plan for a second term as president, according to the Times, is picking attorneys who as MAGA as possible and thoroughly committed to his "America First ideology."

In an article published on November 1, New York Times reporters Jonathan Swan, Charlie Savage and Maggie Haberman explain, "Close allies of Donald J. Trump are preparing to populate a new administration with a more aggressive breed of right-wing lawyer, dispensing with traditional conservatives who they believe stymied his agenda in his first term. The allies have been drawing up lists of lawyers they view as ideologically and temperamentally suited to serve in a second Trump Administration."

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The reporters continue, "Their aim is to reduce the chances that politically appointed lawyers would frustrate a more radical White House agenda — as they sometimes did when Mr. Trump was in office, by raising objections to his desires for certain harsher immigration policies or for greater personal control over the Justice Department, among others."

Trump and his allies, according to the journalists, have been having "back-room discussions" with lawyers and "building new recruiting pipelines separate from the Federalist Society." As those Trumpsters see it, even the Federalist Society isn't MAGA enough.

"The interviews reveal a significant break within the conservative movement," Swan, Savage and Haberman report. "Top Trump allies have come to view their party's legal elites — even leaders with seemingly impeccable conservative credentials — as out of step with their movement…. The move away from the group reflects the continuing evolution of the Republican Party in the Trump era and an effort among those now in his inner circle to prepare to take control of the government in a way unseen in modern presidential history."

Read The New York Times' full report at this link (subscription required).

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