Trump administration swiftly enacts retribution against political enemies
Jan. 26, 2025, 3:00 PM GMT+5
WASHINGTON — For those who may have crossed President Donald Trump, the message is sinking in: Payback is coming, and coming fast.
John Bolton, a former White House national security adviser who wrote a damning book about Trump’s first term, lost the Secret Service detail assigned to protect him from assassination threats from Iran.
Also losing his detail was Anthony Fauci, the public health scientist whom Trump called a “disaster” over his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and who has been a target of far-right anger ever since. (Fauci has hired his own private security team in response.)
A portrait of Mark Milley, the former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman who broke with Trump over a photo-op at a church during the George Floyd racial justice protests, was abruptly removed from the walls of the Pentagon. Defense officials said they have no idea who ordered it taken down or why.
And Trump yanked the security clearances of dozens of former national security officials who’d signed a letter during the 2020 campaign opining that emails from a laptop belonging to Joe Biden’s son Hunter had the “classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
All that happened within days of Trump’s inauguration — and in some cases, hours.