All the former president's men who've left the 'mothership'
Rudy Giuliani, left, and former President Donald Trump. Credit: AFP via Getty Images / Jeff Kowalsky, AP / Robert F. Bukaty
Anyone who ever worked for a low-minded or autocratic boss might be tempted to sympathize with the aides and camp followers who were chewed up and spit out by Donald Trump.
Sure, these employees were mostly educated adults with reason to know what they signed on for. And yet, their story can be poignant, in a slapstick kind of way.
The most important of three Trump indictments thus far quotes a Dec. 8, 2020 email by “senior campaign adviser” (unofficially revealed as Jason Miller) on the White House’s bid to nullify national election results.
File it as the quote of the week:
“When our research and campaign legal team can’t back up any of the claims made by our Elite Strike Force Legal Team, you can see why we’re 0-32 on our cases," Miller wrote. "I’ll obviously hustle to help on all fronts, but it’s tough to own any of this when it’s all just conspiracy sh — beamed down from the mothership.”
The "mothership," indeed.
Struggling with unconstitutional assignments from unhinged space invaders would of course pose a challenge for even the most mercenary professional. Rudy Giuliani’s work experience alongside the 45th president, however, sounds different than Miller’s; the ex-mayor helped generate those extraterrestrial signals. Giuliani, for instance, has conceded in a still-active defamation lawsuit against him that he made false statements by claiming two Georgia poll workers helped fix the election for President Joe Biden.
Giuliani, with law licenses suspended in New York and Washington, D.C., and defense lawyers of his own to pay, has put up his longtime residence, a luxury Upper East Side apartment, on the market for $6.5 million. Don't expect a much better career reward for attorney Kenneth Chesebro, who'd outlined the scheme to have fake Electoral College members overturn the national election. Chesebro is “Co-Conspirator 5” in the indictment just as “America’s mayor” is known as “Co-Conspirator 1.”
As for the future, don't bother asking alienated former Attorney General Bill Barr, former chief of staff John Kelly, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, or dozens of others if they’d work for a new Trump administration. That won't happen. NBC News contacted 44 Trump cabinet members. Only four of them said publicly they support his reelection. Even daughter Ivanka Trump has left the club.
That’s significant. A president’s inner circle would know best how he operates.
The former allies and underlings with the toughest public relations challenge ahead are those now vying for the 2024 GOP nomination. Did former Vice President Mike Pence have no clue, before the deadly denouement on Jan. 6, 2021, of Trump’s contempt for the Constitution?
Chris Christie withstood Trump's personal humiliations for years, yet the former New Jersey governor now talks up his own candor and leadership. Nikki Haley never echoed any of Trump’s cordiality with Vladimir Putin when she was U.N. ambassador, but stayed on the job anyway.
Trump minions Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon and Roger Stone at least came away from their service with criminal pardons. But they had fallen into their legal troubles while in the president’s fold.
It’s impossible to predict just whom Trump brings to the White House should he return. Perhaps congressional Republicans would become his farm team, replete with Trump enthusiasts like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Sen. Tommy Tuberville and even Reps. Matt Gaetz and George Santos (who could enjoy the Orwellian title, Minister of Truth).
Trump's circle shrank after he lost the election and hasn't grown back, deepening the mystery of just who he could or would rely on going forward.
Columnist Dan Janison's opinions are his own.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
