A former Homeland Security official whom President Donald Trump accused of potentially “treasonous” conduct fears he is under federal investigation and plans to challenge what he calls an illegal attempt to silence critics.
In an exclusive interview with NBC News, Miles Taylor said that he is prepared to “fight back” in court and that his repeated warnings that Trump would use presidential power to retaliate against perceived political enemies have proved accurate.
“My concern was he would turn the government into a revenge machine, and that’s what’s happening,” Taylor said.
Since the president signed a memorandum last month calling for a review of Taylor’s conduct as a Department of Homeland Security official during Trump’s first term, government authorities have contacted former high school classmates and others associated with him, Taylor said.
“I have seen indications that they are out there, rummaging through my past, talking to people as far back as high school and trying to comb through my life,” he said.
It was unclear what the focus of the federal investigation was or which government agency was carrying it out, Taylor and his lawyer said.
The Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security declined to comment.
During his tenure in Trump’s first administration, Taylor wrote an anonymous op-ed saying many senior administration officials were trying to limit Trump’s worst impulses and protect the country’s democratic institutions from a president who he said lacked a moral compass. Taylor later wrote an anonymous memoir before he went public and opposed Trump’s re-election in 2020.
In a December interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker, Trump said he would not direct the Justice Department to investigate his political foes. Asked by Welker in an interview that aired Sunday what has changed, Trump replied, “Well, no, I just look at people, and I’m not directing anybody.”
Taylor denied any wrongdoing and said he is being singled out for expressing his opinion.
“I know I’ve never broken the law. I know that I’ve assiduously upheld my national security obligations,” he said. “What’s really important for people to know is you don’t need a permission slip in the United States to criticize the president.”
Given his track record criticizing Trump, Taylor said he expected to be called out by the president at some point. But he said the memorandum has turned his family’s life upside down, forcing him to effectively stop working as a cybersecurity consultant and requiring his wife to go back to work earlier than planned after the birth of their baby.
They have adopted additional safety precautions because of online threats and vitriol directed at Taylor and updated their wills on the advice of security experts, he said. “My wife has to read online about people saying that they’ll put me in front of a firing squad,” Taylor said.
Meanwhile, some friends are now reluctant to be associated with him to avoid any blowback. “People are scared to even talk to you because they’re worried they’ll lose their livelihoods,” he said.
Although Taylor said his public stance against Trump has come at a personal and professional cost, he said he and his wife have not considered trying to seek a discreet settlement with the administration.
“Of course, it never crossed our minds that we would try to go settle,” Taylor said. “And what I worry about is that they will try to use this tactic, this bludgeon of the bully pulpit of the presidency, to go shut people up by threatening them and getting them to settle with the White House, like they’ve gotten businesses to settle, like they’re trying to get universities to settle.”
Taylor added: “That is insidious; that is un-American. You can’t threaten Americans to not exercise their First Amendment rights because they’re fearful the president of the United States will prosecute them.”
Another former senior official who served in Trump’s first term and was the subject of a similar presidential memo, Chris Krebs, is under an unspecified federal law enforcement investigation, the Department of Homeland Security said last week. Krebs declined to comment.
Trump targeted Taylor and Krebs in two memos issued April 9 revoking their security clearances and ordering the attorney general to review their actions in government. Krebs, as a top cybersecurity official, refuted Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was “rigged” and said at the time that there was no evidence of major fraud or vote tampering.
In his memorandum, Trump described Taylor as an “egregious leaker” whose actions were possibly “treasonous” and potentially a violation of the Espionage Act. But Taylor said that he has always abided by the law and upheld national security and that criticizing the president was not a crime.
Taylor’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said the president’s memo is an unprecedented, unconstitutional attempt to use executive authority to target an American citizen. He and Taylor’s legal team were weighing a legal response and would not necessarily wait for the government to take the first step in court, Lowell said.
“I think what we’ve seen across the last 100 days is that people are finding that they can ask the courts to be the protectors of the rule of law when it is appropriate,” Lowell told NBC News. “They’re becoming proactive and asking the courts to rule in advance. And that’s something that we’re looking at. “
Lowell, who has represented an array of clients, including Hunter Biden and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, said he hopes judges will protect his client’s civil liberties and be wary of any potentially improper request from administration investigators.
“I don’t think it stops with Miles, but I think Miles is a good test case if the system works,” he said.
