WASHINGTON — President Trump on Wednesday ordered the Justice Department to launch investigations of “Anonymous” author Miles Taylor for leaking during his first term and into former cybersecurity official Christopher Krebs for attesting to the legitimacy of the 2020 election.
“I think he’s guilty of treason, if you want to know the truth, but we’ll find out … terrible guy,” Trump said of Taylor, the former chief of staff of the Department of Homeland Security, as he signed presidential memoranda in the Oval Office to launch the DOJ reviews.
Taylor in 2018 stoked massive public interest with a New York Times op-ed in which he purported to be “a senior official in the Trump administration” and wrote he was “working diligently from within to frustrate parts of [Trump’s] agenda and his worst inclinations.”
In 2019, Taylor wrote, also anonymously, the book “A Warning.”
There was a significant let-down when the previously little-known Taylor outed himself in 2020 — deflating intense speculation that the author was a member of the 45th president’s inner circle.
“It’s like a traitor, it’s like spying. He walks into the office. He’s supposed to be sitting here,” Trump fumed.
“He wrote a book ‘Anonymous’, and I always thought it was terrible — and now we have a chance to find out whether or not it was terrible — but it was, it was a work of fiction and he got a lot of publicity, got himself a nice job with CNN or one of them. And I think we have to do something about it.”
Trump signed a similar order against Krebs, the former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), whom the president fired in November 2020 for claiming that year’s election was the “most secure” in American history.
Trump called Krebs “a wiseguy” for disputing his claims of widespread voter fraud.
“We’re going to find out about this guy too, because this guy’s a wiseguy,” the president said.
“This is an honor. We’re going to find out whether or not he was right. This was a disgraceful election. And this guy sat back saying, ‘Well, I’m a member —’ like he’s a Republican or something … and he’s tried to make the case that this election was a safe election.”
Trump added: “He’s the fraud. 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, and he’s a bad guy.”
Taylor, Krebs and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
White House fact sheets said that Krebs and Taylor would be investigated for possible “unauthorized dissemination of classified information” and that federal agencies were being instructed to yank any security clearances that they currently hold.