In an August 2023 CNN interview, Miles Taylor, the former Chief of Staff at the Department of Homeland Security during the Trump administration, discussed the threat of political assassination in the country, particularly concerning incidents involving former President Donald Trump and his followers.
Taylor expressed concern about the level of threat and intimidation faced by individuals involved in cases related to Trump, including jurors who voted to indict Trump.
Miles Taylor has gained attention for his outspoken criticisms of Trump and his administration, including authoring a book titled “Blowback: A Warning to Save Democracy from the Next Trump.” He is known for his earlier anonymity as the author of anti-Trump pieces and for subsequently revealing his identity.
In the context of this passage, it seems the conversation was centered around the potential risks posed by the actions and rhetoric of Donald Trump and his supporters, particularly in relation to ongoing legal matters.
Interview excerps
ACOSTA: The FBI is investigating online threats against grand jurors who voted this week to indict former President Donald Trump in Fulton County, Georgia.
Some jurors have had their addresses, phone numbers, and social media accounts shared on the Internet after their names were made public in the 98-page indictment.
Joining us now to talk about this and other aspects of the Trump case is Miles Taylor. He’s the former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security during the Trump administration, the author of the new book, “Blowback: A Warning to Save Democracy from the Next Trump.”
And I suppose there’s the current Trump as well to talk about.
You know, he’s made these inflammatory comments about the judge, about the special counsel, and so on in these cases. You worked in his administration. How do you think this is going to play out? I’ve talked to — I was talking with John Dean about this last night.
It’s going to be difficult to constrain him. And it seems as though he thinks he can just cross the line and nothing’s going to happen —
(CROSSTALK)
ACOSTA: — based on past experience.
MILES TAYLOR: Genuinely, Jim, I’ve been living inside of this data about political threats and political intimidation. and I worry, legitimately, that people are going to die.
And we are seeing the threat of political assassination in this country is off the charts.
And the experts I talked to compare it to only one thing, the 1960s. And we, of course, saw political violence. We saw political assassination in the 1960s. God forbid that happens, but the data supports that there’s that danger.
Look, we just saw the president of the United States threatened with an assassination plot. We saw on January 6th that the vice president of the United States was threatened with death. We saw Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, her home broken into.
That’s the presidential line of succession, not to mention the senior members of Congress, and the Supreme Court justices, who have been threatened with death.
The governor of Michigan, who had an assassination plot, and this array of state and local election officials. So I do worry about it.
And we saw after his home was raided a year ago, a man went to the FBI field office in Ohio and shot it up.
The judge here in D.C., after he was charged, has been threatened with assassination.
And of course. now the jurors in Georgia in the case after he was indicted have been doxed and threatened. I do worry we are seeing the light blinking red.
