The president made good on promises to seek revenge against enemies during his first week back in power, signaling in the process that anyone who crosses him in the future could also suffer.
In his first week in office, President Trump made clear that his promises to exact revenge on his perceived enemies were not empty campaign pledges — and that his retribution is intended not just to impose punishment for the past but also to intimidate anyone who might cross him in the future.
By removing security protections from former officials facing credible death threats, he signaled that he was willing to impose potentially profound consequences on anyone he sees as having been insufficiently loyal. That included his former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, who helped lead the pandemic response.
Mr. Trump’s decision to try to scale back civil service protections was aimed at culling federal employees he believes slowed or blocked his first-term agenda and replacing them with loyalists. That initiative, developed in Mr. Trump’s first term but never fully enacted, is intended to create a chilling effect so that career employees know they could be fired if they are not compliant, one senior aide said.
By ordering the Justice Department and intelligence agencies to begin scouring their ranks in a hunt for political bias, he started a process of dismissing or sidelining officials deemed to have participated in investigations he has sought to cast as “witch hunts” against him.
His decision to grant clemency to even the most violent Jan. 6 rioters and those convicted on sedition charges for plotting an assault on democracy freed top leaders of far-right groups. Shortly after being released, two of the most prominent of those leaders asserted, unrepentantly, that they wanted Mr. Trump to seek revenge on their behalf.
A week into Mr. Trump’s second presidency, it is difficult to assess what practical effect the flurry of actions will have on what he sees as a hostile establishment. For example, an executive order announcing investigations into the Justice Department and intelligence agencies to “ensure accountability for the previous administration’s weaponization of the federal government” is vague about what investigators are supposed to examine, and about what the “remedial actions” the order calls for might look like.