Shortly after Labor Day, Donald Trump ally turned critic Chris Christie got a call from a friend he shares with Trump. There was a message: “Donald says if you come to Mar a Lago and apologize, he’d let you back in the family in a significant way,” the friend told Christie, according to two sources briefed on the call. Christie didn’t need time to think about the offer.
“Tell him I have no interest,” Christie said, according to one of the sources. (Christie declined to comment.)
Christie’s reported refusal to kiss Trump’s ring puts him on a long list of Trump apostates who now face the wrath of a vengeful president-elect. As a candidate, Trump vowed to exact “retribution” on his enemies. “WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again,” the president-elect wrote in September on Truth Social.
Come January 20, 2025, Trump will once again control the full force of the executive branch to carry out this threat. While that thought has raised anxiety levels the nation over, it’s caused a pronounced spike among the many veterans of Trump’s first White House who publicly broke with him. In the days since Trump’s decisive victory over Kamala Harris, I’ve been speaking with some such officials who say they are terrified Trump will use the federal government to punish them for speaking out against him. (A Trump spokesperson did not reply to a request for comment.)
“Trump is vindictive. I do think he will seek retribution,” Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton told me.
“I have such terrible anxiety, I just want him to leave me alone,” said a former West Wing official who criticized Trump.
A third former Trump official said, “This man is capable of anything.”
These former officials are debating privately how far Trump would go to punish them for disloyalty. Bolton told me he thinks Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly and retired Joint Chiefs chairman Mark Milley are the most at risk of being persecuted for going public about the dangers of a second Trump term.
Both generals went on the record to say Trump is a “fascist” in the months leading up to the election. In October, Bob Woodward reported that retired Milley is worried Trump would call him back into service to be court-martialed. Trump suggested last year on Truth Social that Milley deserved to be executed for a “treasonous act” because Milley reportedly assured a Chinese general that the American government remained stable after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Milley told 60 Minutes last year that he was taking “appropriate measures” to protect his family after Trump’s comments. He did not respond to a request for comment.
Two former Trump administration officials told me they fear Trump would use the IRS to audit them. One official has already moved money into foreign banks just in case. Bolton told me he thinks Trump could pressure companies not to hire former officials that criticized him. “He could hurt people’s business interests,” Bolton said.
On November 7, Mark Paoletta, a Washington lawyer reportedly helping to plan the staff of Trump’s Justice Department, wrote on X that Trump has unlimited power to intervene in federal prosecutions: “[The] Constitution vests our ELECTED President with ALL executive power, including [the] DOJ. He has the duty to supervise [the] DOJ, including, if necessary, on specific cases.”
Of course, the optimist’s view is that Trump’s incompetence, age (he’s 78), and desire to play golf could mean that he never follows through on his revenge campaign. Former Trump White House spokesperson Alyssa Farah Griffin said she’s not worried Trump is going to be locking up political prisoners.
“I’m living my life and will call balls and strikes as I see them on his presidency,” she said.
But Bolton said people need to take Trump at his word. “Trump can be, as they say in Texas, all hat and no cattle. But Trump’s intentions are clear. And what he can get away with will be determined by whether the people around him at the Justice Department or the Pentagon will refuse his illegal orders.”
