Trump is certainly the most vindictive of all people in political life but he is not alone. Most of Trump’s picks have expressed a thirst for vengeance as well, including the failed AG nominee and Kash Patel, (I wrote about him here.)
[T]here are at least eight other Trump choices for senior government posts who have made clear their desire to get rid of, target and even prosecute the undesirables, from attorney general to secretary of state to staffers set to work in the White House.
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Gaetz’s replacement as the pick for attorney general, former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi (R), made similar if less-pitched comments last year on Fox News.
She said that when Trump reclaimed office, “you know what’s going to happen: The Department of Justice, the prosecutors will be prosecuted, the bad ones. The investigators will be investigated. Because the deep state, last — first term for President Trump, they were hiding in the shadows.
“But now, they have a spotlight on them, and they can all be investigated, and the House needs to be cleaned out. Because now we know who most of them are; there’s a record of it, and we can clean house next turn. And that’s what has to happen.”
Trump’s choice for deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, has called for prosecuting President Joe Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, subpoenaing Vice President Kamala Harris (for allegedly covering up Biden’s infirmities) and subpoenaing elite universities and stripping them “of every privilege” for allegedly promoting hate and bigotry.
After Trump’s criminal conviction this summer, Miller called for Republican lawmakers and prosecutors to mobilize en masse to hit back with subpoenas and investigations.
“Every facet of Republican Party politics and power has to be used right now to go toe to toe with Marxism and beat these communists,” Miller said.
Trump’s pick to lead the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, has spoken about making civil servants want to quit their jobs and to “put them in trauma,” as well as making the attorney general and White House counsel’s office more loyal to the president.
Trump’s pick for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has pushed for an overhaul of that department that includes firing “woke” generals.
“Oh yeah, and fire any general who has carried water for Obama and Biden’s extraconstitutional and agenda-driven transformation of our military,” he wrote in his book this year. “Clean house and start over.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s pick for health and human services secretary, spoke recently about getting rid of 600 people at the National Institutes of Health. As a candidate for president, Kennedy talked about prosecuting former NIH official Anthony S. Fauci “if crimes were committed.”
Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, in her own book last year decried the fact that Hillary Clinton wasn’t prosecuted for using a private email server and that former intelligence officials like James R. Clapper Jr. and John Brennan weren’t prosecuted for perjury. She also complained about the lack of “accountability” for intelligence officials who signed a letter linking Hunter Biden’s laptop to possible Russian disinformation. (Contrary to how some have portrayed the letter, it didn’t directly say the laptop was disinformation.)
Even the “establishment ” pick Li’l Marco:
Retribution IS the Trump agenda. They all have many things they want to do, most of which Trump doesn’t really care about. But this they agree with.