Go bags, passports, foreign assets: Preparing to be a target of Trump’s revenge
A retired U.S. Army officer who clashed with senior officials in Donald Trump’s first White House looked into acquiring Italian citizenship in the run-up to this month’s election but wasn’t eligible and instead packed a “go bag” with cash and a list of emergency numbers in case he needs to flee.
A member of Trump’s first administration who publicly denounced him is applying for foreign citizenship and weighing whether to watch and wait or leave the country before the Jan. 20 inauguration.
And a former U.S. official who signed a notorious October 2020 letter suggesting that emails purportedly taken from a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden could be Russian disinformation is seeking a passport from a European country, uncertain about whether the getaway will prove necessary but concluding, “You don’t want to have to scramble.”
All spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid undermining their own preparations. The planning, they acknowledge, responds to a hypothetical worst case in which a second Trump presidency ushers in systematic suppression of free speech and criminalization of dissent. Trump’s victory alone has set off alarms among some of his most outspoken critics, as well as within parts of the intelligence and national security communities he denigrated as the “deep state” and accused of subverting his agenda.
Their anxiety has intensified amid the drumbeat of picks for critical Cabinet posts. Trump said Wednesday he would make Rep. Matt Gaetz, the Republican firebrand from Florida, his attorney general and Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii and fervent critic of the foreign policy establishment who told world leaders to “embrace the spirit of aloha” after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, his director of national intelligence, a role overseeing the nation’s 18 spy agencies.
“I feel like I’ve stepped through the looking glass,” said the retired Army officer who considered Italian citizenship.
Unlike the ordinary Americans who joke each election cycle about leaving the country when their preferred candidate loses, this group of anxious retired officers or government officials includes people whom the incoming president and his allies have subjected to withering criticism. Even before the election, some were subpoenaed by Trump-aligned members of Congress. Others were placed on watch lists compiled by pro-Trump activists.
Scarcely any described firm plans to leave the country. But they’re also not brushing off the threats as they keep track of personnel named to influential government jobs. Following the selection of Gaetz to lead the Justice Department, many are watching whether Kash Patel, a Trump loyalist who appended a “deep state” list to his 2023 book, “Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for Our Democracy,” lands a senior role at a top agency such as the FBI.
People on Patel’s list and other inventories of Trump antagonists have taken precautions ranging from the dramatic to the mundane. They include determining whether they’re eligible for foreign citizenship, examining the possibility of purchasing property abroad and considering whether to move money into overseas banks. The steps illustrate how seriously some potential targets of Trump’s retribution are taking the possibility that he or his allies could use the U.S. legal system against them, or that vigilante actors could take justice into their own hands.
“We’re monitoring who potential Cabinet members and core staff will be as we advise people,” said Mark Zaid, a national security lawyer who has represented government whistleblowers and has counseled clients about steps they might take now that Trump has been elected. “The reality is that, thankfully, this isn’t the 1930s; we have time to make decisions about what will be done and where people can go.”
Zaid said more will become clear soon: “The incoming administration is promising swift action on Day 1, so I don’t think it’ll take long to have a sense of what is planned. There are already lots of people starting to organize, especially lawyers, about seeking to uphold the rule of law come next January.”
Trump spokespeople did not respond to a request for comment. In his victory speech last week, Trump promised to “make America great again for all Americans” and declared, “It’s time to unite, and we’re gonna try. We’re gonna try. We have to try.”
But as a candidate, he described his domestic opponents as the “enemy from within.” And he argued that his perceived adversaries should face comeuppance, including both legal prosecution and extrajudicial action.
Trump said on a conservative talk show in the final days of the campaign that Jack Smith, the special counsel who has brought two criminal cases against him, should be “thrown out of the country.” He has called Liz Cheney, the former Republican lawmaker who campaigned alongside Democrat Kamala Harris, a “radical war hawk” who should face “nine barrels shooting at her.” And he has suggested that Gen. Mark A. Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, should be executed, writing on social media that the general committed acts “so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH.”