Blackball

Trump is sending a message: cross me at your peril. 

I will hound you, investigate you, prosecute you, and you will be toxic to future employers.

He sends a chill.

This week President Trump signed executive orders directing the Justice Department to investigate former senior employees. He added another law firm to those who will lose security clearances, making them off limits to clients who had federal contracts. His nominee to head the Bureau of Land Management withdrew from consideration yesterday when it surfaced that she had been critical of the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot.

Christopher Krebs was a lifelong Republican who had held senior cyber-security jobs, including head of cybersecurity policy at Microsoft. In his first term, Trump appointed him to head the cybersecurity program at the Department of Homeland Security. That program was tasked with overseeing security of the 2020 election. Krebs concluded that the 2020 election had no credible evidence of fraud that would have changed the outcome. Trump did not like that conclusion. Trump fired Krebs by tweet in the closing days of his first term. Trump just issued an executive order that affects his current employment at SentinelOne, a cybersecurity company, and from which he was appointed to a national blue-ribbon cyber safety review board. Trump's executive order includes

Christopher Krebs, the former head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), is a significant bad-faith actor who weaponized and abused his Government authority. Krebs’ misconduct involved the censorship of disfavored speech implicating the 2020 election and COVID-19 pandemic. . . . Krebs, through CISA, falsely and baselessly denied that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen, including by inappropriately and categorically dismissing widespread election malfeasance and serious vulnerabilities with voting machines. 

 

Trump's executive order sanctioning the law firm Susman Godfrey has similar language. 

Executive order

Susman Godfrey's offense was to have represented the vote- tabulating company, Dominion, in its very successful lawsuit against Fox News, which paid Dominion $787 million. The law firm's offense was not that it did poor work. It is that the firm represented Dominion.

The order removes the firm's attorneys' security clearances -- guilt by association -- diminishing their ability to serve clients who have federal contracts.

Lawyers and law firms that engage in activities detrimental to critical American interests should not have access to our Nation’s secrets, nor should their conduct be subsidized by Federal taxpayer funds or contracts. . . . I have determined that action is necessary to address the significant risks, egregious conduct, and conflicts of interest associated with Susman Godfrey LLP (Susman).  Susman spearheads efforts to weaponize the American legal system and degrade the quality of American elections.

 

Kathleen Sgamma, the head of the Western Energy Alliance oil and gas trade group, was Trump's nominee to head the Bureau of Land Management. 

From: Nevada Current

She is not a closet Democrat. She has a long history of advocating for aggressive development of timber, mining, and fossil fuels on public lands. She said that she remains "committed to President Trump and his unleashing American energy agenda." But she made a fatal error. In the aftermath of the January 6 Capitol riot she wrote that she was disgusted by the riot, and felt that it besmirched the otherwise excellent work of President Trump. 

To be a member of the Trump team, one cannot have opposed the January 6 riot. 

Trump is sending an unmistakable message to people involved in American public policy. Trump is carrying out a purge of Republicans who are anything less than fully on board. To be a Republican in good standing, ou must believe the 2020 election was stolen and that the January 6 rioters were patriots. A Democrat should have no illusion that one can oppose Trump in a spirit of professionalism. If you oppose Trump, or your work is contrary to Trump's purposes, it is personal to Trump, and he will bring the resources of the federal government against you and anyone around you.

This isn't normal. This isn't right.

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