LEILA FADEL, HOST:
President Trump signed two executive orders targeting individuals from his first administration.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The orders stripped the security clearances of former top cybersecurity official Chris Krebs and former national security official Miles Taylor. They also order investigations into their conduct while they were federal employees. These are just the latest in a pattern that's emerged of Trump bringing down the full weight of the presidency on individuals and private companies.
FADEL: Here to help us understand what happened and why is NPR political correspondent Ashley Lopez. Good morning, Ashley.
ASHLEY LOPEZ, BYLINE: Good morning.
FADEL: OK, let's start with Chris Krebs. What exactly does this executive order say?
LOPEZ: So this order broadly accuses Christopher Krebs, the former head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, also known as CISA, of weaponizing his government authority when running that agency some years ago. Specifically, Trump's order claims that Krebs was misusing his office by censoring conservative viewpoints under the guise of combating misinformation.
FADEL: So what are some examples of what he says Krebs was censoring?
LOPEZ: Yeah. So, well, it's a slew of conservative grievances we've been hearing in the past several years - so Hunter Biden's laptop and the origins of COVID-19. But most notably, this is about the 2020 election. For folks who don't remember this, right after the 2020 election, Krebs, who, by the way, has described himself as a lifelong Republican and he had been appointed by Trump, basically refuted Trump's big lie about the election being stolen. Here he is on NPR in December of that year.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
CHRIS KREBS: This was a secure election. That is a success story. That is something that everyone in the administration should be proud of.
LOPEZ: As you can imagine, Trump didn't like that. He fired Krebs at the time, and now he's ordering the attorney general, the director of national intelligence and other agency leaders to immediately suspend any active security clearances held by him and entities associated with him.
FADEL: And what about Miles Taylor?
LOPEZ: Yeah. So Miles Taylor is a former Department of Homeland Security official. And in 2018, he wrote this pretty high-profile, anonymous op-ed criticizing Trump. He later wrote a book and lifted his anonymity. In yesterday's order, Trump accused Taylor of treasonous behavior. And now Taylor will be the subject of an investigation by the department he once worked for.
FADEL: So this sounds sort of similar to the executive orders Trump has issued against private law firms.
LOPEZ: Yeah. I mean, this has been a theme throughout the first few months of his administration. A lot of what Trump has been focused on is political retribution, whether it's law firms that are not aligned with his interests or university leaders who don't share his worldview. Trump has been directly focused on dealing with all of these perceived enemies.
FADEL: So what does this tell us about the priorities of the president and his administration?
LOPEZ: Well, I mean, if nothing else, it seems like a lot of his priorities right now have a lot to do with his first term. He remembers who had his back at the time and who didn't. It's worth noting that this is an example of the Department of Justice being weaponized against people who criticized Trump in the past, which was a fear that many Democrats vocalized ahead of the election and something that Republicans accused Democrats of doing while in office, specifically around January 6.
FADEL: NPR political correspondent Ashley Lopez. Thank you, Ashley.
LOPEZ: Yeah, thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF RAY LAMONTAGNE'S "SO, DAMNED, BLUE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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