Trump officials move to military base housing designated for top uniformed officers

Stephen Miller, the architect behind President Donald Trump’s notorious immigration crackdown and the administration’s targeting of non-white people for arrest and deportation, is joining a growing list of senior Trump appointees shielded in military housing.

The Atlantic reports Miller, his wife Katie Miller, and their children fled to military housing after suffering protests and catcalls from voices in their affluent Washington, D.C. neighborhood and now benefit from U.S. military protection in addition to their personal security.

“Miller … who is known for his inflammatory political rhetoric, singled out the tactics that had victimized his family — what he called ‘organized campaigns of dehumanization, vilification, posting peoples’ addresses,’” reports the Nation.

Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem also moved out of her D.C. apartment building and into a home designated for the Coast Guard commandant on Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling after the Daily Mail described where she lived. And both Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth live on “Generals’ Row” at Fort McNair, an Army enclave along the Anacostia River, according to officials from the State and Defense Departments.

Another anonymous senior White House official moved to a military community after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, according to Nation writer Michael Scherer. However, so many Trump officials have made the move that they are now straining the availability of housing for the nation’s top uniformed officers.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s request to move to McNair didn’t initially work out “for space reasons,” according to officials.

There is no record of this many political appointees living on military installations, and critics tell the Nation that it appears to be “blurring … traditional boundaries between the civilian and military worlds” as Trump makes “the military a far more visible element of domestic politics, deploying National Guard forces to Washington, Los Angeles, and other cities run by Democrats.”

John Hopkins University international studies associate professor Adria Lawrence told the Nation that housing political advisers on bases sends a message that one particular political party owns the military.

“In a robust democracy, what you want is the military to be for the defense of the country as a whole and not just one party,” Lawrence said.

University of Chicago political-science professor Robert Pape told the Nation that the threat of political violence “is real for figures in both major parties,” but noted that Trump has deliberately revoked the security details for several of his critics and adversaries, including former Vice President Kamala Harris and former national security adviser John Bolton — despite Bolton having been the target of an Iranian assassination plot.

Additionally, the isolation of sequestering yourself on a military base creates deep divisions between Trump’s advisers and the metropolitan area they govern.

“Trump-administration officials, who regularly mock the nation’s capital as a crime-ridden hellscape, now find themselves in a protected bubble, even farther removed from the city’s daily rhythms,” the Nation reports. “And they are even less likely to encounter a diverse mix of voters.”

Read the Nation report at this link.