Consider This from NPR - Trump uses government powers to target perceived enemies

Episode Date: April 29, 2025

An NPR investigation has been following President Trump's efforts to retaliate against his perceived enemies since he returned to the Oval Office in January. NPR's Tom Dreisbach found that Trump's targets are already facing the consequences - including criminal investigations, attempted deportations, and firings. Trump has used government power to target more than 100 people or institutions across American society – and they're all feeling the consequences. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

President Trump campaigned for the White House, promising payback. I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution. I am your retribution. Not gonna lie. That was Trump in 2023. Now, 100 days into the second Trump administration, it has become clear that was not just talk. Consider this, Trump has used government power to target more than 100 people and institutions across American society, and they are all feeling the consequences.

From NPR, I'm Mary-Louise Kelly. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things and other currencies. With WISE, you can send, spend, or receive money across borders, all at a fair exchange rate. No markups or hidden fees. Join millions of customers and visit wise.com. T's and C's apply. It's Consider This from NPR. NPR's Tom Drysbuck has been following President Trump's efforts to retaliate against his perceived enemies since he returned to the Oval Office in January.

Drysbuck found that Trump's targets are already facing the consequences, including criminal investigations, attempted deportations, and firings. Tom picks up the story from here. To get a sense of President Trump's agenda, take the events of just one day, April 9th. Trump was in the Oval Office holding a black Sharpie. The White House Staff Secretary, Will Scharf, was handing Trump a set of orders, targeting the president's enemies. ...Sussman-Godfrey to ensure that they can't access government resources,

government buildings, given their previous activities. Sussman-Godfrey is a law firm whose previous activities include suing several Trump allies for defamation. There were some very bad things that happened with these law firms. The next target? The next presidential memorandum we have for you relates to Miles Taylor. Miles Taylor served in the first Trump administration. He crossed Trump when he anonymously wrote a scathing op-ed that called Trump an amoral

agent of chaos. I think he's guilty of treason, if you want to know the truth, but we'll find out. And I assume we're recommending this to the Department of Justice. Yes, sir. Trump kept going. Terrible guy. Similarly, sir, Christopher Krebs, the former head of CISA. Christopher Krebs was the top cybersecurity official in the first Trump administration,

and Trump fired him for saying the 2020 election was safe and secure. Now, Trump is ordering the government to investigate Krebs, too. He's the prod, he's a disgrace. So we'll find out whether or not it was a safe election. And if it wasn't, he's got a big price to pay. That was all in the span of just 10 minutes in the Oval Office on April 9th. But Trump's retribution agenda started on day one. NPR has found that Trump is using the government to investigate or otherwise punish more than

100 people or institutions, including political opponents, former officials, student protesters, law firms, universities, news organizations, and people who investigated him or his allies. What you see here is just an assault on our most fundamental rights, almost in every single sector. Amanda Carpenter is a conservative and a former aide to Senator Ted Cruz. She now works with the nonprofit Protect Democracy and says Trump's actions are about seizing power and punishing anyone who stands in his way. Whether that's the media, whether it's academia, whether it's immigration, Donald Trump is

working at a very rapid pace to exercise control and command over that area. Trump's orders have not all held up, like the order against Sussman Godfrey. A federal judge found that order unconstitutional, saying the country's founders would see it as a shocking abuse of power. But the courts did not protect Sean Brennan. Brennan was a federal prosecutor. He worked on dozens of January 6th cases.

On inauguration day, Trump issued mass pardons to the January 6th defendants On Inauguration Day, Trump issued mass pardons to the January 6th defendants, even the most violent. He said they were treated unfairly. Not long after, Brennan got an email from his new boss at the Justice Department. BF I was being terminated specifically for my work on January 6th cases, which it characterized as perpetrating a grave national injustice against the American people. J.D. More than a dozen other January 6th prosecutors were fired. And they don't just face unemployment. The Justice Department is now investigating them too for possible unethical or even illegal conduct. Do you believe you were retaliated against?

BF Yeah, I don't think there's anything that could be clearer. I was retaliated against for taking actions that were well within the law, but that were politically unfavorable to the people in charge. Mark Zaid is a private attorney. He's also been on the wrong side of Trump. Back in 2019, Zaid represented an anonymous government whistleblower who filed a complaint that helped lead to Trump's first impeachment. At the time, Trump called Zaid a sleazeball attorney, said he should be investigated for fraud. Now that he's back in office,

Trump has issued a White House memo targeting Zaid and revoking his security clearance. Without any due process, without any notification of why my clearance was revoked. And without that clearance, Zaid can't work on the national security cases that are his bread and butter. Lawyers in law firms have been some of Trump's top targets.

The administration has taken action against more than a dozen firms. They cite the fact that the firms have taken cases on, for example, transgender rights or hired lawyers who previously investigated Trump. And Zaid says there's another reason why Trump is going after lawyers. Because we are upholding the rule of law. And so long as the court system functions, we can damper, hinder, slow down, if not stop what he's trying to do. Some firms have made deals with the administration

and agreed to do tens of millions of dollars worth of pro-bono work for causes Trump supports. The White House bragged that big law was bending the knee to Trump. A federal judge said those deals amounted to unconstitutional government coercion. Congressman Robert Garcia is a Democrat from California. He says the Trump administration is trying to coerce political opponents too. I'm a pretty outspoken member of Congress and they wanted to silence me. Garcia's story starts in February when he went on CNN and said Democrats needed to fight harder against Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency. And what the American public want is

for us to bring actual weapons to this bar fight. This is an actual fight for democracy. Garcia says he was speaking metaphorically, but Trump's top federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C., Ed Martin, sent Garcia a letter, asked him to clarify his comments within one week, adding, quote, We take threats against public officials very seriously. Just what was your first reaction when you got that letter? I mean, my first reaction was, this is totally insane. And then immediately I got angry and I thought, you know, Trump's DOJ, the US attorney, should not be using their office to intimidate people.

And certainly not trying to use the office to silence the opposition. The Trump Justice Department has gone even further with other Democrats and announced a criminal investigation into the governor and attorney general of New Jersey over immigration policy. Along with political targets, pro-Palestinian students from abroad have been arrested and are fighting deportation. Media outlets the administration dislikes are facing FCC investigation, including NPR. For weeks, we asked the White House for an interview for this story. They did not respond. Never again will the immense power of the state be weaponized to persecute political

opponents. Publicly, the administration claims that Trump has kept this promise from his inaugural address. And again, under my leadership, we will restore fair, equal, and impartial justice under the constitutional rule of law. And when Trump has targeted his political opponents these last hundred days, the administration says it's about accountability. Just last week, the FBI arrested a Wisconsin judge for allegedly obstructing ICE agents. The judge denies the charges. Democrats warn that Trump is trying to intimidate the judiciary.

Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News that some judges are, quote, deranged, adding, no one is above the law. Tom Dreisbach in PR News. This episode was produced by Monica Avstotieva and Erica Ryan with audio engineering by Damian Herring. It was edited by Barry Hardeman and Courtney Dornig. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. It's Consider This from NPR.

I'm Mary Louise Kelly.