After campaigning on a theme of “retribution” and pledging to be a “warrior” and “justice” to those who were “betrayed” by the government, Donald Trump could soon prepare to seek revenge against those he believes have wronged him.
President-elect Trump — who baselessly accuses President Joe Biden’s administration of “weaponizing” law enforcement and the court against him — will enter office on January 20, 2025, with an array of executive powers at his fingertips.
Olivia Troye, a former Trump administration official who joined Republicans who spoke out against the former president at this year’s Democratic National Convention, told NBC News that a passenger on a plane told her “your days are numbered.”
“I’m worried that I’ll be targeted by him and a lot of people in his circle,” she said. “They very much know who I am. And I’m concerned for my family.”
Trump’s Republican allies in Congress already have mounted investigations into President Joe Biden and his family, as well as the judges and prosecutors overseeing the criminal cases against the former president, whose attacks have inspired a deluge of threats to their offices, courtrooms and families.
Congressional Republicans are already preparing a legislative firestorm, including a measure that would give the Internal Revenue Status broad latitude to target ideologically opposed nonprofit organizations.
Jack Smith, the special counsel leading investigations into Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and his handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, will be fired “within two seconds” of Trump taking office, he said. Trump has also suggested that Smith should be “thrown out of the country.”
Billionaire Elon Musk, has funneled tens of millions of dollars into Trump’s campaign and closely worked alongside the president-elect as he prepares to enter office, wrote that Smith’s “abuse of the justice system cannot go unpunished.”
Trump’s legal ally Mike Davis told Newsmax that Smith “should go to prison for engaging in a criminal conspiracy against President Trump.”
Following his indictment in the classified documents case, Trump said he would “appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the United States of America: Joe Biden and the entire Biden crime family.”
Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, told CNN on Sunday that he does not believe “any of that’s going to happen because we’re the party who’s against political prosecution.”
“We’re the party who’s against going after your opponents using lawfare,” he said.
Vice President-elect JD Vance told Joe Rogan last month that the Trump administration would pull security clearances for 51 people who signed a letter before the 2020 election questioning the authenticity of the content discovered on a laptop allegedly belonging to Joe Biden’s son Hunter.
“They still all have security clearances, I believe, which is going to change when we win,” he said.
Attorney Mark Zaid told NBC News that he has advised several clients who worked under the first Trump administration or have criticized the president-elect to leave the country before he is sworn in until they have a better idea whether his administration will retaliate against them.
Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen had urged the Supreme Court earlier this year to review Trump’s retaliatory “abuse of power” in his first term in office, when Cohen was kept in solitary confinement — alleged at Trump’s direction — for revealing plans for a tell-all memoir after Cohen was prosecuted for lying to Congress and tax violations involving Trump’s 2016 campaign,
His testimony in Trump’s hush money trial, where he testified in front of his former longtime client for several days in a Manhattan courtroom, was crucial to prosecutors’ case that resulted in a jury’s 34-count guilty verdict.
“When Donald Trump tells you what he wants to do, what he intends to do, understand he has already done it before and you should listen to what he’s saying because he intends to do it again,” he told MSNBC earlier this year.
Meanwhile, Trump has promised mass pardons for the hundreds of criminal defendants he calls “hostages” and “patriots” after they were charged in connection with the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
Trump also has embraced a Supreme Court decision that grants the office of the presidency broad “immunity” from criminal prosecution, which he has seen as vindication in his attempts to dodge multiple criminal trials and have his Manhattan conviction thrown out entirely.
