'Crackdown': Former Trump official fears president's new plan
In April, President Donald Trump ordered members of his second administration to investigate Miles Taylor, a Never Trump conservative and former U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official, for what he claims is "treason." Taylor, in 2018, was still working in DHS when he wrote an anonymous New York Times op-ed that was vehemently critical of Trump and headlined, " I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration."
But despite the investigation, Taylor is still publicly speaking out against Trump, who he considers a dangerous threat to U.S. democracy. And during a Saturday morning, August 23 appearance on MSNBC's "The Weekend," the former DHS official warned that "martial law" is a very real possibility during Trump's second presidency.
Taylor's comments came the day after the FBI searched the Bethesda, Maryland home of former National Security Adviser John Bolton, who, like Taylor, served in the first Trump Administration but is now a scathing critic of Trump. On "The Weekend," Taylor described the FBI search as a disturbing example of Trump using the federal government as a tool of revenge against his political foes.
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Host Eugene Daniels, known for his extensive reporting for Politico, asked Taylor, "How worried are you about martial law, and when have we hit that benchmark?" And Taylor, without hesitation, responded, "I think, Eugene, we are trending that direction very, very quickly."
Taylor continued, "And I've said it before: I'll never forget the fact that I was with you guys on June 8 when we got the news that L.A. was going to have troops deployed. And at the time, I said: This is the start of a military crackdown on the United States. And of course, a bunch of people said to me — not you all — a bunch of people said to me: Well, you've got Trump derangement syndrome. But here we are: We're talking about the third U.S. city that Donald Trump is going to deploy troops in. Martial law is the concern we should have over the balance of this administration."
Paul Butler, a Georgetown University law professor and former federal prosecutor, was also on the panel and shared Taylor's concerns about Trump.
Butler told the MSNBC panel that military occupation of U.S. cities with large Black populations is Trump's "boots-on-the-ground fever dream," warning, "The president will control armed agents used to patrol United States citizens."
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