What retribution looks like from the first person to stand up to Trump
Library in Lake Luzerne facing a grim future after latest board resignation
By Ken Tingley
The auditorium at Page Hall at the University at Albany’s downtown campus spilled over with the concerns of many of us.
This was “Telling the Truth 2023.”
This was the fifth edition sponsored by the New York State Writers Institute. The need for a fifth edition tells you a lot about the state of our country.
Four book authors were on hand to discuss the continued political divisions. When the first edition of “Telling the Truth” was held five years ago, Miles Taylor was already famous.
Sort of.
He was “Anonymous.”
You probably forgot about “Anonymous.”
His essay published in the New York Times on September. 5, 2018 was the first indication there were serious concerns among fellow Republicans within the Trump administration.
The New York Times made a rare exception and allowed Taylor to publish his essay anonymously. They felt the message was that important.
“The dilemma — which he (Trump) does not fully grasp — is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.
“I would know. I am one of them,” is how it started.
The talk went on for weeks about who “Anonymous” was and how dangerous Trump had become.
Taylor was a chief of staff in the Department of Homeland Security, a security expert who enthusiastically chose public service after 9/11 and was a Republican.
“To be clear, ours is not the popular “resistance” of the left. We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous,” Taylor wrote that day. “But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.
That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.”
“Anonymous” was called a traitor by President Trump. The president demanded the New York Times reveal his name so he could be prosecuted for breaching national security, the First Amendment be damned.
The Times did not reveal his name.
But a year later Taylor unmasked himself in his first book.
It was the beginning of an ordeal that cost the security expert his job, his family, his life savings, his marriage and almost his life.
Taylor told us how his boss John Kelly - and later Trump’s chief of staff - told him while recruiting him for a position on his staff, “It ‘s not as bad as it looks, it’ ahellof a lot worse.”
Taylor described the efforts of long-time moderate Republicans - led by Speaker Paul Ryan - to limit the damage Trump did to the party as he ran for president.
“We had a Trump inoculation plan at the beginning,” Taylor said. “And it failed catastrophically.”
Taylor explained how as president Trump asked White House lawyers the extent of his powers.
“Trump wanted to be an authoritarian. He wanted to know when his authority would be at its apex so he could use the military,” Taylor said.
In the weeks before the 2019 State of the Union address there was another wave of immigrants heading toward the southern border and Trump wanted to take action.
“He had this vision of Rambos running toward the border, not women and children,” Taylor said. “He summoned us to the Oval Office and he wanted to know when he could use his `magical powers’ - that’s what he called the Insurrection Act. It was too big a word for him to use. He was going to send the military to the border. Thankfully, it never got into the speech. He was looking for a moment to use those powers. As members of his staff, we were terrified of that.”
Taylor said he had no regrets coming forward as Anonymous, but it did take a toll.
At this point, Taylor pulled out his phone and played a stream of threatening voice mails left on his phone. The voices are angry, heart-attack serious and filled with expletives:
- “I hope you die a slow, painful death and suffer during the entire process, then burn in hell.”
- “Your blood with be in the streets trailer.”
- “Snitches get stitches.”
It is chilling to hear.
“I don’t play those voice mails for sympathy,” Taylor said. “It is political intimidation.”
It was one of the reasons why he chose to be Anonymous in the beginning.
“(Trump) is a master of the political art of personal destruction,” Taylor said. “I wanted to deprive him of that.”
Ultimately, it was only delayed.
He opens his current book - Blowback: A warning to save Democracy from the Next Trump - with him in hiding and being told by the U.S. Secret Service that he needed to hire a security detail.
He described being alone on Election night 2020 when it looked like Trump might retain the presidency.
“I reached rock bottom close to Election Day,” Taylor told the Columbia Journalism Review. “I was in a marriage that fell apart. I had to leave my home. I got fired from my job (at Google). I had to spend most of my personal savings on lawyers and other security measures. And my family was getting attacked. So I found myself on election night 2020 alone in a safe house with a bodyguard outside and a pistol under my pillow. As I’m watching the news, drunk, it looked like the election was trending toward Trump. I thought, `Wow. I’ve literally given up everything except my life to stop this guy from being president again, and it looks like he might be president again. So maybe I take my life too.”
It was the low point.
Taylor reports he is 18 months sober and he has a new book that sounds the alarm about another Trump presidency.
A few days earlier, the New York Times reported in detail the plans for a new Trump administration that would undermine the judiciary and use government power to enact revenge on those Trump considers an enemy.
Taylor points out there are some 4,000 political appointees in each new administration. Taylor said manny of those positions should not be politically appointed.
He brings up former colleague Chris Krebs who served as the director of Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency in the Trump administration.
Two weeks after Election Day with turmoil and accusations mounting and Trump saying there was wide spread election fraud, Krebs reported to Trump that it was the safest election in history.
Trump fired Krebs on Twitter.
Krebs responded to his firing, writing on Twitter, “We did it right. Defend Today. Secure Tomorrow #Protect2020.”
“I don’t want Donald Trump to appoint the next person into Chris Krebs’ job,” Taylor said.
Lake many, Taylor is convinced Trump will be the GOP nominee.
“Kelly was sure he would not even run,” Taylor said. “There was never any doubt in my mind he would run. If he wins the next time, it will be a lot starker than the first.”
There was silence in the room.
And fear.
Finally, moderator Paul Grondahl said, “There will be a `Telling the Truth 2024.”
Library loses another
The turmoil at the Rockwell Falls Library in Lake Luzerne continued this week with The Post-Star reporting that another board member had resigned. That left just two members on the board and its immediate future in doubt. Without a three-person quorum, the board is unable to conduct any official business.
The state will now have to step in and appoint three board members so it can move forward. It is asking for volunteers from the community. Considering the tumult surrounding the library, why would anyone volunteer to be in the center such animosity.
The future looks grim for the library.
Meeting First Lady
During my senior year of college, a I was part of a group of journalism majors attending the National Governors Conference in Washington, D.C.
It was heady stuff for a 21-year-old.
As a Connecticut native, it was exciting to meet Gov. Ella Grasso while attending various events at the conference.
Later, I covered a meet and greet with First Lady Rosalynn Carter. I was a little surprised how young and vibrant she was.
At another event, President Jimmy Carter made an appearance. I was close enough to snap a photo with my new 35 millimeter camera. It appeared on the front of my college newspaper, The Eastern Progress, the next week. It was the first photo I ever had published.
Godspeed Rosalynn Carter.,
Great stuff this a.m. Ken. All of it. Thank you.
There are commonalities in the story of Miles Taylor and problems at the Rockwell Falls library.
In the local story Kathleen Jones, a former library board member, emerged as something of a hero for due process and the rights of the community as a whole - and she has been defamed for it, probably threatened too.
It is hard not to notice that women in general, but professional women in particular have become the focus of much of the intimidation by a segment of the local library community. The remaining elected board member, a man, a Christian church leader, spent a lot of time at the recent “informational meeting” gaslighting the public, misrepresenting facts and statements of others, and bullying others. Kathleen Jones’ resignation from the board reflected in a way the attempts of Taylor to prevent a destructive personality from doing further damage to the local institution. Fortunately SALS (Southern ADK Library System) and the Board of Regents will step in to appoint new trustees who, it is hoped, will calm the aggressors. But as Ken noted, it will take people with personal fortitude t and bravery to step forward in the interests of the community as a whole.