The sticky note said “treason”.
That’s what Donald Trump reportedly scrawled on top of a stack of news articles he handed to his acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, earlier this year. The articles concerned leaks about the coming Iran war. The note was an assignment of sorts. Within weeks, the justice department had issued grand jury subpoenas to reporters at the Wall Street Journal, demanding to know who their sources were. This week, the existence of those subpoenas became public.
That word — “treason” — has become very familiar to me. It’s what Trump said he was investigating me for last year. In fact, to my surprise, the US President is using that personal revenge campaign against me as part of his justification for a new crackdown.
Let me explain.
A year ago, Trump issued an executive order directing federal agencies to investigate me for “treason”. It was the first time in 250 years of American history that a president had signed such an order to open a specific inquiry into a specific critic. The crime? I quit his first administration and exposed the misconduct I witnessed. And I haven’t shut up about it since. He came back into office determined to make an example.
